No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Spinoza's Doctrine of God in Relation to his Conception of Causality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
Extract
In a previous article I considered Aristotle's view of God as final cause and its relation to the philosophy of Plato; and at the end of the article I remarked on the affinity of both doctrines with that of Spinoza. The present paper is concerned with Spinoza's doctrine of God as it is related to his conception of causality and seeks, inter alia, to show that his explicit rejection of final causes does not prevent his philosophy from having in it something like the true principle of final causation. In each section I first quote the chief relevant definitions or propositions in Spinoza's Ethics, and then state what seems needful in the way of interpretation or comment.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1948
References
page 291 note 1 Santayana's beautiful rendering of the concluding words of Ernest Renan's commemorative address at the unveiling of the statue of Spinoza at The Hague. The whole address is contained in Spinoza: Four Essays (edited by Knight).
page 291 note 2 “Aristotle's Concept of God as Final Cause” (Philosophy, Vol. xxii, No. 82, 07, 1947)Google Scholar.
page 291 note 3 The passages cited are all from the Ethics, and I have followed Hale White's translation unless the text seemed to warrant a somewhat different wording. Except on one or two points I have made no references to particular expositors or commentators. My love for Spinoza goes gack to my student days half a century ago; but, with much else claiming attention, anything I have hitherto written on his philosophy has been confined to class lectures and an address delivered to a Jewish community on the occasion of the Spinoza Tercentenary in 1932. What follows aims at giving a concise statement on the subject immediately concerned.
page 292 note 1 Ethics I, Def. 1Google Scholar.
page 292 note 2 Def. 3.
page 292 note 3 Ibid. Prop. 7.
page 292 note 4 Made, e.g., by Jacques Maritain in one of the essays in his volume entitled Redeeming the Time.
page 292 note 5 This conception is expressed, e.g., in his statement that “it is of the nature of the mind to frame true ideas.”
page 293 note 1 Ethics, I, Def. 6Google Scholar.
page 293 note 2 Ibid., Prop. 11.
page 293 note 3 Prop. 14.
page 293 note 4 Prop. 15.
page 293 note 5 Cf. I, 11, Dem. and II, Def. 6 (“By reality and perfection I understand the same thing”).
page 293 note 6 As his alternative proofs taken together show, Spinoza's demonstration combines the ontological and the cosmological arguments; and it may also be said to accord with the logical principle that all necessity is hypothetical inasmuch as it takes the form: If anything exists, God exists.
page 294 note 1 Cf. “At all times and in every part of the world mystics of the first order have always agreed that the ultimate reality, apprehended in the process of meditation, is essentially impersonal” (Aldous Huxley).
page 294 note 2 Cf. Spinoza's own statement of his quest and problem in, De Intellectus Emendatione, I. One may also recall Carlyle's fine saying: “This Universe… is a living thing—ah, an unspeakable, godlike thing; towards which the best attitude for us … is awe, devout prostration and humility of soul; worship if not in words, then in silence” (Heroes and Hero-Worship).
page 294 note 3 IV, Pref.
page 294 note 4 I, 29, Schol.
page 295 note 1 The further distinctions are not necessary for my present purpose.
page 295 note 2 This is what is properly signified by the opposition of “spirit” and “nature.”
page 295 note 3 Cf. below.
page 295 note 4 I, 16Google Scholar.
page 295 note 5 Ibid., Corol. 1 and 3.
page 295 note 6 Prop. 18.
page 296 note 1 Prop. 28 and Schol.
page 296 note 2 Prop. 24.
page 296 note 3 Def. 7.
page 296 note 4 Prop. 17.
page 296 note 5 Prop. 32.
page 296 note 6 Prop. 33.
page 297 note 1 Leibniz's conception that God in creating the universe acts in accordance not with the only possibility but with his choice of the best—which is regarded as uniting efficient and final causation—shows the distinction between abstract and concrete possibility, but cannot be taken to express a wholly different principle from that of Spinoza. Cf. the statement: “The divine perfection … could also be manifested through other creatures in another order” (Johannes Stufler—following Thomas Aquinas—in Why God Created the World), which is likewise tenable only if it precludes the idea of an arbitrary volition.
page 297 note 2 I, 26–29 and II, 48.
page 297 note 3 The stress laid by Descartes upon the influence of will on judgment—like a similar principle in Bacon's philosophy—concerns the need of suspense of judgment, or the avoidance (as he puts it) of “precipitancy and anticipation” in judgment through bias or undue haste, and does not properly involve the liberty of indifference. But Spinoza expressly rejects an antithesis of will and intellect in so far as it suggests that volition and judgment do not depend essentially on ideas. (“There is in the mind no volition or affirmation and negation save that which an idea as such involves.” II, 49 with Corol. and Schol.)
page 297 note 4 I, 17, Corol. 1.
page 298 note 1 I, Append.; cf. Prop. 33, Schol. 2 finGoogle Scholar.
page 298 note 2 Ibid.; cf. IV, Pref.
page 298 note 3 I, 17, Schol., where the necessity with which things follow from the existence and nature of God is illustrated by reference to “necessary” or “eternal” truth.
page 298 note 4 I, Def. 8 and Expl.
page 298 note 5 II, 44, Corol. 2.
page 298 note 6 V, 23, Schol.
page 299 note 1 Joachim points out that the categories of ground and consequent, cause and effect, whole and part are all inadequate to express the immanence of God in the universe (The Ethics of Spinoza, pp. 118–19).
page 299 note 2 Cf. Plato's efinition of time as the “moving image of eternity.”
page 299 note 3 My statement in this section owes much to ProfHallett, H. F.'s article on “Spinoza's Conception of Eternity” in Mind, vol. xxxvii, N.S., No. 147Google Scholar. I have not at hand for reference his Acternitas in which the subject is treated at length.
page 299 note 4 Time is distinguishable from duration—which Spinoza defines as “the indefinite continuation of existence” (II, Def. 5)—as its measurement by means of a comparison of durations, or, as Aristotle puts it, “the numbering of motion”; though common usage tends to identify them.
page 299 note 5 Cf. Aristotle's principle of the primacy of actuality, which I endeavoured to set forth in the article mentioned above.
page 299 note 6 For Spinoza's opposition of eternity and duration in reference to the question of immortality, see V, 34, Schol.
page 300 note 1 III, 6 and 7Google Scholar.
page 300 note 2 Ibid., Definitions of the Affects or Emotions.
page 300 note 3 Prop. 3.
page 301 note 1 V, 32 and CorolGoogle Scholar.
page 301 note 2 Ibid., Prop. 19.
page 301 note 3 Prop. 36 and Corol.
page 301 note 4 II, 40, Schol. 2.
page 301 note 5 De Int. Emend., I, 10.