Stop praying. 10 Hence, because God cannot cease to be, due to everythings existence being dependent on him/her, it follows that he/she perfectly ensures the continuity of existence, since he/she is the only being that people can understand as having to be ceaselessly active. $19.95. WebSpinoza is often put forward as the father of pantheism and as the greatest pantheist, but in fact his writings on God are extremely abstract and theoretical, very unappealing to a modern scientific viewpoint. In the attenuated and metaphorical sense that God can be said to love, God loves every single creation equally, i.e. Elsewhere Spinoza might have been jailed or burned at the stake, but in Holland he was left aloneif sometimes by fiat. Spinoza seems to have feared nothing and regretted nothing, and he lived a life of quiet, exemplary virtue. Re-Intoxicated by God. I do not think it necessary for salvation to know Christ according to the flesh : but with regard to the Eternal Son of God, that is the Eternal Wisdom of God, which has manifested itself in all things and especially in the human mind, and above all in Christ Jesus, the case is far otherwise. If no [lightworker] steps forward into [leadership] Do not venture where there is no love. Im bored being praised. L ately, atheists have gone on a publishing offensive. The Tractatus, Nadler points out, is a more readable and urgent book than his posthumously published magnum opus, the Ethics, with its rigorously Euclidean, axiomatic format, but the books have a common aim: liberation from bondage, whether psychological, political, or religious.. By Steven Nadler Thursday, 31st May 2007 Originally published in 2006. - The Divine Mother. There is, after all, that famous chapter head in the Ethics, Of human bondage, or the strength of the emotions. In the Tractatus Spinoza compares the arbitrary divine power exercised in the Bible to the rule of some royal potentate. He wants to liberate us from a heavenly despot whom we abjectly petition for miraculous favors or reprieves, from clerics who claim to be his agents and intermediaries, and from the powerful and capricious emotions, especially hope and fear, that those clerics exploit. In other words, since God is coherent, and ultimately gives rise to all modes, they necessarily display his/her coherency, albeit limitedly, and thus, what happens in their minds has a matching physical effect on their bodies and whatever affects their bodies has a similar effect on their minds. Baruch 31 In other words, because there can be only one infinite substance, all other things have to be finite since, as modes, they are not causes of themselves, but rather, in the end, derivatives of that one infinite substance. Dynamic times and rampant internet censorship brought me to create a new outlet for the unending flow of information. http://www.lensatov.com/, * On the Importance of the Universal Laws. WebSpinoza was born into a community of Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam who had fled the Inquisition. Rocco A. Astore, The New School for Social Research. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist. However, he did not hold the converse view that God is no more than the sum of what exists. 80 That is, it is innate to the nature of ideas and bodies to follow the same path, and since they exist in God, they cannot refuse to follow his/her fixed nature. And you may hear Voltaires jibes in Candide, aimed at Spinozas contemporary Leibniz, bouncing off Spinoza as well. That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature [Deus sive Natura], acts from the same necessity from which he exists. Translated by Ralph Manheim. At the same time, the more people gain adequate knowledge of what has led them to feel saddened, the less sorrow affects them, since it ultimately causes that emotion to cease to be sadness. His fellow Jews were thereafter forbidden to speak to him or even go near him. 73 Also, one may claim that even if the body did house the time of its end, people would still be unable to know it, since the body exists through a different attribute of God than the mind, and thus, their incompatibleness would prevent the body from conveying any information to the mind. 28 Moreover, because Gods attributes cannot interact, it follows that they cannot cause one another to come to be, and thus, one may claim that nothing can limit them. Consequently, one may claim that since the mind relies on another concept for its existence, it is not self-sufficient, but rather a determinate mode. She begins: Benedict de Spinoza did not have a religionat least in the usual sense of the word (1). Im tired of being thanked. First, Spinoza states that those who believe in free will are mistaken in their belief that the body does not move unless the mind is active. Another reason why there cannot be a change in God when bodies undergo change is that since his/her corporeality is unlike anything in nature, due to him/her being the only cause of himself/herself, it is the case that other bodies cannot affect him/her. That is, Spinoza believes when people feel saddened they do not strive to live at their full capacities, and because the inadequate ideas associated with that feeling necessarily reinforces patterns of thought associated with sadness, it is the case that sadness distorts their views of reality. Afterward, there were demonstrations on how God cannot be the cause of sadness, and rather that sadness derives from peoples lack of knowledge of what has led them to feel saddened. If I made you I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies free will. Baruch (Benedict) De Spinoza was born in 1632 in Amsterdam to Jewish parents. Spinoza believed that everything that exists is God. However, he did not hold the converse view that God is no more than the sum of what exists. God had infinite qualities, of which we can perceive only two, thought and extension. Hence God must also exist in dimensions far beyond those of the visible world. Cold deterministic rationalism? Philosophers that are significant to him and his studies are Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel. 112 That is, Gods essence is totally active, at all times, since it is innate of him/her to be so, and thus, inadequate ideas cannot follow from him/her. Moreover, if God were free, as colloquially understood, he/she would be able to choose to cease being active, and thus, the continuity of existence would be in jeopardy since he/she would have the ability to be inactive. 4 That is, Spinoza believes if people were to try to perceive two or more substances of the same essence and attributes they would be unable to do so since there would be no differentiating characteristics between them that anyone can acknowledge as belonging to either one of them exclusively. 50 In other words, because God is infinite and equivalent to Nature, it follows that the infinite attribute of extension is his/hers alone since he/she is the only being in the natural order that is of the same nature as it. 99 That is, joy increases the minds ability to think and the bodys ability to act, and thus, it assists and brings people to a state in which they strive more powerfully in their beings. 82. What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. Our motto is: Don't quote it if you can't source it. I give you my divine authority to do so. One may claim that because nothing can exist outside of God, sadness is an affect that is only external to modes, but not to him/her, and thus, it follows that sadness cannot act upon him/her. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) has long appealed to skeptics and secularists. Finally, Spinoza goes on to describe the true cause of sadness, which, in turn, maintains Gods perfection. Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what youve been taught about me. Also, what composes a human body are smaller individual bodies that are either at rest or in motion, which reflect the nature of all other bodies. Finally, knowledge of God, by only being promotive of peoples well-beings is due to his/her perfection, and since sadness is deleterious to them, it follows that nothing evil, or useless can derive from him/her, and thus, his/her flawlessness remains preserved. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) served as the natural end of the rationalist tradition on the European continent, which included Descartes, Spinoza, and Malebranche. "The key to Love is sharing, [balancing] give and receive." 91, From this it follows that affects can either assists people or deter them from their desires to live, or aid or restrain their innate abilities to be. Spinoza on Human Freedom closes on a high note, with a strong chapter that examines how the state can contribute to the freedom or autonomy of the individual. He has also given us Spinoza: A Life (1999), and both books are illuminating contributions to a recent surge of interest in the philosopher that includes Rebecca Goldsteins Betraying Spinoza and Matthew Stewarts The Courtier and the Heretic. Jaspers, Karl. 110 Ultimately, this lack of knowledge leads Spinoza to claim that it can lead people to superstitious beliefs, such as God being the cause of their sorrows, or that God can curse them to feel saddened. WebLeibniz: Modal Metaphysics. Asking God for one, asking that He suspend natural law for our benefit, is asking God to trip up God. Spinoza continues to state that joy is a persons passage from a lesser state of being to a greater one. Nothing happens by chance. By that which causes itself, Spinoza means that God is the only being who does not derive from an external cause for his/her existence or an outside concept for his/her conceivability. 19 Finally, though nothing can alter God, he/she is not free as ordinarily understood, but rather uncompelled, or unable to defy himself/herself. Hence, because God is not anthropomorphic, it follows that whatever changes occur in peoples bodies cannot change God, or Natures body, in any way. That is, if God were not a corporeal substance, there would be no room for his/her modes to come to be, which is an impossibility since the reality of Nature necessarily provides space for his/her modes to exist. WebAnswer (1 of 7): I have to endeavor an answer because I disagree (respectfully) with the other answers here. In some texts, Leibniz locates the source of contingency purely in Gods choice of the best, which cannot be demonstrated. And why were less interested now in Spinozas logic than in his peace of mind. 7777 One way in which the reader can imagine this is if God were both the idea of a shape and the physical object of that shape itself. New York: Harvest Books, 1966. 85 Those external ideas Spinoza calls affects and since they do not arise from peoples ability to conceive ideas, it follows that they have an inadequate knowledge of them. I want you to believe in you. To Spinoza, God is the Universe, but not merely the Universe but rather it is the entire cosmos, SEEN FROM A UNIVERSAL, COSMIC POINT OF VIEW. Spinoza said that God can be seen in the laws of nature, doubted the immortality of the soul, argued against faith, and denied the existence of angels. 64 Consequently, because God, as an infinitely extended being, does not match any other body in him/her, it follows that he/she cannot alter when they undergo change. God would have said: Stop praying and punching yourself in the chest! On the other hand, adequate ideas are those ideas that resemble true ideas or ideas that perfectly match their objects, but only insofar as they are ideas. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. But it is a religion outside the usual sense of the word. Lastly, true ideas are those ideas that perfectly match their objects, and thus they give way to common notions that enable people to know inherently what it means to be human as well as God as their ultimate cause. But thats why secularist readers (Nadler among them) have always seen Spinozas God as a thin disguise for an orderly, perhaps awe-inspiring, but purposeless and indifferent nature. Spinoza, on the other hand, starts from the WebSPINOZA, BENEDICT (BARUCH) DE (1632 1677). 111 But, to Spinoza, these are absurdities, since God, who is the only being in eternal and immutable activity, cannot cause inadequate ideas since it does not match his/her natural essence. 89 One reason why this is so is that ideas and things necessarily follow the same order since they ultimately derive from God or Natures coherency. Oppression is something that one group of people commits against another group specifically because of a threatening characteristic shared by the latter group. To him, God would have said: Stop praying and What did you enjoy the most? You are bringing to light what needs to be revealed so it doesnt destroy the fiber of your society. WebBenedictus (Baruch) Spinoza is one of the most important philosophersand certainly the most radicalof the early modern period. Accor ding to the standar d vie w, Spinoza s ter m mode denotes pr oper ties of substance, just as it does in Descartes idiom. I cant tell you if theres anything after this life but I can give you a tip. WebThis is the nature of the God of Spinoza: God would have said: Stop praying and giving yourselves blows on your chests, what I want you to do is to go out into the world to enjoy We are helping you. Einstein identified himself as a follower of Baruch Spinoza, a 17th-century Dutch-Jewish pantheist philosopher who saw God in every aspect of existence as well as extending beyond what we can perceive in the world. 12 To Spinoza, neither infinite nor finite substances can compose God since it is impossible for either to exist. (Archangel Michael, Personal Reading, June 17, 2020. God had infinite qualities, of which we can perceive only two, thought and extension. In the 18th century, Spinozism was a synonym for atheism. WebBENEDICT SPINOZA. What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. Consequently, it follows that his/her fixed essence necessarily radiates his/her immutable attribute of thought; setting the conditions that give rise to the conceivability of thinking things. 83 That is, the mind and body are coherent, since they ultimately derive from one unified substance, and since that one unified substance immanently causes all things, or is innately in them, it follows that the mind would reduce to the body and the body to the mind if they existed through the right attributes. So many explanations? What is that pattern? 114. by Yitzhak Y. Melamed. Ethics. Spinoza used the provocative formulation Deus sive naturaGod, or naturebut he actually regarded nature as just the visible, comprehensible aspect of Gods infinite, incomprehensible being. 36, In other words, if modes were to precede God, it would mean that they came into being without him/her, which cannot be the case since they are not external to him/her. His philosophy was one of the major influences on Kant. Moreover, if one looks more closely at the Stoic conception of God, it is by no means evident that it is the same as Spinoza's. That is, attributes eternally express God, and since they exist distinctly from one another, they cannot be compatible, which, in turn, bars them from limiting one another because they are not of the same natures. While he was at it he also demolished the Bibles claim to be the word of God, seizing on its inconsistencies and anachronisms, reduced religion to the simple moral imperative to love our neighbor (the rest being merely organized superstition), and called for a maximum freedom of thought and an end to all ecclesiastical authority over society. Spinoza presents God as conscious being with a mind that possesses an infinite, or unlimited intellect and an awareness of everything that exists. God is the one and only genuine substance around. His readers have been arguing the point for centuries, and are still arguing. And if there is no truth, there will not be peace and [peace], Sweet One, is the Plan. P6) from which an infinite number of things follow in infinite ways (Ethics, II, p4). How can I punish you for being the way you are, if Im the one who made you? 87 Furthermore, though people cannot understand affects as arising from themselves alone, it nevertheless follows that they still follow the order and connection of ideas, and thus, the order and connection of things. Furthermore, inadequate ideas necessarily reside in God, like all other things, but they do not directly derive from him/her since those ideas are passive whereas he/she is immutably active. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need. 13 First, it is not the case that many infinite substances can exist because if they did that would mean that they would be unique and compatible at the same time, which is nonsensical. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. WebSpinoza is often put forward as the father of pantheism and as the greatest pantheist, but in fact his writings on God are extremely abstract and theoretical, very unappealing to a Sign up now to get the Washington Examiners breaking news and timely commentary delivered right to your inbox. The God Spinoza presents to us, is not one of egomaniac nature but rather a primordial force, a neutral force which people have the power to use or to discard. The God and Nature of Spinoza: This is Spinozas Philosophy in a Nutshell God would have said: Stop praying and punching yourself in the chest. Because, if there is no love, then there is no truth. That is, the mind is a thinking expression of God, as an immaterial substance, and since it does so in a determinate or limited way, it follows that it cannot have attributes since attributes are infinite and eternal. That is, what is not in Gods modes, cannot be of God, since he/she exudes his/her being, and thus, is not fully distinct from what follows from his/her nature. Spinoza also states that it is only of the nature of God, or the one substance, to be infinite and eternal. 5. The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders. 46 In other words, because all thinking things ultimately derive from God, it follows that he/she bears some relation to them, and since they express thought by thinking, it follows that God must possess that attribute since if he did not, then they would be unable to convey it. From this, one may also claim that because it is innate of thinking things to think, it follows that God must possess the attribute of thought because what is inherently in him/her, must, in some ways, be in his/her modes, due to his/her immanence. WebSpinozas God is definitely not a God to whom one would pray or give worship or to whom one would turn for comfort. Orlando, FL 32816-1352, [emailprotected] Part 4/8, https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Dr.-David-Martin-MURDER-CHARGES-Against-Fauci-Peter-Daszak-Ralph-Baric-and-many-others.mp4, https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/LEAKED-22Project-Pandora22-Multiple-Presidents-KILLED-to-Keep-this-HIDDEN.mp4, https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Cities-across-Canada-join-the-movement-1.mp4, https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/telegram-cloud-document-1-4915997293301204030-1-1.mp4. Thats the way to praise me. Throughout the history of philosophy, many theorists have attempted to explain the meaning and cause of peoples sorrows. What would God have said, according to Spinozas views? Keeping with his father's wishes he studied Jewish theology. A History of Western Philosophy. I will help you. By union, Spinoza means that the mind and body are coherent, or it is the case that whatever occurs in peoples minds has a matching effect on their bodies. SourceLight Seeing you home He admired the Dutch Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and wrote: I believe in Spinozas god, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a That is, God, who is the cause of himself/herself, is ultimately the cause of all things because everything necessarily traces back to him/her since he/she does not derive from a cause outside of himself/herself. Consequently, because bodies come to be through the same attribute of God, are, in fact, compatible, it follows that they are subject to the effects of other bodies in many ways, specifically in how they have abilities to overpower one another by causing one another to move or come to a halt. The rabbi cabled him in 1929 to ask him if he believed in God. 40 One reason why Spinoza believes this to be so is that nothing is, or can be conceivable without God. Abstract. In the Ethics though, Spinoza does away with the talk of propria and does not accord them really any status as such. Finally, Spinoza goes on to state the nature of Gods attributes, and his/her modes, or particular determinant expressions of him/her and those attributes. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. [emailprotected], Florida Philosophical Review 16321677 . 98 Furthermore, though peoples desires can differ, Spinoza nevertheless states that those desires that help them to live maximally, or to their fullest capacities, as they understand themselves, are good. Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained. Moreover, Spinoza claims that sadness accompanied with the idea of the external cause of sadness is hate. Although Leibniz had many philosophical and intellectual interests, he was arguably most In other words, without having adequate knowledge of the causes that can lead to sadness, it is no easy feat for people to break free from their cycles of despair, as well as the deleterious effects that result from them. Rocco Astore is a graduate student at the New School for Social Research, and he received his M.A. 53 In other words, minds innately think, and thus, they must derive from Gods attribute of thought since without him/her they would be unable express his/her essence as a thinking thing. In other words, because the mind and body concur, it follows that what negatively affects the minds awareness of itself, must also affect the bodys ability to act. 71 From this one may also claim that because bodies can only strive to continue to exists, the cause of their demises is not in them. 27 In other words, each attribute of God can only express one infinite and eternal aspect of him/her, and not many, because attributes are unable to affect one another since they do not rely on one another to exist. 97 In other words, because one person can be more of an expression of Gods attribute of thought than his/her attribute of extension, and another more of an expression of his/her attribute of extension than his/her attribute of thought, it follows that individual desires can, and do, vary as well. Orlando, Florida, 32816 | 407.823.2000 Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. What did you learn?. WebDescartes, whom Spinoza had studied and commentated, moves from the self and its ignorance to eventually apprehend the existence of God and to attain knowledge of the world. 58 Consequently, Spinoza ultimately denies that the mind can possess various attributes, but rather it features active abilities to conceive ideas and passive powers to take them in. Although Einstein said he believed in Spinozas God, its certain that Einstein did not have this abstract God in mind. Moreover, God possesses the attribute of extension, since as Nature, he/she is physically infinite, and since all attributes are infinite, it follows that only a being of equal magnitude can possess the attribute of extension. 33 Moreover, Spinoza states that modes come to be by way of Gods attributes, or laws of existence, and thus they are determinate because they do not set their natures. Furthermore, if there were two or more substances they would be incompatible because, as causes of themselves, their distinct natures would prevent them from affecting one another. On the last day of his life, before his death at the age of 44 from lung disease, he was calmly conversing with his friends about philosophy, the same as always. Web1. 407-823-2273 One reason why Spinoza makes this claim is that joy acts upon people in ways that only affirms their essences, or helps them to persevere. 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