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Bachelor Philosopher Number Six:
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Baruch Spinoza
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.Baruch Spinoza
(1632 – 1677)
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bachelor, atheist, pantheist,
a systems man, materialist philosopher
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Consider this characterization of philosopher Spinoza:
" God thus has no existence separate and apart from the material world, which has not been created because it has always existed. He is "free"-to obey the laws of nature, and so on. In other words, "God" is only nature. This Pantheism of Spinoza is really a thinly-disguised materialism. Despite its peculiar form (probably an unsuccessful attempt to ward off accusations of atheism), this is head and shoulders above the mechanistic outlook of contemporary scientists. Instead of the mechanical conception of matter being moved by an external force, here we have matter which moves according to its own inherent laws, it is "its own cause."
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Source Here
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Source Here
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Spinoza's primary work was something called " The Ethics ". In this book he outlines his philosophic system and explanation of life and God. The following quote pretty well sums things up for me. In the following you will understand that there is no God like the Christian imagines and no Teological concept to consider; there is no design or Divine Hand of God on earth or in the universe. The universe just is, always was, and always will be and will be these things under its own terms which it has established and will establish forever and ever upon all and everything. Infinity, therefore, does exist. ( my words ):
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" Spinoza's fundamental insight in Book One is that Nature is an indivisible, uncaused, substantial whole — in fact, it is the only substantial whole. Outside of Nature, there is nothing, and everything that exists is a part of Nature and is brought into being by Nature with a deterministic necessity. This unified, unique, productive, necessary being just is what is meant by ‘God’. Because of the necessity inherent in Nature, there is no teleology in the universe. Nature does not act for any ends, and things do not exist for any set purposes. There are no "final causes" (to use the common Aristotelian phrase). God does not "do" things for the sake of anything else. The order of things just follows from God's essences with an inviolable determinism. All talk of God's purposes, intentions, goals, preferences or aims is just an anthropomorphizing fiction. All the prejudices I here undertake to expose depend on this one:that men commonly suppose that all natural things act, as men do, on account of an end; indeed, they maintain as certain that God himself directs all things to some certain end, for they say that God has made all things for man, and man that he might worship God. (I, Appendix)
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God is not some goal-oriented planner who then judges things by how well they conform to his purposes. Things happen only because of Nature and its laws. "Nature has no end set before it … All things proceed by a certain eternal necessity of nature." To believe otherwise is to fall prey to the same superstitions that lie at the heart of the organized religions....."
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" Spinoza's fundamental insight in Book One is that Nature is an indivisible, uncaused, substantial whole — in fact, it is the only substantial whole. Outside of Nature, there is nothing, and everything that exists is a part of Nature and is brought into being by Nature with a deterministic necessity. This unified, unique, productive, necessary being just is what is meant by ‘God’. Because of the necessity inherent in Nature, there is no teleology in the universe. Nature does not act for any ends, and things do not exist for any set purposes. There are no "final causes" (to use the common Aristotelian phrase). God does not "do" things for the sake of anything else. The order of things just follows from God's essences with an inviolable determinism. All talk of God's purposes, intentions, goals, preferences or aims is just an anthropomorphizing fiction. All the prejudices I here undertake to expose depend on this one:that men commonly suppose that all natural things act, as men do, on account of an end; indeed, they maintain as certain that God himself directs all things to some certain end, for they say that God has made all things for man, and man that he might worship God. (I, Appendix)
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God is not some goal-oriented planner who then judges things by how well they conform to his purposes. Things happen only because of Nature and its laws. "Nature has no end set before it … All things proceed by a certain eternal necessity of nature." To believe otherwise is to fall prey to the same superstitions that lie at the heart of the organized religions....."
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Source for above quote found below:
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The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Anthony Quinton on Spinoza and Leibniz ( You Tube )
( Interviewed by Magee )
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