Fragmentary Comments on Spinoza’s Philosophy
The character of God changed from Judaism to Christianity. So we can say that there can also be found a change in the definition of God in Spinoza’s philosophy. In this sense, Spinoza was not an atheist; he just revised the definition.
In my opinion, there are two kinds of God; God with and without personality. Greek gods are with personality, while in the pantheism of Spinoza there can be found a very abstract God without personality. Both ideas can be compatible with each other. No contradiction.
Nature has self regulation system. I don’t know, but did Spinoza, when referring to nature, realize this self regulation in nature???
I think the Law of the universe should include freewill: There can be found in the universe two kinds of laws; the law of nature, which may be determined, and the law of freewill, both of which interrelate with each other, making up the Great Law of the Universe… Just whimsical and fragmentary thoughts.
Anselms’s definition of God, that there is nothing greater than God, doesn’t refer to God’s character, like God is angry or benevolent. Which shows that this definition is pantheistical, leading up to that of Spinoza.
In medieval theology, some definitions of God is already pantheistical, it seems to me. Spinoza, in this sense, is just a successor of medieval thinkers. He is not necesarrily radical, nor can he be seen as an atheist.
There is a definition of deity as having a personality, and there is a definition of deity as nonpersonal. In Buddhism, there is a theory called trikaya, which, simply put, says there are 3 types of Buddha: personal, nonpersonal, and the one somewhere in between.
I just want to say that there is a time when some regard God as personal, and there is a time when some think of God as nonpersonal. It depends on the age and the personality of a thinker, be it a philosopher or a theologian.
The more civilized a society is, the more indirect things become; in a less civilized society, when a man loves a woman, he just comes up to her, saying, “I love you!” Period. In a more civilized society, a man may write a poem of love and send it to a woman. Which is indirect.
The indirect is the abstract; as society makes progress and gets civilized, philosophers begin adopting more abstract ideas. Which is why Anselm’s and Spinoza’s definition of God were both more abstract than those in the age of Testaments.
An anthropomorphic deity may be one of the expedients of convincing people to appreciate what God really is; it might be a parable, a metaphor, which we do not really have to deny, as Spinoza did.
Determinism is an unproven hypothesis. No one can ever predict 100% exactly at what time I’ll have lunch tomorrow, how many seconds it’ll take for me to have it, how many grains of rice I’ll peck, how many times I’ll chew, etc, etc, etc. Even AI can’t. Since no one nor nobody can, how is it possible that we declare everything is determined? Some say freewill cannot be established; well I say neither can determinism.
If God exists, it seems to me that God is not so much of substance as function; homeostasis, self-organization, evolution, or whatever.
Spinoza’s God doesn’t have any intention or purpose in mind, but He does have some tendency just like everthing in the universe. Purpose can be used as one metaphor of tendency.
We may say religion is superstitious, but to completely deny it is another superstition. What we need is the middle course. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Didn’t Einstein say religion and science is one?
