Spinoza
A sermon by the Rev. Charles Davis
For the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Winston-Salem
Feb. 20, 2005

I was excited and intrigued last summer when Mignon* showed me a piece of music with a text by Spinoza. I had never read Spinoza but have been tripping over him for years. While reading some impenetrable theological tome, I would struggle to decipher an author's meaning. Then the author would quote Spinoza and I would think, Well, at least that makes sense.

Who was this philosopher? And what does he have to do with Unitarian Universalism? He seemed so much like one of us, yet he lived so long ago -- from 1632 to 1677 -- but his thoughts seem thoroughly modern.

The English translation of the Latin in this morning's anthem -- "A Chant for Peace in Our Time" -- is

Above all, it is useful for people to establish relationships,
to bind themselves by those bonds which are most apt to unite them as one,
and, without exception, to do those things which serve to strengthen friendships.
Hearts, therefore, are won not by arms,
but by love and greatness of soul. [1]

We UUs like to think of ourselves as a rational religion. Spinoza is one of the major influences on the way we think. He was not a romantic swept up in the majesty of love; he was a rationalist intrigued by the practicality of love. “But hatred is increased by reciprocal hatred, and, on the other hand can be extinguished by love, so that hatred passes into love. Therefore he who lives according to the guidance of reason will strive to repay the hatred of another . . . with love . . . that is to say with generosity. He who wishes to avenge injury by hating in return does indeed live miserably.” [2]

“If we live according to the guidance of reason, we shall desire for others the good we seek for ourselves.” [3]

He believed that reason was a pathway to God. “All efforts that we make through reason are nothing but efforts to understand . . . The highest thing the mind can understand is God.” [4]

Up to this point, Spinoza was in line with the Judaism he was born into and the Christianity that surrounded him. But his understanding of God was not supernatural; it was rational and natural. In his treatise on religion and the state (Tractus Theologico-Politicus) he writes, “But the philosopher knows that God and nature are one being.” [5] He felt that the miracles cited in the Bible were either natural phenomena, such as an east wind parting the Red Sea, or an allegory to inspire people. He writes, “Scripture does not explain things by their secondary causes, but only narrates them in the order and the style which has the power to move men, and especially uneducated men, to devotion . . . Its object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold to the imagination.” [6]

“I take a totally different view of God and Nature from that which later Christians entertain, for I hold that God is immanent, and not the extraneous cause of all things. I say, All is in God; all lives and moves in God.” [7]

“The will of God and the laws of Nature being one and the same reality, diversely phrased. [8]
The same reality, diversely phrased. What an apt description for what we do in UU congregations. Some describe reality in terms of God; some describe reality in terms of science. Same reality, diversely phrased. The Bible says, "We love because God First loved us." [9] Erich Fromm said, “The ultimate consequence of psychology is love.” [10] Same reality, diversely phrased. Religion says nature is wonderfully created. Science says nature is wonderfully evolved. Both explanations evoke wonder. Same reality, diversely phrased.

Who was this man who so long ago understood what we struggle to understand today? Baruch Spinoza was born to Portuguese Jews living in exile in Holland, but his life among the Marranos there was often unsettled. Despite an early rabbinical education, he was expelled from the synagogue at Amsterdam for defending heretical opinions in 1656.

Spinoza disavowed anthropomorphic conceptions of God as both logically and theologically unsound, proposed modern historical-critical methods for biblical interpretation, and defended political toleration of alternative religious practices. Christians and Jews, he argued, could live peaceably together provided that they rose above the petty theological and cultural controversies that divided them. [11]

He published only one work during his lifetime and it was banned; but he kept on writing, and his work was published after his death. He died on February 20, 328 years ago, at the age of 44. He was a heretic for telling people to give up their irrational notions about God and to love each other instead. Though rejected by his Jewish community, he never joined the Christian community. He venerated Jesus but did not accept the doctrine of his divinity – “the eternal wisdom of God . . . as shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ.” [12] This is echoed in the Unitarianism of Benjamin Franklin: “As to Jesus of Nazareth . . . I think the System of Morals and his religion, as he left them to us, [is] the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have . . . some doubts about his divinity.” [13]

Being a rational person, Spinoza distrusted the emotions: “Those desires which are determined by man’s power or reason are always good; the others may be good as well as evil." [14] He divided emotions into good emotions, evil emotions and necessary evils. Joy and cheerfulness were the only emotions he considered positive. He defined these as increasing the body's power of action. Because sorrow depresses the body's ability to act, he saw it as evil. But he warns that cheerfulness must be tempered with reason because emotion deals only with the present moment and does not see future consequences. So the joy of love or earning money can become lust or greed when pursued to the exclusion of all other joys.

Hate is evil because it makes us want to destroy another, and that is contrary to reason. Furthermore, hate arises from fear. We hate only those things we feel threatened by. Humility and repentance are necessary evils. They are not good in themselves because they are a form of sorrow. “The man who repents of what he has done is doubly wretched or impotent. For in the first place, we allow ourselves to be overcome by depraved desire, and, in the second place, by sorrow.” [15] But he allows that humility may be necessary to stop people from doing wrong so they can more easily be led to reason.

We are also inheritor of Spinoza’s distrust of feelings. UUs tend not to trust a minister who is too emotional. We are more likely to encourage people to donate to help tsunami victims merely because we are able to. I could tell tales of babies swept from their mothers' arms, and the wretched sorrow of villages destroyed. I could appeal to the fear of a God who acts in capricious ways. The God that destroyed them might destroy you next.

We may register our objections to social policy and not refer to our enemies as evildoers and enemies of America. We distrust the wave of fear that has swept over America. Yet emotion cannot be reasoned away. Sometimes our rational dissent is only a thin veneer over our raw fear. Who will care for us in our old age? Will our children be sent to die? Will we have a job? Can we feed and shelter ourselves? Whom do I love? Do they love me in return?

Though it is helpful to have a religion that makes sense, is it enough? Spinoza’s excommunication separated him not only from the synagogue but also from his family. I know some of us ache under the burden of disapproving family members. It is a high price to pay for maintaining our philosophical integrity. The sorrow of his separation may have been too great for him to focus on. He may have felt the need to separate himself from his emotions in order to keep from being overwhelmed. He was boxed in the small cultural space between Judaism and Christianity. He had no breathing room. He died of lung disease at 44, perhaps a metaphor for the suffocating world that surrounded him. The stress he lived under did not go away, because he was able to reason.

Emotion is a whole-body experience. It is not just a function of our head. If it is not expressed by the smile of our mouth, the tears in our eyes, the angry shout of our throats, or the fearful listening of our ears, it will manifest itself in high blood pressure, stomach pain, shallow breathing.

The world needs Spinoza. He is an island of rationality in an ocean of emotion. But we cannot remain only in our private deserted island. We must navigate those rough seas and find ways to connect to the hearts of people.

Unitarian Universalism is the most sensible of religions. Why do we fail to attract more people? Because we do not speak to the emotions. We attract the intellectually curious. But the reason people stay is because of the community we build. The community is not built by rational decision. It is from the natural caring and compassion for one another. We are overjoyed that we do not have to live alone like Spinoza. He was without peer in his time. He secretly wrote down his ideas, to be released after he died. We have the the luxury of having each other.

The freedom of our minds is buoyed by our compassion for one another. Let us sail boldly into the future, loving each other and the world with emotions and reason united.

----------

* Mignon Dobbins, Fellowship choir director

1. Spinoza, Baruch, Ethics, Appendix to part 4, sections 12& 11

2. Spinoza, Baruch, “Foundations of the Moral life” in The World’s Great Thinkers. Man and Spirit: The speculative Philosophers. Random House, New York 1947, p. 180

3. ibid. p..189

4. ibid p.175

5. in Durant, Will, The Story of Philosophy Simon & Shuster, New York, 1961, p. 126

6. ibid., p.125

7. ibid p. 132

8. ibid., p. 133

9. 1 John 4:19

10. Fromm, Erich, "The Art of Loving" in Issues in Religion: A Book of Readings, Frazier, Allie, ed. D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, 1975

11. ©1996-2002 Garth Kemerling. Last modified 7 August 2002. http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/spin.htm

12. in Durant, Will, The Story of Philosophy, Simon & Shuster, New York 1961 p. 127

13. Franklin, Benjamin, "Letter to Ezra Styles" in Great Thoughts, George Seldes ed. Ballantine, New York, 1985

14. Spinoza, Baruch, "Foundations of the Moral life" in Man and Spirit: The speculative Philosophers. Random House, New York 1947, p. 187

15. ibid p.181