Spinoza

Our apprehension of truth can’t be passive at all, but active, a function of the exercise of reason-the same reason that exists in all humankind. Goldstein, Rebecca. Betraying Spinoza. New York: Schocken Books, 2006, p 208

A walk at lunch on a gray day passes quickly. Time spent this way gives a moment to reflect. Walking down the streets of a small city is a different walk than the one in the mountains I described recently. On the misty evening of the earlier walk I was seeking relief. Today when I walk at lunch I am seeking a moment to think.

Primarily when I have been striding abut today I am thinking about what Baruch Spinoza endured in his search for the truth. Being driven from his community of Amsterdam Jews, that is the entirety of the world he had known until his excommunication, could not have been easy. Today nobody is expelled forever from society except for sex offenders. Now even murderers can be rehabilitated. In our 21st century world you can challenge the existence of God and humankind in most places will not kill you.

Having been ordered to sever his ties with the Jewish community, and they having been demanded by the religious authorities to cut all time with him, Spinoza had to move into a more rural area. It was a place where he was isolated from the day to day world. He was left alone with his ideas. Alone isn’t quite right he had correspondence with persons engaged in similar pursuits, but some of these were clearly designed to trap him in acknowledging one heresy or another. Some seem to have been been sent with the hope he would say something in response with which he could be prosecuted. He entered a world where all of Christendom was suspicious of anyone other than the true believes; it could not have been easy.

I liked the above quote. In some ways it is my mantra. The search for truth must always be foremost in how we carry on in our lives. To probe for truth and challenge assumptions allows us to grow. However with growth comes pain. Spinoza really was an extraordinary being.