A GOD INTOXICATED ATHEIST

1.Are you amused at the oxymoronic title of this post ? I am talking

about Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), the Dutch philosopher. He was born

in a Jewish family. He is a very prominent name in Western Philosophy.

He is studied along with Descartes and Leibniz in Continental

Rationalism. He is very famous for his seminal work “Ethics” which was

published posthumously. This work looks like Euclid’s Elements of

Geometry. A very forbidding work which abounds in axioms, definitions,

propositions, theorems, proofs etc. I am not going to enumerate all of

them. This work has five parts. The first part is entitled “Concerning

God” “Does he say that there is no God? Not at all. On the contrary,

after defining “Substance”, he establishes that there is only one

Substance and that is God. No wonder that some people describe him

as God intoxicated!

2. In that case, why some others call him as an atheist? Surely there are

reasons for it. So let us try to understand Spinoza‘s concept of God. His

God is a being absolutely infinite, a Substance having infinite attributes,

each of which expresses infinite and eternal essence. Quite difficult to

follow! But using mathematical reasoning he establishes each and every

proposition. Attribute is the essence of a Substance. Mode is a

modification of the Substance. Multiplicity in the universe is nothing but

the different Modes of the only Substance which is God. Though God

has infinite attributes, we human beings are aware of only two, which

are extension and thought. Extension is an attribute of God pertaining to

Bodies (matter) and thought is an attribute of God pertaining to mind.

Therefore body and mind are not two different things but are attributes

of the same Substance which is God. Thus Spinoza‘s philosophy is

known as Substance Monism. God is infinite and eternal. Everything

else exists in God. Everything in the Universe is a Mode of God. The

one Substance is both God and Nature. God is the only being Free and

determines his own nature. Everything else in the world is bound in the

chain of causation whose ultimate ground is God .Spinoza’s concept

appears similar to the concept of Brahman of Indian Philosophy.

3. Still I have not explained why he got the atheist label. Spinoza

subjected Bible to a very strict scrutiny. He would not accept the

transcendent God of the Bible. He questioned the authorship of the

Scriptures. He would not accept that the prophets could be relied upon

and their words should be accepted at face value in spite of their moral

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superiority. He would not accept miracles. No wonder he was

excommunicated from the Jewish community.

4.Spinoza’s God is immanent in Nature. God and Nature are same. His

God is not anthropomorphic. He has no will. Everything happens

according to necessity. He does not hold that God sits in judgment over

human actions. He does not believe in a whimsical God. There is no

question of praying to God to obtain his favour. There’s no personal

God. No wonder he got the atheist label. A cold, indifferent, impersonal

God would not appeal to many. Elsewhere Spinoza talks of the

Intellectual Love of God. The renowned scientist Albert Einstein admired

Spinoza very much and said that his God is the God of Spinoza.

Bertrand Russell says “Spinoza is the noblest and most lovable of all

the philosophers.”