On True Freedom

On True Freedom by Baruch Spinoza

Spinoza argues that no external Devils cause human failure: what are called Sins, the obstacles to perfection, lie within us. Bad passions are not overcome before knowledge of God; rather, knowledge itself removes ignorance and destructive passions. Without Virtue, or the guidance of the Understanding, human beings fall into ruin and unrest. Even if knowledge and divine love offered only temporary repose, they would still be worth seeking above every worldly good. Those who claim they would seek their own advantage if love of God brought no eternal life are compared to a fish wishing to leave water for land. Since sensual pleasures and worldly things bring not happiness but ruin, people should follow understanding. Yet understanding advances only through knowledge and love of God, who is discovered to be the highest good. To remain bound by the loving chains of God’s love is true freedom. Reasoning is not the highest part of human nature but a staircase or a good genius: it truthfully announces the highest good, urges its pursuit, and leads to union with it. This union is supreme happiness and bliss. Human freedom is then explained through several propositions. Greater essence means greater activity and less passivity. A thing cannot create or destroy itself; changes from being to non-being, or the reverse, require an external agent. What is not produced by external causes has nothing in common with them and cannot be altered by them. Therefore, an effect of an immanent or inner cause cannot perish or change while its cause remains. The immanent cause is the freest and most appropriate to God because its effect depends upon it, cannot be or be understood without it, is not subject to another cause, and is united with it as one whole. God’s infinite essence entails infinite activity and no passivity. Things become more active, less passive, freer from change, and freer from corruption in proportion as they are more closely united with God. The true Understanding cannot destroy itself, did not arise from external causes, cannot be changed by them, and, having been produced immediately by God as its inner cause, is eternal with that cause. The effects of true Understanding are the most excellent because they are inner effects and share in the eternity of their cause. External effects are most perfect when they can be united with us as one nature. Teaching neighbors lust, pride, or avarice deserves punishment. By contrast, seeking union with God, producing true ideas, and sharing them with neighbors creates a common happiness: all may participate equally, and their wills may become one in agreement. Human freedom is defined as the firm reality acquired by Understanding through direct union with God. Through this union, Understanding can produce ideas within itself and effects outside itself in harmony with its own nature, while these effects remain free from external causes that might alter them. This establishes what is in human power, the eternal duration of Understanding, and the superiority of effects joined to true Understanding. The writer urges his friends not to reject these claims merely because many do not accept them. They should communicate them carefully, only for the happiness of their neighbor and with confidence that the reward will justify their labor. Any difficulty should be pondered patiently before refutation, so that readers may enjoy the promised fruits.

By Baruch Spinoza · First published 1660 · Genre: Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics · 1,973 words

First lines

By the assertion of what precedes we not only wanted to make known that there are no Devils, but also, indeed, that the causes (or, to express it better, what we call Sins) which hinder us in the attainment of our perfection are in ourselves. We have also shown already, in what precedes, how and in what manner, through reason as also through the fourth kind of knowledge, we must attain to our blessedness, and how the passions which are bad and should be banished must be done away with: not as is commonly urged, namely, that these [passions] must first be subdued before we can attain to the knowledge, and consequently to the love, of God. That would be just like insisting that someone who is ignorant must first forsake his ignorance before he can attain to knowledge. But [the truth is] this, that only knowledge can cause the disappearance thereof-as is evident from all that we have said. Similarly, it may also be clearly gathered from the above that without Virtue, or (to express it better) without the guidance of the Understanding, all tends to ruin, so that we can enjoy no rest, and we live, as it were, outside our element. So that even if from the power of knowledge and divine love there accrued to the understanding not an eternal rest, such as we have shown, but only a temporary one, it is our duty to seek even this, since this also is such that if once we taste it we would exchange it for nothing else in the world.

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philosophy · ethics · metaphysics · rationalism · determinism · free will · necessity · reason · human nature · emotion · self-knowledge · virtue

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