The Divine Philosophy of Baruch de Spinoza
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There is no greater threat to the condition of humanity It must reject and attack any declarative philosophy |
The idea of God from which infinite things in infinite modes follow can only be one.
Infinite intellect comprehends nothing save the attributes and modifications of God. God is one. Therefore the idea of God from which infinite things in infinite modes follow can only be one.
God acts merely according to his own laws, and is compelled by no one.
That infinite things must follow from the mere necessity of divine nature, or what is the same thing, by the mere laws of divine nature, we have just shown and we have shown that nothing can be conceived without God, but that everything exists in God. Therefore, nothing outside God can exist by which he could be determined or compelled in his actions; and, therefore, God acts merely according to the laws of his nature, and is compelled by no one.
The human mind perceives no external body as actually existing save through ideas
of modifications of its own body.
In so far as the human mind imagines an external body, thus far it has no adequate knowledge of it. When the human mind regards external bodies through the ideas of the modifications of its own body, we say it imagines; nor can the human mind in any other way imagine external bodies as actually existing. And therefore, in so far as the mind imagines external bodies, it has no adequate knowledge of them, and in truth does not exist except in a condition of its own inadequate nonexistent bodiness.
All ideas, in so far as they have reference to God, are true.
Now all ideas which are in God must entirely agree with their ideals, and therefore they are true. Truth is true and nothing else is true.
Every idea in us which is absolute, or adequate and perfect, is true.
When we say that an adequate and perfect idea is granted in us, we say nothing else but that there is granted in God an adequate and perfect idea in so far as he constitutes the essence of our mind, and consequently we say nothing else than that such an idea is true.
If men were born free they would form no conception of good and evil as long as they were free.
I said that he was free who is led by reason alone. He, therefore, who is born free and remains free has only adequate ideas, and accordingly has no conception of evil, and consequently (for good and evil are correlative) none of good. The infinite mind of God is the reason of his freedom.
He that is led by fear to do good in order to avoid evil is not led by reason.
All emotions which have reference to the mind in so far as it is active, that is, which have reference to reason, are none other than the emotions of pleasure and desire. And therefore he that is led by fear to do good in order to avoid evil is not led by reason.
The essence of things produced by God does not involve existence.
For that whose nature (considered in itself) involves existence is its own cause, and exists merely by the necessity of its own nature. Hence it follows that God is not only the cause that all things begin to exist, but also that they continue to exist. God is the cause of the being (causa essendi) of things. For whether things exist or whether they do not, however often we consider their essence, we will find it to involve neither existence nor duration; and their essence cannot be the cause either of their existence or their duration, but only God, to whose nature alone existence appertains.
All religious philosophy must be deemed "heretical" that does not include the continuing necessity for the participation of man in his own salvation. The denial and relinquishment of all establishment and surrender of self as a requisite for eternal peace and happiness will always affront the human being's love/death relationship. Indeed, it will inevitably be termed blasphemy in the so-called religious community. In a temporal society, it is attacked as totally impractical and a dangerous threat to social order.
The illuminate philosopher Benedict Baruch de Spinoza was born in Austria on the 24th of November 1632. The incomparable lucidity of his spiritual rationale was so dangerous to society that he experienced the fortune, by age 24, of undergoing an excommunication by the Jewish community. He embraced Christianity but lasted for an equally short period. The Christian community condemned and excommunicated him in short order.
The Excommunication of Baruch de Spinoza
After the judgment of the Angels, and with that of the Saints, we excommunicate, expel and curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of all the Holy Congregation, in front of the holy Scrolls with the six-hundred-and-thirteen precepts which are written therein, with the excommunication with which Joshua banned Jericho, with the curse with which Elisha cursed the boys, and with all the curses which are written in the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up; cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not pardon him; the anger and wrath of the Lord will rage against this man, and bring upon him all the curses which are written in the Book of the Law, and the Lord will destroy his name from under the Heavens, and the Lord will separate him to his injury from all the tribes of Israel with all the curses of the firmament, which are written in the Book of the Law. But you who cleave unto the Lord God are all alive this day. We order that nobody should communicate with him orally or in writing, or show him any favor, or stay with him under the same roof, or within four ells of him, or read anything composed or written by him.
What an astonishingly vindictive document. Here we see that Spinoza has been excommunicated from the human definition of reality and condemned to eternal life.
"We reject you, brother Baruch. You refuse to acknowledge the reality of the human condition, of the necessity of need and struggle and strife as caused by the God who created us."
What the human conceptual mind fears most is the totally reasonable and inevitable conclusion it must reach in its own self-conceptual reasoning process: That the question of self-identity can only be answered by its inclusion in eternally creating mind.
The greatest and finally only threat to the human's objective conditional establishment is the simple sensibility of the idea of a singularly eternal creating Universal Mind of which he is an indivisible part in his own totality.
There is much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth over the simple and totally reasonable supposition that "if life is eternal, death is impossible."
The obvious admission that no compromise is possible in this axiom of truth is totally intolerable to human existence.
A human being is horrified at the thought of its own inclusion in the eternally creating loving mind of God. There would be no justification for its struggle to exist or need to prove its reality through its own annihilation.