Benedict De Spinoza

(Extracted here from FreeThinker? -- DavidSaff)

Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77) was one of the first authors of a Rationalist approach to God. From the EncyclopaediaBritannica (philosophy, history of):

Spinoza introduced a conception of philosophizing that was new to the Renaissance: philosophy became a personal and moral quest for the wisdom of life and for the achievement of human perfection.

In conducting this search, Spinoza borrowed much of the basic apparatus of ReneDescartes: the aim at a rational understanding of principles, the terminology of "substance" and of "clear and distinct ideas," and a mathematical method that seeks to convert philosophical knowledge into a complete deductive system using the geometric model of EuclidOfAlexandria's Elements. Spinoza viewed the universe pantheistically as a single infinite substance, which he called "God," with the dual attributes (or aspects) of thought and extension, and which he differentiated into plural "modes" (or particular things); and he attributed to this world as a whole the properties of a timeless logical system--of a complex of completely determined causes and effects. In so doing Spinoza was simply seeking for man the series of "adequate" ideas that furnish the intellect and constitute human freedom. For ultimately, for Spinoza, the wisdom that philosophy seeks is achieved when one perceives the universe in its wholeness, through the "intellectual love of God," which merges the finite individual with the eternal unity and provides the mind with the pure joy that is the final achievement of its search.

Spinoza's view of God has been shared by other rational people, and famously in a quote from AlbertEinstein. From the EB again:

Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists."

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