Philosophical Case in Defense of Divine and Natural Truth

Isaac Orobio acquired the veneration and praise of the most learned men of his century.- G. DE LA TORRE, Latin translator, Dedication of Certamen Philosophicum. Orobio was so learned that he gave none of the illusions that so many other rabbis are accused of; he was deep without being obscure, he stood out in literature, a man of a pleasant spirit, and extreme politeness.- VOLTAIRE, Letter IX, Sur les Juifs, D'Orobio. We shall not be surprised to find in his writings much more subtlety and reasoning than is usually found in the writings of those of his religion.- LEIBNIZ (LH 20, p. 102r). Isaac Orobio acquired the respectful admiration of his outstanding opponents of Judaism, by his integrity and sharp dialectics. After him, no one in Amsterdam, the most cultivated community, could take his place, nor even less outside of it, where these conditions for an independent personage laden with culture were lacking.- GRAETZ, History of the Jews, (EP 3, PD 4, B.5, Ch. X)."The Spinozists despise all authority, both divine and human" (Isaac Orobio, Philosophical Case, Ch.3, IV, 67). Isaac Orobio pointed out that since belief in God is a consequence of the law, disbelief in the law implies disbelief in God. From this perspective, there is no distinction between rejecting the law and atheism.- R. JOSE FAUR, Ph. D., Law and Hermeneutics in Rabbinic Jurisprudence, p 3. Following Isaac Orobio's correspondence with Jan Bredenburg, a partisan of Spinozism that denies creation ex nihilo, God's volition, immanent actions, miracles and providence, free will, the discernment between categories of distinct, different, and diverse attributes (divine, or natural), contingent existence, Dr. Isaac Orobio de Castro set out to write the Philosophical Case in Defense of Divine and Natural Truth (Certamen Philosophicum, Propugnatae Veritatis Divinae ac Naturalis). Three hundred years after its publication, this is the first translation of the Jewish critique against Spinoza's philosophy. Orobio dismantles the Spinozist doctrine by analyzing its modern dogmas and pointing out its logical flaws, contradictions, and discrepancies.- From the Introduction by SEYMOUR FELDMAN, emeritus professor at Rutgers, awarded author and philosopher: Orobio anticipates Leibniz's notion of God's choosing to create one world out of infinitely possible worlds.