Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

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Philosophy Now
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Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Philosophy Now »

Kenneth Novis says the case hinges on how you define ‘God’.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/151/Was_Spinoza_Actually_An_Atheist
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by promethean75 »

very nice!

Spinoza's like an esoteric materialist or something. when i began reading i thought for sure I'd see the quote: "the mind does not perish with the body, but something of it remains" becuz that's a critically important statement for anyone aksing "wuz Spinoza an atheist". what one is really aksing is 'hey spinz what's the deal when we die', not 'is god and nature synonymous'. i mean that's a legit question when readin spinz, but that's not what er'body wants to know.

it's a spooky comment becuz he doesn't expand on wut he might mean. further, in a letter correspondence with Huygens (if i recall) he explains in a roundabout way that he doesn't rule out the possibility of the existence of some kind of embodied mind or 'ghost', but makes clear that what so far has been described as 'ghosts' is most likely a hoax or a misunderstanding of some natural phenomena that has an explanation unknown to whomever observes it (what they think is a ghost).

But as we know he gives mind a mode of its own, distinct from the mode of the body as extension. And he does this weird thing where he says all knowledge is of the body and that the order of ideas is the same as the order of events.... but that one isn't derived from the other; mind is not 'caused' by the body and the body is not 'caused' to exist by being perceived (Berkeley). Rather the observable universe has at least two known modes, everything else, all particular contingent things, are reducible to one of the other. There could be more modes... but these are the ones we can know. So it's a funky kind of parallelistic monism that describes mind as an almost inherent feature of any complex-enough body. Maybe by 'something of the mind remains' he means mind in general, in that somewhere in the universe there will be minds... rather than the individual person with a mind, I dunno.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by owl of Minerva »

Spinoza was deeply religious and was expelled from his community because he did not conform to its orthodox beliefs. Both he and Einstein believed God was all that exists, that is the universe itself, nothing more.

For Spinoza God was deeply personal, present in him as an entity that was part of the universality of nature. This view was in conflict with the orthodox view of his congregation that God was a being separate from both nature and man, transcendent to both. The very idea that God was confined to nature was to the orthodox both offensive and heretical.

Spinoza was deeply religious but because he did not believe in a transcendent God who had created the universe and its entities but instead in a God who was the universe and its entities, he has been perceived by some to have been an atheist. This is inaccurate as an atheist is one who does not believe at all in God. Spinoza did believe in God, a God who was deeply personal to him as close as his own nature, but who was not also transcendent to nature.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

He was the equivalent of one at the time.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

Spinoza's comprehension of God was wrong (beyond Pantheism) on God's attributes, of which Spinoza stated something to the effect of "which is nowise in God, who is all good and ...(not sure)..."

.. but from my experience of God, Spinoza was and is wrong (since still in print). God is NOT all good.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Skepdick »

Philosophy Now wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 2:10 pm Kenneth Novis says the case hinges on how you define ‘God’.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/151/Wa ... An_Atheist
Kenneth Novis is wrong.

The case doesn't hinge on how you define 'God'. It hinges on whose definition of 'God' you evaluate Spinoza against.

To phrase it differently: nobody who has a definition of 'God' (whatever that definition may be) is an atheist according to their own definition.

To evaluate Spinoza against any other definition except his own is uncharitable. If I define God to be my small left toe, and my small left toe told me to burn some witches - I am no atheist.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Impenitent »

my big right toe said to kick him in the butt

it's not my fault

-Imp
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by promethean75 »

Fishpi I dunno where u saw Spinz call God 'good' but I ain't never seen em do it. And if he used the word 'good' he doesn't mean it as humans would mean it when describing values, virtues and principles and stuff. What he means is fully active power restricted by nothing, pure activity. Something along those lines.

For Spinz there is nothing 'bad' but whatever causes pain. Since God is not an intelligent, personable agency that rules by divine providence, there is no teleology in the universe, no purpose for it, and hence nothing 'good' or 'bad' about it.

Spinz rather preferred to think in terms of beings in a more passive or active state... active states involving (increasing) physical capacity and intellectual understanding/knowledge; knowing what causes exist for any given phenomena.

Somehow - and this is one matter I'm not in full agreement with Spinz on - he believes that by understanding and being able to identify the causes of one's desires and feelings, one increases one's power to control one's body and as a result, a degree of 'freedom' is created in this process. He's saying for example that if I know cavier makes me nauseous and therefore refuse to eat it, I've moved from a passive to a more active state in that I've been able to recognize something that causes a decrease in my feeling of joy (being nauseous) and have increased my power, my conatus, by actively avoiding cavier. Terrible example but u get the point.

No good or bad... just states of approaching or not, increased joyful states.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

promethean75 wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:30 pm Fishpi I dunno where u saw Spinz call God 'good' but I ain't never seen em do it. And if he used the word 'good' he doesn't mean it as humans would mean it when describing values, virtues and principles and stuff. What he means is fully active power restricted by nothing, pure activity. Something along those lines.

For Spinz there is nothing 'bad' but whatever causes pain. Since God is not an intelligent, personable agency that rules by divine providence, there is no teleology in the universe, no purpose for it, and hence nothing 'good' or 'bad' about it.

Spinz rather preferred to think in terms of beings in a more passive or active state... active states involving (increasing) physical capacity and intellectual understanding/knowledge; knowing what causes exist for any given phenomena.

Somehow - and this is one matter I'm not in full agreement with Spinz on - he believes that by understanding and being able to identify the causes of one's desires and feelings, one increases one's power to control one's body and as a result, a degree of 'freedom' is created in this process. He's saying for example that if I know cavier makes me nauseous and therefore refuse to eat it, I've moved from a passive to a more active state in that I've been able to recognize something that causes a decrease in my feeling of joy (being nauseous) and have increased my power, my conatus, by actively avoiding cavier. Terrible example but u get the point.

No good or bad... just states of approaching or not, increased joyful states.
Unfortunately Prom I definitely read it - and it was in Google Books some many years ago where they feel they have the right to copy books beyond copyyright - and I read a fair ol' bit of your Spinoza.

When I was challenged some time later about the exact same thang, I could not find it - but alas - it's there - the 'which is nowise in God who is'...bla bla is the key to the search - but then it could be one of those Mandella Effects - similar to when I read the Gospels and there was no mention of the Son of Man - save my confusion as it were..
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

promethean75 wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:30 pm Fishpi I dunno where u saw Spinz call God 'good' but I ain't never seen em do it. And if he used the word 'good' he doesn't mean it as humans would mean it when describing values, virtues and principles and stuff. What he means is fully active power restricted by nothing, pure activity. Something along those lines.
Well, I found it (Bing shits all over Google these days as a search engine)....and I disagree in your above statement re the context where Spinoza is stating God as 'good'.

SPINOZA S SHORT TREATISE ON
GOD, MAN, & HIS WELL-BEING


WHAT GOD IS 23

either could not or would not give more ? The first i
[alternative] is not true, because it is impossible that a
substance should have wanted to make itself finite, especially
a substance which had come into existence through itself.
Therefore, I say, it is made finite by its cause, which is
necessarily God. Further, if it is finite through its cause,
this must be so either because its cause could not give
more, or because it would not give more. That he should
not have been able to give more would contradict his
omnipotence ; f that he should not have been willing 10
to give more, when he could well do so, savours of ill-
will, which is nowise in God, who is all goodness and
perfection.


That is certainly no description I'd give to my experience of God.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by promethean75 »

Bloody hell fishpi you're about to level up so get ready. spinz in fact is explaining precisely what i described if my guess about what he's talking about there is correct (that's rather incomplete text btw). 'god' or 'substance' or nature or whatever u wanna call it (call it X) is 'good' in that all finite things that exist becuz of X are the product of something omnipotent in it's ability to 'give more'; everything finite and contingent is perfect in its being, whatever it is, becuz it has 'god' as its cause. conversely, to say that something is incomplete, in error, unjustified, malformed, is to say that god is neglegent, which is absurd, or that the judgement is incomplete, confused, 'muddled' as Spinz called it. for spinz it's not about human value judgements of ugly and beautiful and good and bad, becuz these judgements are always prejudiced and incomplete. for example, that earth quakes and cancer is bad. okay but bad how? they are part of the natural order and that they just happen to inconvenience some particular person with poverty, suffering, pain or death is no reason to call 'god' bad... just as it all of a sudden starts raining gold coins does not make 'god' good.

u do know that for spinz 'god' is not a guy in the sky who luvs u, right? u gotta understand all that first before u go tryna understand what he means with talk of love and virtue and goodness and all that jive.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

promethean75 wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 3:17 am Bloody hell fishpi you're about to level up so get ready. spinz in fact is explaining precisely what i described if my guess about what he's talking about there is correct (that's rather incomplete text btw). 'god' or 'substance' or nature or whatever u wanna call it (call it X) is 'good' in that all finite things that exist becuz of X are the product of something omnipotent in it's ability to 'give more'; everything finite and contingent is perfect in its being, whatever it is, becuz it has 'god' as its cause. conversely, to say that something is incomplete, in error, unjustified, malformed, is to say that god is neglegent, which is absurd, or that the judgement is incomplete, confused, 'muddled' as Spinz called it. for spinz it's not about human value judgements of ugly and beautiful and good and bad, becuz these judgements are always prejudiced and incomplete. for example, that earth quakes and cancer is bad. okay but bad how? they are part of the natural order and that they just happen to inconvenience some particular person with poverty, suffering, pain or death is no reason to call 'god' bad... just as it all of a sudden starts raining gold coins does not make 'god' good.

u do know that for spinz 'god' is not a guy in the sky who luvs u, right? u gotta understand all that first before u go tryna understand what he means with talk of love and virtue and goodness and all that jive.
Ya Pantheism - not a personable God - just everything by its nature IS God - something to that effect.

Which still makes his statement about God (nature) being ALL goodness as ridiculous.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by promethean75 »

okay i wuz a tad off fishpi but still on with what he means by 'good' in the present context of that section of the treatise. in that part u quote he's working out the reasons why 'god' or substance couldn't be finite in essence becuz that would create contradictions.

also that whatever exists has to be and is perfectly what it is, essentially, despite any evaluations we might give it. and this has to do with 'god's' omnipotence, an effect that makes anything contrary to 'his' nature, impossible by definition.

here's the whole clip, and watch out cuz he's about to go ham.

"As regards the first, namely, that there is no finite substance, &c., should any one want to maintain the opposite, we would ask the following question, namely, whether this substance is finite through itself, whether it has made itself thus finite and did not want to make itself less finite; or whether it is thus finite through its cause, which cause either could not or would not give more? The first [alternative] is not true, because it is impossible that a substance should have wanted to make itself finite, especially a substance which had come into existence through itself. Therefore, I say, it is made finite by its cause, which is necessarily God. Further, if it is finite through its cause, this must be so either because its cause could not give more, or because it would not give more. That he should not have been able to give more would contradict his omnipotence; [N1] that he should not have been willing to give more, when he could well do so, savours of ill-will, which is nowise in God, who is all goodness and perfection.

[Note N1]: To say to this that the nature of the thing required such [limitation] and that it could not therefore be otherwise, that is no reply: for the nature of a thing can require nothing while it does not exist. Should you say that one may, nevertheless, see what belongs to the nature of a thing which does not exist: that is true as regards its existence, but by no means as regards its essence. And herein lies the difference between creating and generating. To create is to posit a thing quo ad essentiam et existentiam simul [i.e., to give a thing both essence and existence]; while in the case of generation a thing comes forth quo ad existentiam solam [i.e., it only receives existence]. And therefore there is now in Nature no creation but only generation. So that when God creates he creates at once the nature of the thing with the thing itself. He would therefore show ill-will if (from lack of will, and not of power) he created the thing in such a way that it should not agree with its cause in essence and existence. However, what we here call creation can really not be said ever to have taken place, and it is only mentioned to indicate what we can say about it, if we distinguish between creating and generating."

so since there wuz no 'creation' and Nature has always existed, any individual thing that has being or will have being is the generation of a thing that receives both its existence and essence from 'god', and as such, cannot be incomplete or in error. 'god' is good becuz he doesn't, can't, create something contrary to 'his' will. ergo, nothing in nature is bad becuz nature isn't bad becuz nothing in it can have an existence that is contrary to its essence. sumthin like that.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Sculptor »

After being excommunicated by his own people he was stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Atheism was a capital offence.

One look at his Ethics where is explicitly sets out to prove god by the geometric method it becomes clear to those with half an intellect the Spinoza's proof is very far removed from any concept of god held before or after him by a long chalk.
None of the usual characteristics including consciousness can be attributed to his version of god that emerges. What he proves in a rather circular way is the existence, of existence; without need, volition or desire. He proves, or let us say, demonstrates the necessity of cause and effect and calls that god.
Thus he distances himself from the absurdities of religion whilst at the same time establishing his credibility as thinker for those capable of following the lematta of his argument.
He was sought after by the academic world but was wise enough to keep himself under the radar and led his life in the pursuit of lens grinding, rather than in the spotlight of academic scrutiny.

The circularity of the ontological proof and this problem of infinite regression is the moment where Spinoza starts his Ethics. He starts with definitions;

I. By that which is self-caused (casua sui), I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent[ Def I. References to the Ethics are from the Elwes translation. Ethics, Spinoza, (1883; 45). ]…III. By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived though itself; in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.”[ Def III.]

These definitions lay the ground for the entire system of philosophy, that there is a non-dependant unitary reality that is accessible through reason, and that this encompasses all that there is. The objection that a self causing cause is inconceivable, in terms of logic as the very existence of substance is reason enough to assert it as causa sui. This technical point asserts that the fact of existence is grounds for its own cause. Thus the proof of God:

God, or substance, consisting, of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists,[ Proposition XI, p51. Italics authentic.]

is based upon a reflection upon its own possible denial.

If this be denied, conceive, if possible, that God does not exist: then his essence does not involve existence. But this (by Prop. vii) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists.

This proof hangs solely on Spinoza’s conception of substance, defined above (Def III), and the proof of the proposition (VII) which insists that substance must exist, as it cannot be produced by anything external, as defined as fundamental (Prop VI), and by definition must be self caused.

Spinoza simply removes any doubt of his piety, (so thoroughly protested in his TTP), by rejecting doubt of any kind. Doubt is not even a consideration. However according to Mason (1997; 22), no atheist would be swayed by his proof of God. What Spinoza has proved is that something necessarily exists; that something is everything; and that everything, he claims be called God. To be uncharitable, this line of reasoning must seem somewhat circular, but the consequences of this clever method have staggering implications for the rest of Ethics. The first is that existence of a single substance is the necessary conclusion, and that God is equivalent to that substance, in that God is proved to be that substance. Thus God exists because there is something that exists, but God is only that which is conceivably evident in a physical sense. Thus God being evident as the fundamental substance of the world rejects any claim of transcendence. Transcendence was historically used as the only justification for making the necessary exception to establish a first cause, or prime mover. Spinoza’s God is thus immanent, in the following way. God by necessity loses his transcendence due to Prop III, Axiom V. Thus for God to have a hand in the world he must either be the originator (a deist god) or be the entire world. If his substance is not of the world, having nothing in common, by virtue of not being the same substance he must be that substance: either in the world; part of it (Axiom I); or all there is. Thus God is the substance, the only substance that is nature: Prop V. These interlocking statements support each other and Axiom I can be brought into service to support the claim that God is of one substance, both necessary and immanent, but most importantly extended and comprehensible through the evidence of the world around us. What is especially remarkable is that Spinoza begins by claiming the existence of God is necessary and substantial, and it is this necessity, which forms the basis of God’s character: a character uniquely described. Given that “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.”[ Ethics I, Prop. XXXIII.] In this Spinoza is denying that God has created the world by some arbitrary and undetermined act of free-will, but by necessity. God is not denied a will, as such, but it is an assertion that, everything is absolutely and necessarily determined.[ Nadler, S. (2001, 99)] What Hobbes implied, Spinoza took to a logical conclusion: God is to be found through reason.
In Ethics Spinoza immediately challenges Christian orthodox raison d’etre, by challenging God’s plan for man;

It is accepted as certain that God directs all things to a definite goal (for it is said that God made all things for man, and man that he might worship him). I will, therefore, consider this opinion, asking first, why it obtains general credence... I will point out its falsity… and how it has given rise to prejudices about good and bad.[ Ethics Appendix, p75]

The idea that God acts day-to-day to provide for us, is rejected and the basis of false teleology, and on the understanding that God is not limited by desire or purpose: echoing Hobbes. On the doctrine of providence Spinoza states:
This doctrine does away with the perfection of God: for if God acts for an object, he necessarily desires something which he lacks.[ Ethics I. Appendix, p77 My Italics.]

Here we see the remarkable achievement of Spinoza, in continually asserting that God cannot be limited, he undermines much that is commonly believed of Him. But he does it in such a way as to employ the most cherished belief in a God who is Almighty. He merely takes that assertion to its most logical and reasonable conclusion. Free-will is also a limitation on God’s power. Man has not the ability to will a state of affairs other than that which God has already conceived. In this he points to the delusion for free-will and more subtly builds upon the Calvinist solution. With each step, by assuming God’s omnipotence, Spinoza denies and challenges orthodox and heartfelt characteristics. Appellant prayer is also implicated in this reasonable attack. In the introduction to TTP he characterises prayer as a response to a superstitious belief in the anger of God; a fantastical interpretation of religion. In what way would an all-powerful God be so lacking in forethought as to change his mind due to the pleas of mortals? In this way Spinoza brings nature to the forefront as that which is characteristic of God: impersonal, universal, infinite, necessary.

Descartes’ dualism enabled the study of the natural world of how by deferring God to the realm of the transcendent, and thus avoiding the disabling requirement to continually explain the world in terms of why or ends. Thus he sets up his metaphysics to enable a thorough investigation of causality, by deferring the persistent claims required of teleology. Such a telos requires a guiding hand, and that hand is God’s. Whilst this distances his material investigation from Aristotle’s fruitless final cause arguments, it does not completely divest scientific investigation of an overpowering transcendent God who may be mobilised at any time to explain the inexplicable and to satisfy the priesthood of the Catholic Church. Spinoza’s reaction to Descartes was that his work was ‘a brilliant but unsuccessful venture,’[ Collins (1959, 96)] this dualism has more than practical problems, it also has ethical ones, dividing the study of nature from philosophy’s aims of human happiness. Spinoza explicitly rejects this dualistic position by reinstating God as immanent. He rejects it not only in terms of God against nature, but also rejecting Descartes triple substances conception of reality: God, Mind, Body. Spinoza’s God is of one substance, and that substance is all that can exist. It is by this means that human ethics can be understood through reasoning from what is demonstrable through nature. For Leibniz and Descartes the world is constructed of more that one substance to account for differences in the world. For Leibniz there are substantial differences between rocks and people, between water and air: for Descartes, primarily between mind and body. In the Cartesian system

each substance has one principle attribute which constitutes it nature or essence. For minds, that attribute is thought, for bodies it is extension.[ Curley, E. (1988; 27).]

Spinoza accounts for differences and distinctions of material and of objects by endowing this single universal substance with a range of attributes and modes. Curley suggests that though different in description both these schemes are equivalent, but that the fault lies with Descartes not “properly worked out the logic of his own position.”[ Ibid.] In simple terms, all we have to do is to down grade a Cartesian substance to a Spinozan attribute of a single substance, and the conception of the world is equivalent. In a sense Curley is reducing the argument to a semantic game, that perhaps Spinoza and Descartes would have remained resolute as to their own positions. Spinoza’s God is preserved as unlimited, as we have no right to assume that different attributes imply different substances, whereas Descartes’ transcendent God is preserved by having unique and distinct substances, which God is separate from but limited by. For Spinoza, setting God outside reality is a move to limit God and is a contradiction of omnipresence, without which omnipotence would not be possible. Thus whilst establishing an immanent God he demands that transcendence is not possible, but urges a God which is not infinite in the sense of never ending, but infinite in that all that is possible which in effect improves Leibniz’s Theodicy without diminishing God’s omnipotence. Despite Curley diminishing the differences, it true that Spinoza made it quite clear to Oldenburg that he was no Cartesian dualist. It is clear enough from his correspondences with Oldenburg first, that he distances himself from his published exposition of Descartes philosophy; The Principles of Cartesianism.[ Letter IX, p288 ] Second that his own conception of mind is embedded thoroughly in nature.

As regards the human mind, I believe that it also is a part of nature; for I maintain that there exists in nature an infinite power of thinking, which, in so far as it is infinite, contains subjectively the whole of nature, and its thoughts proceed in the same manner as nature—that is, in the sphere of ideas. Further, I take the human mind to be identical with this said power, not in so far as it is infinite, and perceives the whole of nature, but in so far as it is finite, and perceives only the human body.[ Letter xv, 292 (1665). One might point out With Hobbes’ Leviathan humans only form the part of the body politic, with Spinoza humans form part of the body divine.]

There is some academic disagreement that Spinoza is a dualist in spite of himself.[ Curley, E. (1988; 73)..] This inheres in an argument between the conceptions of extension and corporeal, and relates to Spinoza’s conception of God as either a guiding principle of nature, or as nature and everything in it. The problem appears with two apparently inconsistent statements; that ‘God is a thing extended”; and that “it is a gross error to regard God as corporeal.”[ Mason, R. (1997, 28).] This apparent contradiction has found Curley concluding ‘radically’ that Spinoza’s God as more like “those general principles of order described by the fundamental laws of nature.”[ Curley quoted in Mason (1997), p 31] This alone does not answer the apparent contradiction, even though this error appears amongst others. Buckley (2004; 77), repeats this error in understanding the implications of Spinoza by describing God as, “He functions in the system and is the beginning and end of it,” and incorrectly quoting Collins (above p 10); “as a cog in the system.” This is not Spinoza’s intention, nor does it characterize God’s nature. For Spinoza God is the system, is the end and if there was a beginning then God is that too. If it can be accepted that Spinoza has a coherent philosophy, then it seems more consistent to follow such statements as would account for the majority of his opinion. And this is that God is not limited: not limited to a principle, not to a cog, nor to a cause. Thus the assertion that God is not to be thought of as corporeal, must be answered to find that God is more nature itself, and Spinoza’s project, again and again is to insist that the only limits to God are one and the same as the limits of the Universe - none. Thus is seems more likely that, rather than limit God to a principle, and characterise Spinoza as a dualist; is the connotation of “corporeal” qua Cartesian terminology that Spinoza here wishes to distances himself from, not any attempt to limit God to the laws of nature, nor to deny his extension. Thus God is extension, not merely corporeal.

The implications that everything is God, and that God is one inseparable substance, renders many conceptions about the nature of existence and people’s relationship with God void. The argument as to the divinity of Jesus becomes null and void, in the sense that we are all part of the substance of God. The Sacraments loose their mystical quality; and the trinity is rendered obsolete.[ Mason (1997, 27)] The single substance brings into question the special role of a priest to form a ‘bridge’ to heaven, since God is now omnipresent. And whether the wine was literally the blood of Jesus, as in transubstantiation, or co-existed as in consubstantiation, neither now seem relevant or meaningful; God is now the cup and the wine, and that which remains in the bottle; God is already present, God is all that there can be the substance of all. Thus substantially the communion wine is that which is a finite mode of God, and the literal meaning of God’s blood is undermined so the argument is null and void. Whatever appears in the communion cup is of one substance. God becomes equivalent to nature, for which Spinoza offers the seldom used but much quoted phrase Deus sive Natura.
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