Proposition 5. There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute.
Proposition 11: God (defined as a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality) necessarily exists.
Therefore, Proposition 14: Besides God, no substance can be granted or conceived.
The intuition behind Spinoza's argument above can be expressed simply. Two separate substances cannot share the same attributes (P 5). God has every actual and possible attribute (P 11). Thus, no other substance can exist. To illustrate Spinoza's point, imagine an infinitely long list of qualities such as "consiousness" and "three-dimensionality." For Spinoza, each attribute on this list can be assigned to only one substance or thing. So, substance 1 might exclusively have the attribute of "consciousness," and substance 2 might exclusively have the attribute of "three- dimensionality." However, God has already been assigned all attributes on the list, and no attributes are left to assign to other substances. Since a substance can't exist if it doesn't have any attributes, then God is the only substance which exists.
As noted, Spinoza opens part one of the Ethics with a list of definitions and axioms. His list of definitions are as follows:
1. By that which is self-caused, I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent.
2. A thing is called finite after its kind, when it can be limited by another thing of the same nature; for instance, a body is called finite because we always conceive another greater body. So, also, a thought is limited by another thought, but a body is not limited by thought, nor a thought by body.
3. By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.
4. By attribute, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance.
5. By mode, I mean the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself.
6. By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite -- that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality....
7. That thing is called free, which exists solely by the necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is determined by itself alone. On the other hand, that thing is necessary, or rather constrained, which is determined by something external to itself to a fixed and definite method of existence or action.
8. By eternity, I mean existence itself, in so far as it is conceived necessarily to follow solely from the definition of that which is eternal.
Initially, the most important of the definitions below are those of substance, attribute, and mode. Substance, for Spinoza, turns out to be the totality of the universe. An attribute is an all- encompassing property of the universe, such as being three dimensional. Spinoza commentators give various explanations of "attribute" and its relation to "substance." Jonathan Bennett notes that that "An attribute for Spinoza is a basic way of being -- a property which sprawls across everything... [that pertains to that substance]." Edwin Curley notes that for Spinoza the totality of a thing's attributes constitutes its substance. A mode (or modification) is a more confined property of the universe, or how an attribute appears on a smaller level. For example, the shape of a tree is a modification of the universe's larger attribute "three-dimensionality."
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Like definitions, axioms are also foundational elements from which propositions are derived. Rather than defining key terms, though, Spinoza's axioms stipulate some foundational fact about the world.
1. Everything which exists, exists either in itself or in something else.
2. That which cannot be conceived through anything else must be conceived through itself.
3. From a given definite cause and effect necessarily follows; and, on the other hand, if no definite cause be granted, it is impossible that an effect can follow.
4. The knowledge of an effect depends on and involves the knowledge of a cause.
5. Things which have nothing in common cannot be understood, the one by means of the other; the conception of one does not involve the conception of the other.
6. A true idea must correspond with its ideate or object.
7. If a thing can be conceived as non-existing, its essence does not involve existence.
God is the Only Substance
The first step in Spinoza's argument for pantheism is to prove Proposition 5 that two substances cannot share the same attribute. The only way to distinguish two substances is by noting differences in their attributes or differences in their modes. Suppose, though, that two substances had the same attributes, but different modifications. For example, suppose there were two universes in which both were three-dimensional (i.e. same attribute) but one had trees and the other did not (i.e. differing modes). Spinoza argues that these differences in modification are not relevant. A substance has its own identity before it is modified. That is, the universe is what it is before it has trees or not. Thus, the only properties which truly distinguish one substance from another are broad attributes, not narrow modes. Thus, if two universes have precisely the same attributes, then they are the same universe.
Spinoza's next task is to prove the existence of God (Proposition 11). The central premise in his argument is Proposition 7: existence belongs to the nature of substance. He concedes that readers may have difficulty in comprehending Proposition 7. We see natural objects such as trees come into and go out of existence, and we assume that substances also come into and go out of existence. Spinoza argues that we would not make this confusion if we kept in mind the difference between modes and substances. Modes, such as properties of trees, do indeed come and go out of existence. Spinoza continues noting that we can also conceive of non-existent modes such as the properties of a unicorns. Again, though, we cannot conceive of a non-existent substance. Continuing with background material for his proof of God, Spinoza argues that an absolutely infinite substance has infinite attributes, each of which must be conceived through itself. Having made these points, Spinoza offers his proof for God:
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Prop. XI. God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists.
Proof. -- 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....
Spinoza's proof is an ontological argument in the style of Anslem's and Descartes'. Like Anselm, Spinoza gives his argument in the form of a reductio ad absurdum:
1. (a) The idea of God is that of substance with infinite attributes, each of which is eternally and infinitely essential (Def. 6)
2. (b) Suppose that God does not exist
3. (c) Then existence is not part of his essence
4. (d) However, existence belongs to the nature of a substance
5. (e) Therefore, God exists
More simply, his argument is that God exists since (a) God is a substance, and (b) existence belongs to the nature of a substance. Spinoza continues by giving three additional proofs for God's existence (which will not be explored here). All four proofs are based on the common notion that God's existence necessarily follows from his nature.
Having proved that (a) no two substances can have the same attributes (Proposition 5), and (b) God exists with infinite attributes (Proposition 11), Spinoza proceeds to conclude that God is the only substance (Proposition 14). Again, The proof for this is as follows:
1. (a) There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute (Proposition 5)
2. (b) God (defined as a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality) necessarily exists (Proposition 11)
3. (c) Therefore, besides God, no substance can be granted or conceived (Proposition 14).
Spinoza continues by making clear that Proposition 14 implies pantheism.
o Corollary I -- Clearly, therefore: 1. God is one, that is (by Def. vi.) only one substance can be granted in the universe, and that substance is absolutely infinite, as we have already indicated (in the note to Prop. x.).
o Corollary II. -- It follows: 2. That extension and thought are either attributes of God or (by Ax. i.) accidents (affectiones) of the attributes of God.
o Prop. XV. Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.
If all things are part of God, then the three-dimensional universe itself is part of God. This means that, in some sense, God has a body. However, Spinoza criticizes those who anthropomorphize the nature of God's body by maintaining that it is finite, and even susceptible to having emotions (given the fact that human emotions are the result of a human body). Spinoza harshly rejects both of these limitations on God's physical nature. However, the vast majority of western philosophers reject the notion that God has a three-dimensional body of any sort. He presents two traditional criticisms of the view that God has a body. First, there are absurdities involved when we consider quantity to be infinite. For example, one foot has twelve times the infinite number of points that one inch does. Second. God is active, and divided matter is passive. The two are thus incompatible. In response, Spinoza argues that the key error in all of these arguments is the assumption that extended substance is composed of parts. Instead, he maintains that the notion of extended substance must be drawn from the more foundational notion of infinite quality, and infinite quality cannot be measured.
In the remainder of Part I of the Ethics, Spinoza derives various properties of God. He summarizes these properties in the opening paragraph of the Appendix to Part I.
Appendix. In the foregoing I have explained the nature and properties of God. I have shown that (1) he necessarily exists, (2) that he is one, (3) that he is, and acts solely by the necessity of his own nature, (4) that he is the free cause of all things, and how he is so, (5) that all things are in God, and so depend on him, that without him they could neither exist nor be conceived, and (6) that all things are predetermined by God, not through his free will or absolute fiat, but from the very nature of God or infinite power. I have further, where occasion offered, taken caret to remove the prejudices which might impede the comprehension of my demonstrations. Yet there still remain misconceptions, not a few which might and may prove very grave hindrances to the understanding of the ordering of things, as I have explained it above. I have therefore thought it worth while to bring these misconceptions before the bar of reason.
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The principal misconception about God that Spinoza wants to address in the Appendix is that God acts purposefully and directs events in nature towards a definite goal. For Spinoza, God does not do this.
God does not Willfully direct the Course of Nature
To make his case that God does not willfully direct the course of nature, he first explains why people think that God acts with a purpose. First, he notes that individual humans do not act freely, but are under the illusion that they do We are ignorant of the true causes of things, but only aware of our own desire to pursue what is useful us. Thus, we think we are free and that all our actions are guided by what is useful to us. Given this tendency to see human behavior as willful and purposeful, we continue by imposing willful purposes on events outside of us. We conclude that God willfully guides external events for our benefit (since we cannot guide it ourselves). Religious superstitions arose as humans found their own ways of worshipping God. Problems of consistency also arose as people insisted that everything in nature is done by God for a purpose. Since natural disasters conflict with the view that God acts with a purpose, we then say that God's judgment transcends human understanding. For Spinoza, mathematics offers a standard of truth which refutes the view that God acts with a purpose.
Spinoza next argues that God does not act from a purpose. He first argues that the concept of a perfect final goal is flawed. For Spinoza, the most perfect of God's acts are those closest to him. Succeeding events further down the chain are more imperfect. Thus if a given chain of events culminated in sunny weather, for example, that would be less perfect than the initial events in the chain. Belief in final causes compromizes God's perfection since it implies that he desires something which he lacks. For Spinoza, the theologian's contention that God willfully directs all natural events amounts to a reduction to ignorance. That is, all natural events trace back to God's will, and we are all ignorant of God's will. Theologians insist on this path of ignorance since it preserves their authority
Finally, Spinoza maintains that belief in God's willful guidance of nature gives rise to an erroneous notion of value judgments, such as goodness, order, and beauty. These values are presumed to be objective abstract notions imposed on nature by God for our benefit. For example, objective foundation of goodness is that which is conducive to the worship of God. However, Spinoza contends that all of these value judgments in fact arise out of our own human construction and human preferences. For example, things are well-ordered when they require little imagination and are easily remembered. He sees that this is also the case with beauty, fragrance, and harmony. The variety of controversies we have on these topics arise from our differing human constructions. Why is it, we may ask, that God created us in such a way that values are based on human construction, rather than reason? Spinoza's answer is that God figure out an alternative way and had the material to do it.
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Western Philosophical Concepts of God
Ancient and Early Medieval
Plato viewed as the highest of all things the good that was above all being and all knowledge, identified it with the divine nous, and attempted to raise the human spirit into the realm of ideas, into a likeness with the Godhead; which taught men to rise to the highest by a process of abstraction disregarding particulars and grasping at universals, and conceived the good of which it spoke not in a strictly ethical sense, but as, after all, the most utterly abstract and indefinable, entirely eluding all attempts at positive description. Neoplatonism went the furthest in this conception of the divine transcendence; God, the absolute One, was, according to Plotinus, elevated not only above all being, but also above all reason and rational activity. He did not, however, attempt to attain to this abstract highest good by reasoning or logical abstraction, but by an immediate contact between God and the soul in a state of ecstasy.
This tendency was shared by a school of thought within Judaism itself, whose influence upon Christian theology was considerable. The more Jewish speculation, as was the case especially at Alexandria, rose above an anthropomorphic idea of God to a spiritual conception, the more abstract the latter became. In this connection Platonism was the principal one of the Greek philosophical systems toward w c this Jewish theology maintained a receptive attitude. According to Philo, God is to on, " that which is " par excellence, and this being is rather the most universal of all than the supreme good with which Plato identified the divine; all that can be said is that God is, without defining the nature of his being. Between God and the world a middle place is attributed by Philo to the Logos (in the sense of ratio, not at all in the Johannine sense), as the principle of diversity and the summary of the ideas and powers operating the world.
When the Gnostics attempted to construct a great system of higher knowledge from a Christian standpoint, through assimilating various Greek and Oriental elements, and worked the facts of the Christian revelation into their fantastic speculation on general metaphysical and cosmic problems, this abstract Godhead became an obscure background for their system; according to the Valentinian doctrine, it was the primal beginning of all things, with eternal silence (sige) for a companion.
In the development of the Church's doctrine with Justin and the succeeding apologists, and still more with the Alexandrian school, the transcendental nature of God was emphasized, while the Scriptures and the 'religious conscience of Christendom still permitted the contemplation of him as a personal and loving Spirit. Theology did not at first proceed to a systematic and logical explanation of the idea of God with reference to these different aspects. Where philosophical and strictly scientific thought was active, as with the Alexandrians, the element of negation and abstraction got the upper hand. God is, especially with Origen, the simple Being with attributes, exalted above nous and ousia, and at the same time the Father, eternally begetting the Logos and touching the world through the Logos. In opposition to this developed a Judaistic and popular conception of God which leaned to the, anthropomorphic, and also a view like Tertuilian's' which, under the influence of Stoic philosophy, felt obliged to connect with all realities, and thus also with God, the idea of a tangible substance. In this direction Dionysius the Areopagite finally proceeded to a really Neoplatonist theology, with an inexpressible God who is above all categories, both positive and negative, and thus is neither Being nor Not-being; who permits that which is to emanate from himself in a descending scale coming down to things perceived by the senses, but is unable to reveal his eternal truth in this emanation. With this doctrine is conconnected, after the Neoplatonist model, an inner union with God, an ecstatic elevation of the soul which resigns itself to the process into the obscure depth of the Godhead. The ethical conception of God and redemption thus gives place to a physical one, just as the emanation of all things from God was described as a physical process; and as soon as speculation attempts to descend from the hidden God to finite and personal life, this physical view connects itself with the abstract metaphysical.
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In the West there was long a lack of scientific and speculative discussion of the idea of God. Augustine, the most significant name in Western theology, sets forth the conception of God as a self-conscious personal being which fitted in with his doctrine of the Trinity; but as his own development had led him through Platonism, the influence of that philosophy is found in the idea of God which he developed systematically and handed down. He conceives God as the unity of ideas, of abstract perfections, of the normal types of being, thinking, and acting; as simple essential in which will, knowledge, and being are one and the same. The fundamentally determinant factor in the conception of God by the Augustinian theology is thus pure being in general.
Later Medieval
Scotus Erigena, who gave Dionysius the Areopagite to Western theology, though Augustine was not without influence upon him, fully accepted the notion of God as the absolute Inconceivable, above all affirmation and Erigena. all negation, distinguishing from him a world to which divine ideas and primal forms belong. He emphasizes the other side of this view-that true existence belongs to God alone, so that, in so far as anything exists in the universe, God is the essence of it; a practical pantheism, in spite of his attempting to enforce a creative activity on the part of God. The influence of this pantheistic view on medieval theology was a limited one; Amalric of Bena, with his proposition that God was all things, was its main disciple.
In accordance with its fundamental character, scholasticism attempted to reduce the idea of God into the categories which related to the laws of thought, to being, in general, and to the world. It began by adapting the Aristotelian terms to its own purposes. God, or absolute being, was to Aristotle the primum mobile, regarded thus from the standpoint of causation and not of mere being, and also a thinking subject. The ideas and prototypes of the finite are accordingly to be found in God, who is the final Cause. God, in Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, is not the essential being of things, but he is their esse effective et exemplariter, their primum movens, and their causa finalis. Aristotelian, again, is the definition of God's own nature, that be is, as a thinking subject, actus purus, pure, absolute energy, without the distinction found in finite beings between potentiality and actuality. In opposition to Thomas, Duns Scotus emphasized in his conception of God the primum ens and primum movens, the element of will and free causation. The arbitrary nature of the will of God, taught by him, was raised by Ockham to the most important element of his teaching about God. Upon this abstract conception of the will of God as arbitrary and unconditioned depend the questions (so characteristic of scholasticism from Abelard down) as to whether all things are possible to God.
About the end of the thirteenth century, by the side of the logical reasonings of scholasticism, there arose the mystical theology of Eckhart, which attempted to bring the Absolute near to the hearts of men as the object of an immediate intuition dependent upon complete self-surrender. The Neoplatonic conception of the Absolute is here pushed to its extreme, and Dionysius has more influence than Thomas Aquinas. The view of God's relation to the world is almost pantheistic, unless it may be rather called acosmistic, regarding the finite as naught. This is Eckhart's teaching, although at the same time he speaks of a creation of the world and of a Son in whom God expresses himself and creates. This God is regarded as goodness and love, communicating himself in a way, but not to separate and independent images of his own being; rather, he possesses and loves himself in all things, and the surrender to him is passivity and self-annihilation. The ruling ideas of this view were moderated by the practical German mystics and found in this form a wide currency. On the other hand, pantheistic heretics, such as the Brethren of the Free Spirit combined antinomian principles with the doctrine that God was all things and that the Christian united with God was perfect as God.
Modern German Philosophers
The independent metaphysical systems of the philosophers, which embraced God and the world, did not at first make any profound impression on the thought of theologians. Spinoza's pantheism was by its very nature excluded from consideration; but the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff, with its conception of God as a supremely perfect, personal Being, in whom all possible realities were embraced in their highest form, and with its demonstration of God's existence, offered itself as a friend to Christian doctrine, and was widely influential. In so far, however, as the theologians adopted any of its conclusions, it was with little clearness of insight or independent thought as to the relation of these metaphysical concepts to the Christian faith or as to their own validity.
A new epoch in German philosophy, with which theology had and still has to reckon, came in with Kant. Confidence in the arguments by which God's existence had been proved and defined was at least shaken by his criticism, which, however, energetically asserted the firm foundation of moral consciousness, and so led up to God by a new way, in postulating the existence of a deity for the establishment of the harmony required by the moral consciousness between the moral dignity of the subjects and their happiness based upon the adaptation of nature to their ends. Fichte was led from this standpoint to a God who is not personal, but represents the moral order of the universe, believing in which we are to act as duty requires, without question as to the results.
But for a time the most successful and apparently the most dangerous to Christian theology was a pantheistic philosophical conception of God which took for its foundation the idea of an Absolute raised above subject and object, above thinking and being; which explained and claimed to deduce all truth as the necessary self -development of this idea. With Schelling this pantheism is still in embryo, and finally comes back (in his "philosophy of revelation ") to the recognition of the divine personality, with an attempt to construct it speculatively. In a great piece of constructive work the philosophy of Hegel undertook to show how this Absolute is first pure being, identical with not-being; how then, in the form of externalization or becoming other, it comes to be nature or descends to nature; and finally, in the finite spirit, resumes itself into itself, comes to itself, becomes self-conscious, and thus now for the first time takes on the form of personality. For Christian theology the special importance of this teaching, was its claim to have taken what Christian doctrine had comprehended only in a limited way of God, the divine Personality, the Incarnation, etc., and to have expressed it according to its real content and to the laws of thought.
The conservative Hegelians still maintained that God, in himself and apart from the creation of the world and the origin of human personality, was to be considered as a self-conscious spirit or personality, and thus offered positive support to the Christian doctrine of God and his revelation of himself. But the Hegelian principles were more logically carried out by the opposite wing of the party, especially by David Friedrich Strauss (in his Christliche Glaubenslehre, Tubingen, 1840) in the strongest antithesis to the Christian doctrine of a personal God, of Christ as the only Son of God and the God-Man, and of a personal ethical relation between God and man. Some other philosophers, however, who may be classed in general under the head of the modern speculative idealism, have, in their speculations on the Absolute as actually present in the universe, retained a belief in the personality of God.
The realist philosopher Herbart, who recognized a personal God not through speculations on the Absolute and the finite, but on the basis of moral consciousness and teleology, yet defined little about him, and what he has to say on this subject never attracted much attention among theologians. The Hegelian pantheistic " absolute idealism," once widely prevalent, did not long retain its domination. Its place was taken first in many, quarters, as with Strauss, by an atheistic materialism; Hegel had made the universal abstract into God, and when men abandoned their belief in this and in its power to produce results, they gave up their belief in God with it. Among the post-Hegelian philosophers the most important for the present subject is Lotze, with his defense and confirmation of the idea of a personal God, going back in the most independent way both to Herbart and to idealism, both to Spinoza and Leibniz. Christian theology can, of course, only protest against the peculiar pantheism of Schopenhauer, which is really much older than he, but never before attained wide currency, and against that of Von Hartmann. The significance for the doctrine of God of the newer philosophical undertakings which are characterized by an empiricist-realist tendency, and based on epistemology and criticism is found not so much in their definite expressions about God-they do not as a rule consider him an object of scientific expression, even when they allow him to be a necessary object of faith-as in the impulse which they give to critical investigation of religious belief and perception in general.
Theology, at least German theology, before Schleiermacher showed but little understanding of and interest in the problems regarding a proper conception and confirmation of the doctrine of God which had been laid before it in this development of philosophy beginning with Kant. This is especially true of its attitude toward Kant himself and not only of the supranaturalists who were suspicious of any exaltation of the natural reason, but also of the rationalists, who still had a superficial devotion to the Enlightenment and to Wolffian philosophy. In Schleiermacher's teaching about God, however, the results of a devout and immediate consciousness were combined with philosophical postulates. In his mind the place of all the so-called proofs of the existence of God is completely supplied by the recognition that the feeling of absolute dependence involved in the devout Christian consciousness is a universal element of life; in this consciousness he finds the explanation of the source of this feeling of dependence, i.e., of God, as being love, by which the divine nature communicates itself. For his reasoned philosophical speculation, however, on the human spirit and universal being, the idea of God is nothing but the idea of the absolute unity of the ideal and the real, which in the world exist as opposites. (Compare Schelling's philosophy of identity, unlike which, however, Schleiermacher acknowledges the impossibility of a speculative deduction of opposites from an original identity; and the teaching of Spinoza, whose conception of God, however, as the one substance he does not share.) Thus God and the universe are to him correlatives, but not identical-God is unity without plurality, the universe plurality without unity; and this God is apprehended by man's feeling, just as man's feeling apprehends the unity of ideal and real.
