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Spinozism was the first of three [[pantheism]]s rejected and condemned by the [[First Vatican Council]].  Spinozism is considered to be one of the most complete expressions of monistic idealism.

Spinozism was the first of three [[pantheism]]s rejected and condemned by the [[First Vatican Council]].  Spinozism is considered to be one of the most complete expressions of monistic idealism.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

==POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY==

Spinoza, philosophy →  of. Benedict Spinoza , by birth a Jew and then a deserter from Judaism, and finally an atheist, was a native of Amsterdam. He was a systematic atheist whose method was new, although he shared the fundamentals of his doctrine with several other ancient and modern philosophers, both European and oriental. Spinoza was the first to reduce atheism to a system and to turn it into a body of tightly woven doctrine, according to the method of the geometers, but otherwise his ideas were not new. It was already believed a long time ago that the entire universe was only substance and that God and the world were a single being. It is not certain that Straton, the Peripatetic philosopher, held this opinion, although he is known to have taught that the universe or nature was a simple being and a single substance. What is clear is that he recognised no other god but nature. As he was completely indifferent to the atoms and the vacuum of Epicurus, it might be imagined he made no distinction between the different parts of the universe, but this does not necessarily follow. One can only conclude that his views were much closer to Spinozism than to the atomic system. It could even be argued that he did not teach, as the atomists did, that the world was new and the product of chance, but taught, like the Spinozists, that nature produced it of necessity and for all eternity.

Benedict Spinoza, by birth a Jew and then a deserter from [[Judaism]], and finally an [[atheist]], was a native of [[Amsterdam]]. He was a systematic atheist whose method was new, although he shared the fundamentals of his doctrine with several other ancient and modern philosophers, both European and oriental. Spinoza was the first to reduce atheism to a system and to turn it into a body of tightly woven doctrine, according to the method of the geometers, but otherwise his ideas were not new. It was already believed a long time ago that the entire universe was only substance and that God and the world were a single being. It is not certain that [[Straton]], the Peripatetic philosopher, held this opinion, although he is known to have taught that the universe or nature was a simple being and a single substance. What is clear is that he recognised no other god but nature. As he was completely indifferent to the atoms and the vacuum of [[Epicurus]], it might be imagined he made no distinction between the different parts of the universe, but this does not necessarily follow. One can only conclude that his views were much closer to Spinozism than to the atomic system. It could even be argued that he did not teach, as the atomists did, that the world was new and the product of chance, but taught, like the Spinozists, that nature produced it of necessity and for all eternity.

The theory of the world’s soul, which was so common among the ancients, and which constituted the main part of the Stoics’ system, is fundamentally the same as Spinoza’s. This would appear more clearly if Stoicism had been expounded by geometers. But as Stoic writing owes more to the method of the rhetoricians than to the dogmatic method, and as Spinoza on the contrary strove for precision, without any recourse to figurative language, which so often obscures the true ideas in a body of doctrine, it results that we can find several major differences between his system and that of the world’s soul. Those who wish to maintain that Spinozism is more coherent must also admit that it is less orthodox, since the Stoics did not remove providence from God’s keeping, but reunited in Him the knowledge of all things, while Spinoza attributes to Him only partial and very limited knowledge. Read these words of Seneca:

The theory of the world’s soul, which was so common among the ancients, and which constituted the main part of the [[Stoic]]s’ system, is fundamentally the same as Spinoza’s. This would appear more clearly if Stoicism had been expounded by geometers. But as Stoic writing owes more to the method of the rhetoricians than to the dogmatic method, and as Spinoza on the contrary strove for precision, without any recourse to figurative language, which so often obscures the true ideas in a body of doctrine, it results that we can find several major differences between his system and that of the world’s soul. Those who wish to maintain that Spinozism is more coherent must also admit that it is less orthodox, since the Stoics did not remove providence from God’s keeping, but reunited in Him the knowledge of all things, while Spinoza attributes to Him only partial and very limited knowledge. Read these words of Seneca:

“Eundem quem nos, jovem intelligunt, custodem, rectoremque universi, animum ac spiritum, mundani hujus operis dominum & artificem, cui nomem omne convenit. Vis illum fatum vocare? Non errabis: hic est ex quo suspensa sunt om - nia, causa causarum. Vis illum providentiam dicere? Recte dicis. Est enim cujus consilio huic mundo providetur. Vis illum naturam vocare? Non peccabis. Est enim ex quo nata sunt omnia, cujus spiritu vivimus. Vis illum vocare mundum? Non falleris. Ipse est enim totum quod vides, totus suis partibus inditur, & se sustinens vi suâ.” Quoest. natur. book II. chap xlv (“They have recognised the same Jupiter as us, the guardian and moderator of the universe, the soul and spirit of the whole, the architect and the master of this great edifice, the world. All these names are appropriate: Will you call him destiny? The name is well chosen, since everything depends on him and he contains in himself the causes of all causes. Will you call him providence? You are right again. His wisdom provides all the needs of the world, controls its order and directs its movements. Would you prefer to call him nature? You are not mistaken, since he gave birth to everything, and it is his breath that animates us. Finally, will you give him the name of ‘world’? This would be no less appropriate, since he is everything you see entirely disseminated in his own parts and supporting himself through his own energy.”).

''Eundem quem nos, jovem intelligunt, custodem, rectoremque universi, animum ac spiritum, mundani hujus operis dominum & artificem, cui nomem omne convenit. Vis illum fatum vocare? Non errabis: hic est ex quo suspensa sunt om - nia, causa causarum. Vis illum providentiam dicere? Recte dicis. Est enim cujus consilio huic mundo providetur. Vis illum naturam vocare? Non peccabis. Est enim ex quo nata sunt omnia, cujus spiritu vivimus. Vis illum vocare mundum? Non falleris. Ipse est enim totum quod vides, totus suis partibus inditur, & se sustinens vi suâ.'' Quoest. natur. book II. chap xlv (“They have recognised the same Jupiter as us, the guardian and moderator of the universe, the soul and spirit of the whole, the architect and the master of this great edifice, the world. All these names are appropriate: Will you call him destiny? The name is well chosen, since everything depends on him and he contains in himself the causes of all causes. Will you call him providence? You are right again. His wisdom provides all the needs of the world, controls its order and directs its movements. Would you prefer to call him nature? You are not mistaken, since he gave birth to everything, and it is his breath that animates us. Finally, will you give him the name of ‘world’? This would be no less appropriate, since he is everything you see entirely disseminated in his own parts and supporting himself through his own energy.”).

Elsewhere he writes:

Elsewhere he writes:

“Quid est autem, cur non existimes in eo divini aliquid existere, qui Dei par est? Totum hoc quo continemur, & unum est & Deus, & socii ejus sumus & membra. ” Epist. 92 (“And why should we not imagine something divine in a being that is part of the divinity? The universe, which includes us, is a single thing, and that thing is God. We are the companions and members of it.”).

''Quid est autem, cur non existimes in eo divini aliquid existere, qui Dei par est? Totum hoc quo continemur, & unum est & Deus, & socii ejus sumus & membra. '' Epist. 92 (“And why should we not imagine something divine in a being that is part of the divinity? The universe, which includes us, is a single thing, and that thing is God. We are the companions and members of it.”).

One should also read Cato’s speech in Pharsal , Book Four, and above all consider the following lines of verse:

One should also read [[Cato]]’s speech in Pharsal, Book Four, and above all consider the following lines of verse:

Est - ne Dei sedes nisi terra & pontus & acr, Et coelum & virtus? Superos quid quoerimus ultra? Jupiter est quodcumque vides, quocumque moveris (Has God any habitation except earth and sea and air and heaven and virtue? Why do we seek the Highest beyond them? Jupiter is everywhere you look, everywhere you go).

''Est - ne Dei sedes nisi terra & pontus & acr, Et coelum & virtus? Superos quid quoerimus ultra? Jupiter est quodcumque vides, quocumque moveris'' (Has God any habitation except earth and sea and air and heaven and virtue? Why do we seek the Highest beyond them? Jupiter is everywhere you look, everywhere you go).

To return to Spinoza , it is universally agreed that he was virtuous, sober, moderate, peace-loving, disinterested, and even generous. His heart was stained with no dishonourable vice. This is strange, but after all it is no more surprising than the fact there are people living very bad lives who have a complete faith in the Gospels. Natural goodness and equity did for Spinoza what the attractions of pleasure failed to do. From his obscure retirement came first the work he called the Theolgico-Political Treatise , because here he examines religion in itself and in relation to the practice of civil government. Since the certainty of revelation is the foundation of faith, the first efforts of Spinoza are turned against the prophets. He does all he can to undermine our ideas about them and all we draw from their prophesies. He confines the prophets’ merits to the science of morals. He does not admit that they had any great knowledge of nature or the perfections of the Supreme Being. If we follow Spinoza , in fact, they knew no more and perhaps even less than we do.

To return to Spinoza, it is universally agreed that he was virtuous, sober, moderate, peace-loving, disinterested, and even generous. His heart was stained with no dishonourable vice. This is strange, but after all it is no more surprising than the fact there are people living very bad lives who have a complete faith in the Gospels. Natural goodness and equity did for Spinoza what the attractions of pleasure failed to do. From his obscure retirement came first the work he called the [[Theolgico-Political Treatise]], because here he examines religion in itself and in relation to the practice of civil government. Since the certainty of revelation is the foundation of faith, the first efforts of Spinoza are turned against the prophets. He does all he can to undermine our ideas about them and all we draw from their prophesies. He confines the prophets’ merits to the science of morals. He does not admit that they had any great knowledge of nature or the perfections of the Supreme Being. If we follow Spinoza, in fact, they knew no more and perhaps even less than we do.

Moses, for example, imagined a jealous, complacent and vindictive God, which is hard to reconcile with the idea we should have of the divinity. Regarding miracles, about which so much is told in the Scriptures, Spinoza found they were untrue. Supernatural prodigies, in his opinion, are impossible. They disturb the natural order and such disturbances are contradictory. Lastly, to set us free and to put us at our ease, he destroyed all the authority of the Old Testament in a single chapter. It was not, he said, the work of the authors whose names it bears, so that the Pentateuch, for instance, is not the work of Moses, but a compilation of ancient texts badly transcribed by Esdras. The origin of the other sacred books is no more respectable.

[[Moses]], for example, imagined a jealous, complacent and vindictive God, which is hard to reconcile with the idea we should have of the divinity. Regarding miracles, about which so much is told in the Scriptures, Spinoza found they were untrue. Supernatural prodigies, in his opinion, are impossible. They disturb the natural order and such disturbances are contradictory. Lastly, to set us free and to put us at our ease, he destroyed all the authority of the Old Testament in a single chapter. It was not, he said, the work of the authors whose names it bears, so that the Pentateuch, for instance, is not the work of Moses, but a compilation of ancient texts badly transcribed by Esdras. The origin of the other sacred books is no more respectable.

Spinoza shocked and scandalised Europe with a theology that had no other foundation than the authority of his own word. His was not just a slight deviation from orthodoxy. His first work was only the first exercise of his forces. In the second he went much further. This was his ethical treatise, in which, giving full rein to his philosophic meditations, he plunges the reader into the heart of his atheism. It is mainly to this audacious monstrosity that he owes the fame he has achieved among unbelievers in our times. It is not true that his followers are numerous. Very few people are suspected of adhering to his doctrine, and among those that are suspected of it, there are few who have studied him, and still fewer who have understood him and could trace the real outline or develop the guiding thread of his principles. His most sincere followers admit that Spinoza is incomprehensible, and that his philosophy → is for them above all a perpetual enigma. In the end, if they give him their support, it is because he intrepidly denies what they secretly do not really believe.

Spinoza shocked and scandalised Europe with a theology that had no other foundation than the authority of his own word. His was not just a slight deviation from orthodoxy. His first work was only the first exercise of his forces. In the second he went much further. This was his ethical treatise, in which, giving full rein to his philosophic meditations, he plunges the reader into the heart of his atheism. It is mainly to this audacious monstrosity that he owes the fame he has achieved among unbelievers in our times. It is not true that his followers are numerous. Very few people are suspected of adhering to his doctrine, and among those that are suspected of it, there are few who have studied him, and still fewer who have understood him and could trace the real outline or develop the guiding thread of his principles. His most sincere followers admit that Spinoza is incomprehensible, and that his philosophy → is for them above all a perpetual enigma. In the end, if they give him their support, it is because he intrepidly denies what they secretly do not really believe.

If we descend into the black depths in which Spinoza moved, we will discover a series of abysses into which this daring thinker threw himself almost from the first. We will find some clearly false propositions and others that are highly debatable; arbitrary notions substituted for natural principles and truths; a misuse of mostly misinterpreted terms, a heap of misleading equivocations and a fog of palpable contradictions.

If we descend into the black depths in which Spinoza moved, we will discover a series of abysses into which this daring thinker threw himself almost from the first. We will find some clearly false propositions and others that are highly debatable; arbitrary notions substituted for natural principles and truths; a misuse of mostly misinterpreted terms, a heap of misleading equivocations and a fog of palpable contradictions.

Of all those who have refuted Spinozism, no one has developed his ideas more clearly nor fought against them more successfully than Mr Bayle. This is why I feel it is my duty to retrace here a summary of the arguments he used to ruin this monstrous system from top to bottom. But before revealing the system’s full absurdity, it is worth our while expounding it. Spinoza maintains that 1. a substance cannot produce another substance. 2. nothing can be made from nothing, because it would be a manifest contradiction for God to work on nothingness, for him to create being from non-being, light from darkness and life from death. 3. there is only one substance, since the name of substance can only be applied to what is eternal and independent of all higher causes, to what exists by itself and necessarily. All of these qualities belong to God alone, so that there is no other substance in the universe but God.

Before revealing the system’s weaknesses, it is worthwhile expounding it. Spinoza maintains that 1. a substance cannot produce another substance. 2. nothing can be made from nothing, because it would be a manifest contradiction for God to work on nothingness, for him to create being from non-being, light from darkness and life from death. 3. there is only one substance, since the name of substance can only be applied to what is eternal and independent of all higher causes, to what exists by itself and necessarily. All of these qualities belong to God alone, so that there is no other substance in the universe but God.

Spinoza adds that this unique substance, which is neither divided nor divisible, possesses an infinite number of attributes, including extension and thought. All extended bodies in the universe are the modifications of this substance as extension, and the souls of human beings are the modifications of this substance as thought. But the whole remains motionless and loses nothing of its essence as a result of a few small, rapid, momentary changes. So a man never ceases to be what he really is, whether he is awake or asleep, casually relaxing or acting energetically. Let us look at Bayle’s objections to this doctrine.

Spinoza adds that this unique substance, which is neither divided nor divisible, possesses an infinite number of attributes, including extension and thought. All extended bodies in the universe are the modifications of this substance as extension, and the souls of human beings are the modifications of this substance as thought. But the whole remains motionless and loses nothing of its essence as a result of a few small, rapid, momentary changes. So a man never ceases to be what he really is, whether he is awake or asleep, casually relaxing or acting energetically. Let us look at Bayle’s objections to this doctrine.