DIALOGUE WITH SPINOZA IN ANY CORNER OF SPACE-TIME
We both know that knowledge is not rarely treated as heresy by people who believe they are chosen to live the Truth - one and unquestionable - that they seem to face when they access something different from what, at some point, took place within them. You yourself, Spinoza, have said it to me a few times, as I recall. Strictly speaking, such a stance goes against common sense and calls into question both the analytical vision and the power of choice that these people believe they have. If asked, they would answer that, once they are convinced of their beliefs, any divergent information will only be taking away from them the precious time they should dedicate to deepening their faith. They do not stop to reflect, however, if this does not constitute a boycott of their own courage to face the contradictions they pretend not to understand, or of the analysis that leads them along different paths than what they “need” to continue believing. As you so wisely identified, dear Spinoza, there is an avenging god within them, threatening to punish with fire their thirst to arrive at their own truths that confront those planted there previously.
In other words, these people forged in the image and likeness of this terrifying god do not admit to being afraid of discovering that their truths may not be as true as they think, and this may leave them speechless in the face of everything they have been taught! Someone might complete the sentence with words like: “…from everything they built for themselves”. I don't believe that, which is why I don't include this second possibility, and for a simple reason: only those who have had their beliefs shaped by other people develop the fear of discovering truths different from those they have been holding in their current stage of life. Real seekers – those who place their inner truth above any dogma instilled by others – are never frightened by their doubts that prevent them from exploring new possibilities. Quite the contrary: they will not accept to be among those who believe they are “chosen” to have access to the Truth. Being a “chosen one” invariably implies obtaining this grace by external decision. And this goes against everything that is understood as a premise of the seeker, who only accepts as true what results from an internal confrontation in which he analyses, checks in the light of known parameters, compares with all the knowledge gathered so far, only then to admit how possible a truth different from the one he defended until then.
And forgive me those who I shock with the sentence I'm going to say, but assuming a posture of someone who refuses to establish contact with truths different from yours is not just boastful or arrogant, but one of the least intelligent attitudes that can be attributed to whoever you believe has the ability to think and draw conclusions, as is expected of the most thinking species on the planet! Your intelligence - regardless of who or what formed it - should scream at you that this attitude is characterized as an abysmal nonsense to your rational mechanism, which is to investigate the opposites and conclude with the least unlikely alternative. In not knowing all sides of an issue, how can you be sure that an explanation is really the one that makes the most sense among all the possible ones? How can we understand that the real truth is afraid of being confronted with another that, without much effort, can be thrown to the ground? The “unexplored certainty” will always prove to be much more fragile than it claims to be, unlike the one that exists in those who are not afraid to face their fears! As one of those people, Spinoza, no one knows what I'm talking about more than you, because you faced them like no one else!
We know that this kind of logical reasoning applicable to conventional human truths may not apply to so-called “divine truths”, as is usually defended. And this will certainly be the next argument of those who will take their search for new possibilities as “heresy”. Anyone who does so will easily be accused that "their faith is not strong enough," nor is their truth as absolute and unquestionable as it needs to be. Because faith is faith. And as such, “it just needs to be accepted, never questioned”, isn't that what you hear in any belief? Despite this, like you, I also hold the belief that there is a higher force beyond all my eyes can see. And that's faith! And as powerful as any other! The difference between the two of us, my dear Baruch, is not in the dimension of our faith in relation to other people's, but in its nature, which admits to being wrong in the face of infinite possibilities! It means that we not only discover a different type of faith from the ones we observe, but also from the ones they tried to instill in us, since we are not charged with keeping it perennial and unshakable. It is as if this superior being who whispers to us the truth that we still do not understand encourages us not to accept it as definitive, much less heretical, but as part of a long way to go.
Like you, I feel her hugging me as a kind of “comradely faith”, because she doesn't get angry when I look for imperfections in her and question everything that points to me as something I still need to deepen (at least for now!). It challenges me to keep looking for coherences or inconsistencies that it can harbor, suppressing the fear of confronting it with all the acquired, preconceived or thoughtless concepts based on the realities that are being presented to me! But there is still a not so “nice” side to her that calls me to pride, and demands me not to freeze undeniable truths inside me, regardless of her millenary history of convergent defenses! This more rigorous side of you demands that I check, doubt, compare yesterday, today and after the last known truths to the limit of their incongruities, before accepting or rejecting them! More than that, it challenges me to compare each new component to a “higher force” that claims to be inside me… somewhere. It (the force) and the latest truth are compared mercilessly, without any fear of being punished for doing so or of what will come after! It puts before anything else the Greater Intelligence that all faith propagates, but forgets the main thing: in the case of something so superior, how would a new truth take advantage of ignorance to never be questioned? Would not such an Intelligence have created a Universe in infinite mutation? Why should only your truth be immutable?… Nothing more sensible (and intelligent), therefore, than to question.
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“Believe” – it was said – “in one who is always seeking the Truth; but doubt whoever claims to have found it!” Hence these dialogues between me and Spinoza are allegories of my mental process, eager to obtain new and perennially questionable answers. The only component they don't ask me to change is to keep evolving after each new conclusion. My mental process also plays with my metaphors so that I don't get lost among so many myths and truths. It allows me to navigate in a kind of “internal simulator” between simulacra hells and paradises – which spring spontaneously from my moods – to witness handshakes between Darwin and Adam without one feeling diminished in front of the other, nor shouting at each other through his teeth. your supremacy! Oh, Baruch! Baruch! We've never met in my parts or yours... But your refusal to swallow what so many before you preached - and what the many after you will still script - gives me the certainty that, somewhere in the space dimension -time, the two of us have already been placed face to face for a nice philosophical dialogue before this one today!
