Spin

oza

God is not a
puppeteer.

They sat silently

for a long time.
Then Sophie
spoke, trying to
get Alberto's mind
off what had
happened.
"Descartes
must have been an
odd kind of
person. Did he
become famous?"
Alberto breathed
deeply for a couple
of seconds before
answering: "He
had a great deal of
significance.
Perhaps most of
all for another
great philosopher,
Ba-ruch Spinoza,
who lived from
1632 to 1677."
"Are you going
to tell me about
him?"
"That was my
intention. And
we're not going to
be stopped by
military
provocations."
"I'm all ears."
"Spinoza
belonged to the
Jewish community
of Amsterdam, but
he was
excommunicated
for heresy. Few
philosophers in
more recent times
have been so blas-
phemed and so
persecuted for their
ideas as this man.
It happened
because he
criticized the
established
religion. He
believed that
Christianity and
Judaism were only
kept alive by rigid
dogma and outer
ritual. He was the
first to apply what
we call a historico-
critical interpre-
tation of the
Bible."
' 'Explanation,
please.''
' 'He denied that
the Bible was
inspired by God
down to the last
letter. When we
read the Bible, he
said, we must
continually bear in
mind the period it
was written in. A
'critical' reading,
such as the one he
proposed,
248 JOSTEIN GAARDER
revealed a number of inconsistencies in the texts. But
beneath the surface of the Scriptures in the New Testa-
ment is Jesus, who could well be called God's mouth-
piece. The teachings of Jesus therefore represented a
liberation from the orthodoxy of Judaism. Jesus
preached a 'religion of reason' which valued love higher
than all else. Spinoza interpreted this as meaning both
love of God and love of humanity. Nevertheless, Chris-
tianity had also become set in its own rigid dogmas and
outer rituals."
"I don't suppose these ideas were easy to swallow,
either for the church or the synagogue."
"When things got really tough, Spinoza was even de-
serted by his own family. They tried to disinherit him
on the grounds of his heresy. Paradoxically enough, few
have spoken out more powerfully in the cause of free
speech and religious tolerance than Spinoza. The oppo-
sition he was met with on all sides led him to pursue a
quiet and secluded life devoted entirely to philosophy.
He earned a meager living by polishing lenses, some of
which have come into my possession."
"Very impressive!"
"There is almost something symbolic in the fact that
he lived by polishing lenses. A philosopher must help
people to see life in a new perspective. One of the pillars
of Spinoza's philosophy was indeed to see things from
the perspective of eternity."
"The perspective of eternity?"
"Yes, Sophie. Do you think you can imagine your
own life in a cosmic context? You'll have to try and
imagine yourself and your life here and now ..."
"Hm ... that's not so easy."
"Remind yourself that you are only living a minus-
cule part of all nature's life. You are part of an enormous
whole."
"I think I see what you mean ..."
"Can you manage to feel it as well? Can you perceive
all of nature at one time—the whole universe, in fact—
at a single glance?"
"I doubt it. Maybe I need some lenses."
"I don't mean only the infinity of space. I mean the
 SOPHIE'S WORLD

249
eternity of time as well. Once upon a time, thirty thou-
sand years ago there lived a little boy in the Rhine val-
ley. He was a tiny part of nature, a tiny ripple on an
endless sea. You too, Sophie, you too are living a tiny
part of nature's life. There is no difference between you
and that boy."
"Except that I'm alive now."
"Yes, but that is precisely what I wanted you to try
and imagine. Who will you be in thirty thousand
years?"
"Was that the heresy?"
"Not entirely ... Spinoza didn't only say that every-
thing is nature. He identified nature with God. He said
God is all, and all is in God."
"So he was a pantheist."
"That's true. To Spinoza, God did not create the
world in order to stand outside it. No, God is the world.
Sometimes Spinoza expresses it differently. He main-
tains that the world is in God. In this, he is quoting St.
Paul's speech to the Athenians on the Areopagos hill:
'In him we live and move and have our being.' But let
us pursue Spinoza's own reasoning. His most important
book was his Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated.'''
' 'Ethics—geometrically demonstrated?''
"It may sound a bit strange to us. In philosophy,
ethics means the study of moral conduct for living a
good life. This is also what we mean when we speak of
the ethics of Socrates or Aristotle, for example. It is only
in our own time that ethics has more or less become
reduced to a set of rules for living without treading on
other people's toes."
' 'Because thinking of yourself is supposed to be ego-
ism?"
"Something like that, yes. When Spinoza uses the
word ethics, he means both the art of living and moral
conduct."
' 'But even so ... the art of living demonstrated geo-
metrically?"
"The geometrical method refers to the terminology
he used for his formulations. You may recall how Des-
cartes wished to use mathematical method for philo-
sophical reflection. By this he meant a form of
250 JOSTEIN GAARDER
philosophic reflection that was constructed from strictly
logical conclusions. Spinoza was part of the same ra-
tionalistic tradition. He wanted his ethics to show that
human life is subject to the universal laws of nature. We
must therefore free ourselves from our feelings and our
passions. Only then will we find contentment and be
happy, he believed."
"Surely we are not ruled exclusively by the laws of
nature?"
"Well, Spinoza is not an easy philosopher to grasp.
Let's take him bit by bit. You remember that Descartes
believed that reality consisted of two completely sepa-
rate substances, namely thought and extension."
"How could I have forgotten it?"
"The word 'substance' can be interpreted as 'that
which something consists of,' or that which something
basically is or can be reduced to. Descartes operated then
with two of these substances. Everything was either
thought or extension.
"However, Spinoza rejected this split. He believed
that there was only one substance. Everything that exists
can be reduced to one single reality which he simply
called Substance. At times he calls it God or nature.
Thus Spinoza does not have the dualistic view of reality
that Descartes had. We say he is a monist. That is, he
reduces nature and the condition of all things to one
single substance."
"They could hardly have disagreed more."
"Ah, but the difference between Descartes and Spi-
noza is not as deep-seated as many have often claimed.
Descartes also pointed out that only God exists indepen-
dently. It's only when Spinoza identifies God with na-
ture—or God and creation—that he distances himself a
good way from both Descartes and from the Jewish and
Christian doctrines."
"So then nature is God, and that's that."
"But when Spinoza uses the word 'nature,' he doesn't
only mean extended nature. By Substance, God, or na-
ture, he means everything that exists, including all things
spiritual."
"You mean both thought and extension."
 SOPHIE'S WORLD 251
"You said it! According to Spinoza, we humans rec-
ognize two of God's qualities or manifestations. Spinoza
called these qualities God's attributes, and these two at-
tributes are identical with Descartes's 'thought' and 'ex-
tension.' God—or nature—manifests itself either as
thought or as extension. It may well be that God has
infinitely more attributes than 'thought' and 'extension,'
but these are the only two that are known to man."
"Fair enough, but what a complicated way of saying
it."
"Yes, one almost needs a hammer and chisel to get
through Spinoza's language. The reward is that in the
end you dig out a thought as crystal clear as a
diamond."
"I can hardly wait!"
"Everything in nature, then, is either thought or ex-
tension. The various phenomena we come across in
everyday life, such as a flower or a poem by Words-
worth, are different modes of the attribute of thought or
extension. A 'mode' is the particular manner which Sub-
stance, God, or nature assumes. A flower is a mode of
the attribute of extension, and a poem about the same
flower is a mode of the attribute of thought. But both
are basically the expression of Substance, God, or na-
ture."
"You could have fooled me!"
"But it's not as complicated as he makes it sound.
Beneath his stringent formulation lies a wonderful real-
ization that is actually so simple that everyday language
cannot accommodate it."
"I think I prefer everyday language, if it's all the
same to you."
"Right. Then I'd better begin with you yourself.
When you get a pain in your stomach, what is it that
has a pain?"
"Like you just said. It's me."
' 'Fair enough. And when you later recollect that you
once had a pain in your stomach, what is it that thinks?"
"That's me, too."
"So you are a single person that has a stomachache
one minute and is in a thoughtful mood the next. Spi-
noza maintained that all material things and things that
252 JOSTEIN GAARDER
happen around us are an expression of God or nature.
So it follows that all thoughts that we think are also
God's or nature's thoughts. For everything is One. There
is only one God, one nature, or one Substance."
"But listen, when I think something, I'm the one
who's doing the thinking. When I move, I'm doing the
moving. Why do you have to mix God into it?"
"I like your involvement. But who are you? You are
Sophie Amundsen, but you are also the expression of
something infinitely bigger. You can, if you wish, say
that you are thinking or that you are moving, but could
you not also say that it is nature that is thinking your
thoughts, or that it is nature that is moving through you?
It's really just a question of which lenses you choose to
look through."
' 'Are you saying I cannot decide for myself?''
"Yes and no. You may have the right to move your
thumb any way you choose. But your thumb can only
move according to its nature. It cannot jump off your
hand and dance about the room. In the same way you
also have your place in the structure of existence, my
dear. You are Sophie, but you are also a ringer of God's
body."
"So God decides everything I do?"
"Or nature, or the laws of nature. Spinoza believed
that God—or the laws of nature—is the inner cause of
everything that happens. He is not an outer cause, since
God speaks through the laws of nature and only through
them."
"I'm not sure I can see the difference."
"God is not a puppeteer who pulls all the strings,
controlling everything that happens. A real puppet mas-
ter controls the puppets from outside and is therefore the
'outer cause' of the puppet's movements. But that is not
the way God controls the world. God controls the world
through natural laws. So God—or nature—is the 'inner
cause' of everything that happens. This means that
everything in the material world happens through neces-
sity. Spinoza had a determinist view of the material, or
natural, world."
"I think you said something like that before."
 SOPHIE'S WORLD

253
"You're probably thinking of the Stoics. They also
claimed that everything happens out of necessity. That
was why it was important to meet every situation with
'stoicism.' Man should not get carried away by his feel-
ings. Briefly, that was also Spinoza's ethics."
"I see what you mean, but I still don't like the idea
that I don't decide for myself."
"Okay, let's go back in time to the Stone Age boy
who lived thirty thousand years ago. When he grew up,
he cast spears after wild animals, loved a woman who
became the mother of his children, and quite certainly
worshipped the tribal gods. Do you really think he de-
cided all that for himself?"
"I don't know."
"Or think of a lion in Africa. Do you think it makes
up its mind to be a beast of prey? Is that why it attacks
a limping antelope? Could it instead have made up its
mind to be a vegetarian?"
"No, a lion obeys its nature."
"You mean, the laws of nature. So do you, Sophie,
because you are also part of nature. You could of course
protest, with the support of Descartes, that a lion is an
animal and not a free human being with free mental
faculties. But think of a newborn baby that screams and
yells. If it doesn't get milk it sucks its thumb. Does that
baby have a free will?"
"I guess not."
"When does the child get its free will, then? At the
age of two, she runs around and points at everything in
sight. At the age of three she nags her mother, and at
the age of four she suddenly gets afraid of the dark.
Where's the freedom, Sophie?"
"I don't know."
"When she is fifteen, she sits in front of a mirror
experimenting with makeup. Is this the moment when
she makes her own personal decisions and does what
she likes?"
"I see what you're getting at."
"She is Sophie Amundsen, certainly. But she also
lives according to the laws of nature. The point is that
she doesn't realize it because there are so many complex
254 JOSTEIN GAARDER
reasons for everything she does."
"I don't think I want to hear any more."
"But you must just answer a last question. Two
equally old trees are growing in a large garden. One of
the trees grows in a sunny spot and has plenty of good
soil and water. The other tree grows in poor soil in a
dark spot. Which of the trees do you think is bigger?
And which of them bears more fruit?"
' 'Obviously the tree with the best conditions for grow-
ing."
' 'According to Spinoza, this tree is free. It has its full
freedom to develop its inherent abilities. But if it is an
apple tree it will not have the ability to bear pears or
plums. The same applies to us humans. We can be hin-
dered in our development and our personal growth by
political conditions, for instance. Outer circumstances
can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our
innate abilities can we live as free beings. But we are
just as much determined by inner potential and outer
opportunities as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the
lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden."
"Okay, I give in, almost."
"Spinoza emphasizes that there is only one being
which is totally and utterly 'its own cause' and can act
with complete freedom. Only God or nature is the ex-
pression of such a free and 'nonaccidental' process. Man
can strive for freedom in order to live without outer con-
straint, but he will never achieve 'free will.' We do not
control everything that happens in our body—which is
a mode of the attribute of extension. Neither do we
'choose' our thinking. Man therefore does not have a
'free soul'; it is more or less imprisoned in a mechanical
body."
"That is rather hard to understand."
"Spinoza said that it was our passions—such as am-
bition and lust—which prevent us from achieving true
happiness and harmony, but that if we recognize that
everything happens from necessity, we can achieve an
intuitive understanding of nature as a whole. We can
come to realize with crystal clarity that everything is
related, even that everything is One. The goal is to com-
 SOPHIE'S WORLD

255
prehend everything that exists in an all-embracing per-
ception. Only then will we achieve true happiness and
contentment. This was what Spinoza called seeing
everything 'sub specie aeternitatis.' "
"Which means what?"
"To see everything from the perspective of eternity.
Wasn't that where we started?"
"It'll have to be where we end, too. I must get go-
ing."
Alberto got up and fetched a large fruit dish from the
book shelves. He set it on the coffee table.
"Won't you at least have a piece of fruit before you
go?"
Sophie helped herself to a banana. Alberto took a
green apple.
She broke off the top of the banana and began to peel
it.
"There's something written here," she said suddenly.
"Where?"
"Here—inside the banana peel. It looks as if it was
written with an ink brush."
Sophie leaned over and showed Alberto the banana.
He read aloud:
Here I am again, Hilde. I'm everywhere. Happy birth-
day!
"Very funny," said Sophie.
"He gets more crafty all the time."
"But it's impossible ... isn't it? Do you know if they
grow bananas in Lebanon?"
Alberto shook his head.
"I'm certainly not going to eat that."
' 'Leave it then. Someone who writes birthday greet-
ings to his daughter on the inside of an unpeeled banana
must be mentally disturbed. But he must also be quite
ingenious."
"Yes, both."
"So shall we establish here and now that Hilde has
an ingenious father? In other words, he's not so stupid."
"That's what I've been telling you. And it could just
as well be him that made you call me Hilde last time I
256 JOSTEIN GAARDER
came here. Maybe he's the one putting all the words in
our mouths."
"Nothing can be ruled out. But we should doubt
everything."
"For all we know, our entire life could be a dream."
"But let's not jump to conclusions. There could be a
simpler explanation."
"Well whatever, I have to hurry home. My mom is
waiting for me."
Alberto saw her to the door. As she left, he said:
"We'll meet again, dear Hilde."
Then the door closed behind her.