Was Spinoza an atheist?

Spinoza, Atheist is a 2023 book by Steven Nadler in which he argues that Spinoza was an atheist; that his philosophy was a form of pantheism; that God does not exist; that what we call God is nothing more than nature; and that Spinoza was a symbol of free thought and secular modernity.

He was convinced that Spinoza rejected what many think is the biblical conception of the deity: God intervenes in history, performs miracles, rewards, punishes, and listens to prayers. In its place, Spinoza proposed that God does not exist and that the universe is governed entirely by unthinking nature. He thinks that the many modern ideas concerning religious tolerance, freedom of thought, secular government, and scientific rationalism owe a debt to Spinoza’s daring philosophy. According to Nadler, Spinoza is a hero of the Enlightenment.

He is likely correct that Spinoza was convinced that God does not intervene in history, perform miracles, reward, punish, or listen to prayers – other Jewish thinkers said the same thing while never denying God’s existence. But he is clearly wrong to suppose that when Spinoza said we can see God in nature, he meant God does not exist.

There is substantial evidence that, despite being intelligent, Professor Nadler was mistaken in his understanding of the ambiguous statement. He failed to realize that Spinoza was reflecting a long-held Jewish understanding.

In Exodus 33:18-23, Moses pleads with God, “Please show me Your glory.” God responds that Moses cannot see His face, “for no man can see Me and live.” Instead, God places Moses in a cleft of a rock, covers him with His hand as His glory passes by, and then removes His hand so that Moses can see His “back” (Hebrew: achoray), while His face remains hidden.

Jewish tradition strictly avoids anthropomorphism (ascribing physical traits to God) and interprets this story through philosophical and allegorical lenses. The story is saying that we can know nothing about God, only know about God’s back, what God created or formed.

Moses repeated this idea in his final song in Deuteronomy 32:1-2, “Give ear to the heavens about what I will speak. Listen to the earth about the words of my mouth.” Jewish commentators, including Midrash Sifre, link these words of Moses to the Exodus story. Because Moses witnessed and understood the brilliance of creation (the “back” of God), he realized that heaven and earth testified to God’s existence, and he was able to call upon them as witnesses to this teaching. Isaiah said the same thing in the introduction to his prophecies.

There are multiple other similar Jewish sayings that Nadler missed.

In Berakhot 7a, the Talmudic sages interpret the “back of God” both literally and symbolically, stating that God showed Moses the knot of His tefillin (phylacteries), which allegorically implies that Moses was allowed to see the physical bond between God and the Jewish people, the lower earthly manifestations of divine will and work.

Midrash Shemot Rabba 23:1 states that God’s essence is hidden from all created beings, even angels. But it does not suggest that God does not exist.

In The Guide for the Perplexed 1:37, 1:38, and 1:54, Maimonides explains that “face” means the true essence of a being, but humans cannot see or even understand God’s “face,” and “back” means God’s actions and effects in the physical world. Therefore, Moses was granted an understanding of the laws of nature and creation, but not the essence of God. Spinoza knew Maimonides’ interpretation.

Like Maimonides, the rational medieval scholar and biblical commentator, Abraham ibn Ezra, in his commentary to Exodus 33:18 and 21, held the same view as Maimonides that Moses’ request was intellectual. Moses wanted to understand as much as he could about God and the universe, but was told that humans were unable to understand these matters.

I explained this narrative as did Maimonides in many of my writings. I emphasized that the story teaches a vital lesson about human limitations: we cannot know what God is, but we can know what God does. Looking at God’s “back” means examining the laws of nature, science, and the moral order established in the universe. When Moses asks to see God’s “glory,” he is seeking ultimate scientific truth about the universe. God’s refusal shows that the human brain is physically unequipped to absorb the absolute essence of reality. Instead, humans must “find and understand God” by studying, understanding, and respecting the natural world and its ethical demands.

Likely, Baruch Spinoza, who was considered very knowledgeable of Jewish teachings and whose teachers thought he would become a rabbi, understood this story in exactly this manner. It is a perfect blueprint of his philosophy.

We all make mistakes. It is part of the human makeup. Virtually every person in the Hebrew Bible committed an error, at least once. I am not disparaging Professor Nadler for his error. I also made mistakes. So too did the scholars who translated the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in the King James translation in 1604-1611.

They translate the Greek word logos at the start of the New Testament book of John, “In the beginning was the logos,” as “the word,” even though it is clear that God spoke many words in the first chapter of Genesis. True, logos means “word.” But it also means “wisdom.” The author of John clearly meant the latter word, as many sources in Jewish texts state that in the beginning, there was wisdom. They, like Professor Nadler, ignored long-held Jewish teachings.

For example, the concept that wisdom existed at the beginning with God appears in Proverbs 8:22–31 of the Hebrew Bible. Proverbs 8:22 reports wisdom stating, “The Lord created/possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.” Proverbs 8:23 continues: “Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.” Proverbs 8:30 adds: “Then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always.”

Proverbs 3:19 is another example: “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens.” So, too, is Psalm 104:24: “O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom have You made them all.”

The King James translators also erred in Genesis 1:1 and 2, where they translated, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The Hebrew for “Spirit of God” is ruach Elohim, two words they mistranslated because they either did not know or forgot that while the word Elohim is usually translated God, it is so used because it denotes “powerful,” and is also used to denote powerful humans, as in Exodus 21:6 and 22:8-9: When discussing civil disputes and the permanent bond of a servant, the text states the case must be brought before Elohim. Medieval commentators such as Rashi and Abraham ibn Ezra interpret Elohim in these verses as local human judges.

Similarly, in his commentary on Genesis 6:2, ibn Ezra describes the “bnei Elohim” (often mistranslated as “sons of God”) marrying the “bnot ha-adam” (“daughters of men”). Instead of viewing these beings as angels or other supernatural entities, he draws on his background in astronomy and astrology to offer a highly rationalistic, human-centered explanation- they were exceptional men.

These two examples are not the only mistakes of the King James translators. Their translation is filled with errors. Nadler erred as they did.