proof of god : 17:00
Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune (quote)
Spinoza's brilliant metaphysical system was derived neither from reality nor experience. Starting from basic assumptions, with a series of geometric proofs he built a universe which was also God—one and the same thing, the classic example of pantheism. Although his system seems an oddity today, Spinoza's conclusions are deeply in accord with modern thought, from science (the holistic ethics of today's ecologists) to politics (the idea that the state exists to protect the individual). Both Spinoza's system and conclusions have compelling beauty unequaled in the history of philosophy.
natuere
By god i see an infinate being ..
Ortological argument God is the greatest thought possible.The substance that is God or nature
Substance... If you have true idea of substance and then can say that you doubt that it exists .. that would be the same as having a true Idea and then say it may be false.
for there to be truth we must take our representation and accept it. Representation is God. In our image.
All is as it is because there was no other alternative, the proof for determisinsm.
The aim of the wise is to see the universe as god sees it
every human is a part of another .. when we harm others we harm ourselves the happiness of each of us depends on the happiness of all
the universe can not be explained with reference to anything eilse it can not be comared to God for it is god .
Ideas con from the structure of the universe and well will repetedly come to the same logic . From the first time to the present the same idea has beenn, only in more detail as time progresses .
fractals
the biology of the brain processes stimuli.[6] Benedict de Spinoza said that the difference between good and evil is merely one of ... advantage according to his own temperament... Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics, translated by Edwin Curley, Penguin Classics, 2005, ISBN .
00:00 Today in The Philosopher's Zone, we meet Spinoza's God. 00:06 Now, that might seem an odd thing to do, especially as Baruch Spinoza, one of the greatest 00:15 philosophers of his day, was expelled from the Amsterdam Synagogue in 1656, probably 00:22 because of his unorthodox religious views. 00:26 Ever since, Spinoza has been regarded as the great atheist of the Western tradition. 00:33 Between the 17th and the 19th centuries, not only were his works periodically suppressed, 00:39 but even being named a Spinozist could have had grave consequences. 00:44 Hello, I'm Alan Saunders. 00:47 And here's the odd thing. 00:49 Spinoza refers to God throughout his writings. 00:54 His central work, the Ethics, opens with a definition of God, and closes with a discussion 01:00 of divine love. 01:02 Another of his books, The Treatise of Political Theology, deals extensively with the law of 01:09 Moses and the role that religion plays in the formation and perpetuation of states. 01:15 So can we reconcile the paradox in Spinoza between his perceived atheism and 01:22 his constant references to the divine? 01:26 Today we're joined by Beth Lord, who teaches 01:29 philosophy at the University of Dundee, and is the Director of the Spinoza Research Network. 01:36 Beth, welcome to The Philosopher's Zone. 01:38 Thank you very much, it's a pleasure to be here. 01:41 Let's begin, not with Spinoza but with somebody we can all agree genuinely is an atheist, 01:48 Richard Dawkins. 01:50 Now he entertains in his central book on atheism, he entertains the idea of Einstein's God. 01:58 And Einstein's God--the God who, as Einstein said, does not play dice with the universe-- 02:05 Einstein's God is essentially Spinoza's God. 02:08 So, what is Dawkins getting at? 02:11 This is a really interesting point. 02:13 Dawkins actually opens his book, The God Delusion, with a discussion of what he calls Einsteinian Religion, 02:19 and essentially what he's talking about is Spinoza's God. 02:23 Now Spinoza's God is essentially equivalent to nature, and by nature we don't just mean 02:29 the whole of the experienced and perceived world around us, but actually all of being, 02:35 which for Spinoza is infinitely rich and expresses itself in infinite ways. 02:40 So, when Dawkins refers to Einstein's God or Einsteinian religion, of course Einstein was 02:47 a great reader of Spinoza, he was a great fan of Spinoza, and he claimed on more than one 02:51 occasion that the God he believed in was Spinoza's God. 02:55 And when Dawkins quotes this material, he makes clear that the God that he is denying 03:00 in his book and the delusion that he associates with that God, is not concerning Einstein's 03:05 God or Einsteinian religion, but is concerning the God of theology, supernatural Gods essentially. 03:11 So Dawkins' view basically is that you can have Einstein's God, Spinoza's God, if you 03:19 want to, but why bother? 03:21 Essentially that's right. 03:22 He seems to be perfectly happy to accept that some scientists and other atheists might well 03:27 want to hold to a notion of the Einsteinian God or the Spinozistic God, but he has problems 03:33 with calling that being 'God'. 03:36 Dawkins thinks that if we call nature 'God', we're kind of confusing our terminology, 03:41 and why would we do that if we're really atheists? Why would we call nature 'God'? 03:44 Why not call nature, 'nature', and take God out of the equation altogether? 03:48 Well indeed, why not call nature, 'nature'? 03:50 Why does Spinoza talk so much about God? 03:55 Well Spinoza believes that the true understanding of God really does equate to the whole of being. 04:02 So let me put a little bit more detail on that. 04:04 Spinoza thinks that any kind of basic theological definition of God, whether that be from a 04:11 Jewish, Christian, Muslim perspective, or even from other religious perspectives, any 04:16 basic definition of God is going to include the definition that God is a substance of 04:21 infinite attributes. Now what does that mean? 04:24 Well for Spinoza, 'substance' basically means an independently existing being, that is something 04:28 that doesn't depend on anything else for its existence, and 'infinite attributes' really 04:34 means that this being exists in infinite different kinds of ways. 04:38 So Spinoza thinks that if you take your basic theological definition of God and you strip 04:43 away all the stuff that's said about this God in the Bible or through conventional 04:47 religion, then what you'll be left with is that definition, a being of infinite attributes. 04:53 Spinoza thinks that there's good reason to carry on calling this being 'God', because 04:57 that for him, is basically what God is. 04:59 So we should carry on calling it 'God', but his point is that the theologians and people 05:04 who believe in religion need to understand, they need to come to true understanding of 05:08 the fact that the God that they believe in turns out to be 'being,' the substance 05:14 of infinite attributes. 05:16 If that's who God is, or if that's what God is, doesn't that make Spinoza a pantheist? 05:24 Yes. Spinoza is certainly a pantheist. 05:28 He's usually called an atheist, and it's also true to say that he's an atheist in the sense 05:32 that he denies the God of theism. 05:35 So the God of theism would be God as he is described in the Bible let's say, and Spinoza 05:40 certainly thinks that that God is a fiction, a fictional construct that human beings use, 05:45 for very good reason. 05:47 So Spinoza can be said to be an atheist in that sense, but as you've pointed out already, 05:51 it's pretty strange to call someone an atheist whose work is so infused with the notion of God. 05:56 So the term Pantheist is often used to describe Spinoza, and a Pantheist is really someone 06:00 who believes that God is everywhere, God is in everything. 06:04 But even the word 'Pantheist' can be a bit problematic when talking about Spinoza, because 06:09 really Spinoza believes that God IS being, not that God is in being, or that 06:14 God is dwelling in things, or anything like that, but that God just is equivalent to 06:18 all of existence. 06:19 Spinoza thinks that there are 3 ways of apprehending the world: 06:24 There's intuition, there's reason--which means philosophy & science--and there's the imagination. 06:32 Now we can presumably use all of them to understand God, but imagination is very important here, isn't it? 06:40 That's right. 06:41 The 3 kinds of knowledge are crucial to Spinoza's system. 06:45 Imagination is the way we know through experience. 06:48 So anything that has to do with the way we experience and perceive the world, with our 06:53 memories, with our anticipations, with our dreams, all of these kinds of things are what 06:57 Spinoza calls 'imagination'. 07:00 And imagination, while it's less adequate than rational knowledge, as Spinoza puts it, 07:05 it's a kind of confused and partial and mixed-up version of true knowledge, nevertheless, it's 07:11 not entirely false or illusory, we shouldn't take the word 'imagination' necessarily 07:15 to mean made up, or anything like that. 07:18 Imagination is essentially empirical knowledge, and empirical knowledge is hugely important 07:22 in building up our true rational knowledge, which is sort of the next stage up. 07:27 Now imagination is important with respect to this question of God and religion, because 07:32 through the imagination we build up what Spinoza calls 'fictions'. And fictions, they have 07:38 quite an interesting status in Spinoza's epistemology. 07:42 Fictions are neither true nor false. They're kind of organized systems of images based 07:47 on our experiences, based on the experiences that human beings share. 07:52 These fictions are hugely useful in structuring our experience and helping us to decide how 07:57 to behave and how to live our lives. 07:59 And religion, and the Biblical notion of God, fit into this idea of fiction. 08:05 So religion is a fiction. 08:08 Does that mean that again, contrary to Dawkins, it's not among those things that can be said 08:15 to be either true or false? That's right. 08:19 Spinoza thinks that because religion is fictional, it means that it's not the kind of thing that 08:25 can be demonstrated to be true or false. 08:28 It's a useful organizing structure that helps us to organize our experience. 08:34 And Spinoza thinks that religion is specifically useful in helping people to behave better 08:40 and to be obedient to the law. 08:42 So this is quite an interesting factor of Spinoza's thought. 08:46 He's all in favour of religion, not because he thinks that religion gives us a true understanding 08:51 of God, but because religion interprets God to people in a way that they can easily understand. 08:57 And Spinoza thinks that that's far preferable than that people should hold false notions 09:02 or that they should just be left to their own devices. He thinks religion is actually 09:06 quite a useful structure in making people kind of get along well with one another and, 09:11 as he puts it, loving their neighbor in living peacefully and harmoniously. 09:15 And that's really what fictions are for. 09:18 Let's just tease out the notion of fictions a bit more. 09:21 And let's take an example: Hamlet. 09:24 Okay, Hamlet is a fiction. However, there are things I can say about Hamlet which are not true. 09:33 If I say that Hamlet is a black man who lives in Venice, I've confused him with Othello. 09:42 And it is not true that Hamlet is a black man who lives in Venice. 09:46 So I can make true or false statements about a fiction. 09:50 You can, but the truth and falsity of those statements are only relative to the fictional 09:57 world of Hamlet. 09:59 In a sense, there is no true or false statement that can be made about Hamlet because Hamlet 10:04 isn't a true idea. 10:07 So Spinoza really holds to a very specific understanding of truth. 10:13 And true ideas for Spinoza are ideas that exist in God, that is, in being. 10:18 So Hamlet for Spinoza really isn't a true idea, but nor is it false idea. 10:24 Again, it's a fiction. It's an idea that's neither true nor false that might be useful for us. 10:28 So the story of Hamlet and the play of Hamlet might be useful for our society, or just useful 10:32 for entertainment or for telling a story. 10:35 But the whole question of true and false statements about it, while we might say one could make 10:39 true and false statements about the events in the play, they're not ultimately true or false 10:44 for Spinoza they're just imaginary. 10:47 So the function of religion then is that it promotes peace and harmony. 10:52 It has a social utility? Yes. 10:55 And it needs to be kept away, theology and faith need to be set apart from reason and philosophy. 11:04 Exactly. What Spinoza says is that reason and philosophy have a different aim from religion. 11:11 The purpose of reason, philosophy, and science are to discover the truth. 11:17 So through our rational thought, we attain more and more true knowledge or adequate 11:23 knowledge. And what that means really is that we tap in to true ideas as they exist in God. 11:29 It's quite a strange notion, but Spinoza explains it quite clearly. 11:33 How we do this is basically through things like scientific experiments, where we pick up 11:38 on what's called the common notions, and these are kind of ideas that are common to 11:42 ourselves and to the things that we interact with. 11:45 So as build up more and more of these common notions, we attain more and more true knowledge. 11:49 And we do that through science, through philosophy, 11:52 through various other kinds of human endeavors as well. 11:55 So the aim of science, philosophy and reason is to get at the truth. 11:59 Now the aim of religion is rather different. 12:01 Spinoza, again, because he thinks that religion is fictional & he thinks that therefore 12:07 its status is neither true nor false, and in a sense truth and falsity just don't really 12:11 pertain to religion. 12:13 Religion's job is to interpret the truth about God to people in a way that they can understand. 12:18 So its role is to tell stories, to interpret the truth about the world to people, 12:25 and therefore its aim is not to tell the truth or even to discover the truth, its aim is 12:30 to make people behave better and to keep people obedient. 12:35 Now that sounds rather sinister, but actually Spinoza thinks that's good thing. 12:39 It's a good thing because most people are irrational most of the time, he thinks. 12:44 Most people live according to their imagination. 12:46 So they're driven by their experiences, by the feelings that they associate with their 12:51 experiences, by different chains of association which differ from person to person. 12:56 And when people are irrational, they tend to come into conflict with each other; they 12:59 tend to desire the same things and they fight over those things, and people don't get along 13:04 very easily. 13:05 So the role of religion is really in controlling and helping to manage people's feelings 13:11 and images when they're in this irrational state. 13:14 And Spinoza's aim is always for people to become more rational and to be able to govern 13:18 themselves through their own true knowledge about the world. 13:21 But he's kind of realistic about the prospects of that happening, and since he doesn't see 13:25 humanity becoming enormously rational any time soon, he tends to think that structures 13:31 like religion are necessary to keep people in line. 13:35 On ABC Radio National, you're with The Philosopher's Zone, and I'm talking to Beth Lord from the 13:40 University of Dundee about Spinoza's God, who seems to be an atheist's God. 13:46 Beth, from what you've just said, it sounds as though what Spinoza might be hoping is 13:56 that eventually we'll be able to do without these fictions, that we will learn to behave 14:02 rationally, and we can put the fictional God behind us. 14:07 Spinoza certainly would hope that we could do that, that human beings could become more 14:13 and more and more rational. And when human beings are more and more and more rational, 14:17 they understand themselves better and furthermore they come into communities with other rational 14:22 human beings and they're able to manage themselves almost automatically without having to have 14:27 organizing structures like religion or politics. 14:31 However, Spinoza is also quite realistic about whether this might be possible. 14:36 He doesn't really believe in this kind of ideal, perfect rational community, or rather 14:41 he doesn't believe that it could really come about. 14:43 And the reason for that is that human beings are inevitably governed by images and feelings. 14:50 We can't take ourselves out of the world of finite objects such that we could somehow 14:56 become unaffected by the things that we interact with. 14:59 It is of the nature to be a finite being, such as ourselves, that we are constantly 15:03 interacting with other people, with other things. 15:06 We need other things like food and water and shelter in order to keep ourselves alive, 15:11 but furthermore we need these human interactions in order to do the things we do, and in order 15:15 to keep ourselves going. 15:17 And when we interact with things, we are inevitably affected by them. 15:20 And when we are affected by things, we tend to be overcome by our feelings, our passions, 15:25 and those passions really cloud over our rational knowledge, and make it pretty unlikely that 15:30 we're ever going to become 100% rational. 15:32 So the best that Spinoza thinks we can hope for is that everybody becomes a little bit 15:36 more rational than they were when they started life, and he does think that's a realistic prospect. 15:42 The definition of God which I mentioned at the beginning of the Ethics, is extremely 15:48 similar to the definition put forward by the great medieval Jewish philosopher, 15:54 Moses Maimonides. 15:56 Now Maimonides was also a Rabbi; I assume that really Spinoza is turning his back on 16:05 a whole tradition of thinking about God, and he's turning his back on his contemporaries 16:09 as well, like Descartes, isn't he? 16:11 He is. 16:12 I mean certainly Spinoza was thoroughly familiar with Maimonides, with Aristotle, with Plato, 16:18 with Descartes, and with a number of other thinkers from the classical and medieval traditions. 16:23 Really he's turning his back on any theistic conception of God. 16:28 So I think Maimonides is a kind of crucial turning point because Maimonides of course 16:32 is bringing the language of Aristotle into religious questions. 16:36 But Maimonides doesn't quite make the move that Spinoza does to equating God entirely 16:40 with being, I think. 16:42 And I presume one thing about Maimonides' God is that He is the God of the Old Testament, 16:49 he does rule providentially over the universe and Spinoza's God presumably doesn't do that. 16:55 That's right. 16:56 Spinoza denies that God is a legislator, he denies that God is interested in human affairs, 17:02 he denies that God is interested in intervening in human affairs. 17:06 So Spinoza is really critical of the anthropomorphic notion of a God who kind of sits up there 17:11 in Heaven and judges human actions and human behavior. 17:14 For Spinoza's God doesn't do any of those things, of course, because God is being. 17:19 God doesn't make judgments about good and evil or about rewarding good behavior 17:23 or punishing bad behavior or anything like that. 17:26 So it's really a very radical shift in the notion of what God is and what God does. 17:31 God just is nature, and God's being just goes on and on indefinitely, infinitely in fact. 17:37 And God is really indifferent, Spinoza's God is really indifferent to human suffering and 17:41 human actions. 17:43 So, where does divine love, which, as I mentioned, is discussed at the end of the Ethics 17:48 --where does divine love come into it? 17:50 This is a really interesting question because for many readers of Spinoza when you get to 17:54 the end of the Ethics and Spinoza starts talking about eternal being and divine love, it's 17:58 very strange; it almost seems that Spinoza is reverting to a kind of theological model 18:03 of thinking about the relationship to God. 18:06 This is perhaps best explained through Spinoza's notion of 'blessedness'. And essentially he believes 18:12 that as we become more and more rational, in other words, we gain more and more true 18:17 knowledge, we kind of come to understand God more and more. 18:21 Because God is equivalent to being or nature, as we come to understand nature more and more, 18:26 that obviously means we're coming to understand God more and more. 18:31 And understanding God more and more, Spinoza explains, also makes us more and more virtuous. 18:37 And this is quite an interesting argument because virtue for Spinoza is equivalent to power. 18:42 He draws on the Latin term 'virtus' which means 'power'. And so, as we know more and more, 18:47 we become more and more rational, we also become better at being human beings. 18:51 We understand ourselves, we understand what's good for us and how to act, and how to become 18:56 stronger and better at being what we are. 18:59 And so as we become more rational, more virtuous, we're sort of climbing up the ladder to greater 19:04 virtue and knowledge, Spinoza says we also become more blessed. 19:08 And what he really seems to mean by that is that we kind of regain more and more of our 19:13 essence as it exists in God. 19:16 So human beings, along with all other finite beings, have an essence which exists in God; 19:21 in being, that it to say for Spinoza. 19:23 And as we regain more and more of our true essence, what we truly are, it's almost as if 19:28 we come back to our true nature which is to be in God. 19:31 And that sort of how Spinoza understands blessedness and the notion of the love of God. 19:35 It's kind of an affirmation of our being as being part of nature. 19:40 And the importance of religion, which you've already alluded to, it's not just bringing 19:46 order to daily life, it actually plays a role in the formation and the perpetuation of political states. 19:54 It does. 19:55 One of the interesting aspects of the theological political treatise--this is the text that 20:01 Spinoza wrote, well that he published in 1670 and which was promptly banned and censored 20:06 all across Europe and was censored for hundreds of years. 20:09 One of the interesting factors of this text is the way in which Spinoza brings religion 20:13 and politics together. 20:15 So he offers an extensive analysis of the Bible. And he argues that in the Bible and 20:21 particularly with respect to the Mosaic Law, the laws that Moses got supposedly directly 20:27 from God were actually laws about how to govern the State of the Israelites. 20:33 And Spinoza's pretty clear throughout that politics holds a very similar role to religion. 20:39 Political systems, systems of civic laws, are fictions in the same way that religion is a fiction. 20:46 If people were perfectly rational, people would be able to govern themselves without 20:50 recourse to laws because everyone would behave according to their true nature, their true essence, 20:56 and there wouldn't be any conflict or any problems. 20:58 But of course, people aren't fully rational and therefore people need governance, and 21:04 they need to be punished when they do the wrong thing and they need to be praised 21:07 when they do the right thing. 21:08 And therefore, government systems of law work hand-in-hand with religion to keep people 21:14 in check. 21:16 Well keep people in check, yes. You said earlier that this could potentially sound slightly 21:22 sinister and I wonder, it's as though you, I and Spinoza can talk about atheism but 21:30 not in front of 'the help' in case they get uppity. 21:33 That's a bit worrying, isn't it? 21:36 Spinoza certainly thinks that there is potential for these fictions, whether they be political 21:43 or religious fictions, to be used in negative ways. 21:47 For instance, if you had a leader of a group of people who was himself or herself not very 21:54 rational and very dependent on their own emotions and passions and images, that person would 22:00 likely not be a very good leader. 22:02 They would probably rule tyrannically and they would make use of fictions and affects 22:07 in order to rule people through fear. And Spinoza's pretty clear that that's 22:10 a bad form of governance. 22:12 And of course religion can also effect fear and loathing among people as well. 22:16 Again, as people become more and more rational, more and more rational forms of governance 22:20 and civil state and religion come about. 22:23 So Spinoza's clear that a democratic civil state is the best kind of political state, 22:28 and the most rational kind of political state, the one which most allows people most freedom 22:33 and tolerance among each other. 22:36 In the 18th century the German writer and philosopher, Novalis, referred to Spinoza 22:42 as "ein Gott betrunkene mensch", a God-intoxicated man. 22:48 Do you think that despite his notion that God is a fiction, this is an accurate description 22:53 of Spinoza? I do in a sense. 22:56 It's clear if you read the Ethics that the notion of God as Nature is absolutely central 23:02 to Spinoza's system. 23:04 And as I was saying earlier, it is important that Nature is called 'God' for Spinoza, because 23:08 Spinoza thinks that this is what God is. 23:11 At the same time, I don't think it's essential that we use the term 'God' when we're talking 23:15 about Spinoza's God. 23:16 I often say to my students that, you know, if you don't like the word 'God', it's perfectly 23:20 acceptable to use the word 'being' or to use the word 'energy' to refer to Spinoza's God 23:24 or indeed to use the word 'nature' as he sometimes does. 23:27 So while I think Spinoza had good reason for using the word 'God' and while I think he 23:31 believed that this is what God is, that God is being, nevertheless I think he thinks the 23:35 word 'God' is really just a word, and we don't necessarily have to use that word. 23:41 Well, for more on Spinoza or to share your thoughts on him, or for that matter, God 23:47 or Nature, with us and your fellow listeners, check our our website. 23:55 Beth Lord, thank you very much for joining us today. 23:58 Thank you. 23:59 Beth Lord teaches philosophy at the University of Dundee. 24:03 And she's the Director of the Spinoza Research Network, which itself has an extensive web page 24:10 devoted to all things Spinozistic. Links to that too on our website. 24:16 The show is produced by Kyla Slaven, Charlie McCune is the sound engineer, I'm Alan Saunders. English
00:00
Today in The Philosopher's Zone, we meet Spinoza's God.
00:06
Now, that might seem an odd thing to do, especially as Baruch Spinoza, one of the greatest
00:15
philosophers of his day, was expelled from the Amsterdam Synagogue in 1656, probably
00:22
because of his unorthodox religious views.
00:26
Ever since, Spinoza has been regarded as the great atheist of the Western tradition.
00:33
Between the 17th and the 19th centuries, not only were his works periodically suppressed,
00:39
but even being named a Spinozist could have had grave consequences.
00:44
Hello, I'm Alan Saunders.
00:47
And here's the odd thing.
00:49
Spinoza refers to God throughout his writings.
00:54
His central work, the Ethics, opens with a definition of God, and closes with a discussion
01:00
of divine love.
01:02
Another of his books, The Treatise of Political Theology, deals extensively with the law of
01:09
Moses and the role that religion plays in the formation and perpetuation of states.
01:15
So can we reconcile the paradox in Spinoza between his perceived atheism and
01:22
his constant references to the divine?
01:26
Today we're joined by Beth Lord, who teaches
01:29
philosophy at the University of Dundee, and is the Director of the Spinoza Research Network.
01:36
Beth, welcome to The Philosopher's Zone.
01:38
Thank you very much, it's a pleasure to be here.
01:41
Let's begin, not with Spinoza but with somebody we can all agree genuinely is an atheist,
01:48
Richard Dawkins.
01:50
Now he entertains in his central book on atheism, he entertains the idea of Einstein's God.
01:58
And Einstein's God--the God who, as Einstein said, does not play dice with the universe--
02:05
Einstein's God is essentially Spinoza's God.
02:08
So, what is Dawkins getting at?
02:11
This is a really interesting point.
02:13
Dawkins actually opens his book, The God Delusion, with a discussion of what he calls Einsteinian Religion,
02:19
and essentially what he's talking about is Spinoza's God.
02:23
Now Spinoza's God is essentially equivalent to nature, and by nature we don't just mean
02:29
the whole of the experienced and perceived world around us, but actually all of being,
02:35
which for Spinoza is infinitely rich and expresses itself in infinite ways.
02:40
So, when Dawkins refers to Einstein's God or Einsteinian religion, of course Einstein was
02:47
a great reader of Spinoza, he was a great fan of Spinoza, and he claimed on more than one
02:51
occasion that the God he believed in was Spinoza's God.
02:55
And when Dawkins quotes this material, he makes clear that the God that he is denying
03:00
in his book and the delusion that he associates with that God, is not concerning Einstein's
03:05
God or Einsteinian religion, but is concerning the God of theology, supernatural Gods essentially.
03:11
So Dawkins' view basically is that you can have Einstein's God, Spinoza's God, if you
03:19
want to, but why bother?
03:21
Essentially that's right.
03:22
He seems to be perfectly happy to accept that some scientists and other atheists might well
03:27
want to hold to a notion of the Einsteinian God or the Spinozistic God, but he has problems
03:33
with calling that being 'God'.
03:36
Dawkins thinks that if we call nature 'God', we're kind of confusing our terminology,
03:41
and why would we do that if we're really atheists? Why would we call nature 'God'?
03:44
Why not call nature, 'nature', and take God out of the equation altogether?
03:48
Well indeed, why not call nature, 'nature'?
03:50
Why does Spinoza talk so much about God?
03:55
Well Spinoza believes that the true understanding of God really does equate to the whole of being.
04:02
So let me put a little bit more detail on that.
04:04
Spinoza thinks that any kind of basic theological definition of God, whether that be from a
04:11
Jewish, Christian, Muslim perspective, or even from other religious perspectives, any
04:16
basic definition of God is going to include the definition that God is a substance of
04:21
infinite attributes. Now what does that mean?
04:24
Well for Spinoza, 'substance' basically means an independently existing being, that is something
04:28
that doesn't depend on anything else for its existence, and 'infinite attributes' really
04:34
means that this being exists in infinite different kinds of ways.
04:38
So Spinoza thinks that if you take your basic theological definition of God and you strip
04:43
away all the stuff that's said about this God in the Bible or through conventional
04:47
religion, then what you'll be left with is that definition, a being of infinite attributes.
04:53
Spinoza thinks that there's good reason to carry on calling this being 'God', because
04:57
that for him, is basically what God is.
04:59
So we should carry on calling it 'God', but his point is that the theologians and people
05:04
who believe in religion need to understand, they need to come to true understanding of
05:08
the fact that the God that they believe in turns out to be 'being,' the substance
05:14
of infinite attributes.
05:16
If that's who God is, or if that's what God is, doesn't that make Spinoza a pantheist?
05:24
Yes. Spinoza is certainly a pantheist.
05:28
He's usually called an atheist, and it's also true to say that he's an atheist in the sense
05:32
that he denies the God of theism.
05:35
So the God of theism would be God as he is described in the Bible let's say, and Spinoza
05:40
certainly thinks that that God is a fiction, a fictional construct that human beings use,
05:45
for very good reason.
05:47
So Spinoza can be said to be an atheist in that sense, but as you've pointed out already,
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it's pretty strange to call someone an atheist whose work is so infused with the notion of God.
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So the term Pantheist is often used to describe Spinoza, and a Pantheist is really someone
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who believes that God is everywhere, God is in everything.
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But even the word 'Pantheist' can be a bit problematic when talking about Spinoza, because
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really Spinoza believes that God IS being, not that God is in being, or that
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God is dwelling in things, or anything like that, but that God just is equivalent to
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all of existence.
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Spinoza thinks that there are 3 ways of apprehending the world:
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There's intuition, there's reason--which means philosophy & science--and there's the imagination.
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Now we can presumably use all of them to understand God, but imagination is very important here, isn't it?
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That's right.
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The 3 kinds of knowledge are crucial to Spinoza's system.
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Imagination is the way we know through experience.
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So anything that has to do with the way we experience and perceive the world, with our
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memories, with our anticipations, with our dreams, all of these kinds of things are what
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Spinoza calls 'imagination'.
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And imagination, while it's less adequate than rational knowledge, as Spinoza puts it,
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it's a kind of confused and partial and mixed-up version of true knowledge, nevertheless, it's
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not entirely false or illusory, we shouldn't take the word 'imagination' necessarily
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to mean made up, or anything like that.
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Imagination is essentially empirical knowledge, and empirical knowledge is hugely important
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in building up our true rational knowledge, which is sort of the next stage up.
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Now imagination is important with respect to this question of God and religion, because
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through the imagination we build up what Spinoza calls 'fictions'. And fictions, they have
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quite an interesting status in Spinoza's epistemology.
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Fictions are neither true nor false. They're kind of organized systems of images based
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on our experiences, based on the experiences that human beings share.
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These fictions are hugely useful in structuring our experience and helping us to decide how
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to behave and how to live our lives.
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And religion, and the Biblical notion of God, fit into this idea of fiction.
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So religion is a fiction.
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Does that mean that again, contrary to Dawkins, it's not among those things that can be said
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to be either true or false? That's right.
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Spinoza thinks that because religion is fictional, it means that it's not the kind of thing that
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can be demonstrated to be true or false.
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It's a useful organizing structure that helps us to organize our experience.
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And Spinoza thinks that religion is specifically useful in helping people to behave better
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and to be obedient to the law.
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So this is quite an interesting factor of Spinoza's thought.
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He's all in favour of religion, not because he thinks that religion gives us a true understanding
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of God, but because religion interprets God to people in a way that they can easily understand.
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And Spinoza thinks that that's far preferable than that people should hold false notions
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or that they should just be left to their own devices. He thinks religion is actually
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quite a useful structure in making people kind of get along well with one another and,
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as he puts it, loving their neighbor in living peacefully and harmoniously.
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And that's really what fictions are for.
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Let's just tease out the notion of fictions a bit more.
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And let's take an example: Hamlet.
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Okay, Hamlet is a fiction. However, there are things I can say about Hamlet which are not true.
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If I say that Hamlet is a black man who lives in Venice, I've confused him with Othello.
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And it is not true that Hamlet is a black man who lives in Venice.
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So I can make true or false statements about a fiction.
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You can, but the truth and falsity of those statements are only relative to the fictional
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world of Hamlet.
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In a sense, there is no true or false statement that can be made about Hamlet because Hamlet
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isn't a true idea.
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So Spinoza really holds to a very specific understanding of truth.
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And true ideas for Spinoza are ideas that exist in God, that is, in being.
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So Hamlet for Spinoza really isn't a true idea, but nor is it false idea.
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Again, it's a fiction. It's an idea that's neither true nor false that might be useful for us.
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So the story of Hamlet and the play of Hamlet might be useful for our society, or just useful
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for entertainment or for telling a story.
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But the whole question of true and false statements about it, while we might say one could make
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true and false statements about the events in the play, they're not ultimately true or false
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for Spinoza they're just imaginary.
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So the function of religion then is that it promotes peace and harmony.
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It has a social utility? Yes.
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And it needs to be kept away, theology and faith need to be set apart from reason and philosophy.
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Exactly. What Spinoza says is that reason and philosophy have a different aim from religion.
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The purpose of reason, philosophy, and science are to discover the truth.
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So through our rational thought, we attain more and more true knowledge or adequate
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knowledge. And what that means really is that we tap in to true ideas as they exist in God.
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It's quite a strange notion, but Spinoza explains it quite clearly.
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How we do this is basically through things like scientific experiments, where we pick up
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on what's called the common notions, and these are kind of ideas that are common to
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ourselves and to the things that we interact with.
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So as build up more and more of these common notions, we attain more and more true knowledge.
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And we do that through science, through philosophy,
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through various other kinds of human endeavors as well.
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So the aim of science, philosophy and reason is to get at the truth.
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Now the aim of religion is rather different.
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Spinoza, again, because he thinks that religion is fictional & he thinks that therefore
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its status is neither true nor false, and in a sense truth and falsity just don't really
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pertain to religion.
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Religion's job is to interpret the truth about God to people in a way that they can understand.
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So its role is to tell stories, to interpret the truth about the world to people,
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and therefore its aim is not to tell the truth or even to discover the truth, its aim is
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to make people behave better and to keep people obedient.
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Now that sounds rather sinister, but actually Spinoza thinks that's good thing.
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It's a good thing because most people are irrational most of the time, he thinks.
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Most people live according to their imagination.
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So they're driven by their experiences, by the feelings that they associate with their
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experiences, by different chains of association which differ from person to person.
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And when people are irrational, they tend to come into conflict with each other; they
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tend to desire the same things and they fight over those things, and people don't get along
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very easily.
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So the role of religion is really in controlling and helping to manage people's feelings
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and images when they're in this irrational state.
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And Spinoza's aim is always for people to become more rational and to be able to govern
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themselves through their own true knowledge about the world.
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But he's kind of realistic about the prospects of that happening, and since he doesn't see
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humanity becoming enormously rational any time soon, he tends to think that structures
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like religion are necessary to keep people in line.
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On ABC Radio National, you're with The Philosopher's Zone, and I'm talking to Beth Lord from the
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University of Dundee about Spinoza's God, who seems to be an atheist's God.
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Beth, from what you've just said, it sounds as though what Spinoza might be hoping is
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that eventually we'll be able to do without these fictions, that we will learn to behave
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rationally, and we can put the fictional God behind us.
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Spinoza certainly would hope that we could do that, that human beings could become more
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and more and more rational. And when human beings are more and more and more rational,
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they understand themselves better and furthermore they come into communities with other rational
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human beings and they're able to manage themselves almost automatically without having to have
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organizing structures like religion or politics.
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However, Spinoza is also quite realistic about whether this might be possible.
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He doesn't really believe in this kind of ideal, perfect rational community, or rather
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he doesn't believe that it could really come about.
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And the reason for that is that human beings are inevitably governed by images and feelings.
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We can't take ourselves out of the world of finite objects such that we could somehow
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become unaffected by the things that we interact with.
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It is of the nature to be a finite being, such as ourselves, that we are constantly
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interacting with other people, with other things.
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We need other things like food and water and shelter in order to keep ourselves alive,
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but furthermore we need these human interactions in order to do the things we do, and in order
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to keep ourselves going.
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And when we interact with things, we are inevitably affected by them.
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And when we are affected by things, we tend to be overcome by our feelings, our passions,
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and those passions really cloud over our rational knowledge, and make it pretty unlikely that
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we're ever going to become 100% rational.
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So the best that Spinoza thinks we can hope for is that everybody becomes a little bit
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more rational than they were when they started life, and he does think that's a realistic prospect.
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The definition of God which I mentioned at the beginning of the Ethics, is extremely
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similar to the definition put forward by the great medieval Jewish philosopher,
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Moses Maimonides.
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Now Maimonides was also a Rabbi; I assume that really Spinoza is turning his back on
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a whole tradition of thinking about God, and he's turning his back on his contemporaries
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as well, like Descartes, isn't he?
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He is.
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I mean certainly Spinoza was thoroughly familiar with Maimonides, with Aristotle, with Plato,
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with Descartes, and with a number of other thinkers from the classical and medieval traditions.
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Really he's turning his back on any theistic conception of God.
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So I think Maimonides is a kind of crucial turning point because Maimonides of course
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is bringing the language of Aristotle into religious questions.
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But Maimonides doesn't quite make the move that Spinoza does to equating God entirely
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with being, I think.
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And I presume one thing about Maimonides' God is that He is the God of the Old Testament,
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he does rule providentially over the universe and Spinoza's God presumably doesn't do that.
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That's right.
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Spinoza denies that God is a legislator, he denies that God is interested in human affairs,
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he denies that God is interested in intervening in human affairs.
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So Spinoza is really critical of the anthropomorphic notion of a God who kind of sits up there
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in Heaven and judges human actions and human behavior.
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For Spinoza's God doesn't do any of those things, of course, because God is being.
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God doesn't make judgments about good and evil or about rewarding good behavior
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or punishing bad behavior or anything like that.
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So it's really a very radical shift in the notion of what God is and what God does.
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God just is nature, and God's being just goes on and on indefinitely, infinitely in fact.
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And God is really indifferent, Spinoza's God is really indifferent to human suffering and
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human actions.
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So, where does divine love, which, as I mentioned, is discussed at the end of the Ethics
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--where does divine love come into it?
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This is a really interesting question because for many readers of Spinoza when you get to
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the end of the Ethics and Spinoza starts talking about eternal being and divine love, it's
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very strange; it almost seems that Spinoza is reverting to a kind of theological model
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of thinking about the relationship to God.
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This is perhaps best explained through Spinoza's notion of 'blessedness'. And essentially he believes
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that as we become more and more rational, in other words, we gain more and more true
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knowledge, we kind of come to understand God more and more.
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Because God is equivalent to being or nature, as we come to understand nature more and more,
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that obviously means we're coming to understand God more and more.
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And understanding God more and more, Spinoza explains, also makes us more and more virtuous.
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And this is quite an interesting argument because virtue for Spinoza is equivalent to power.
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He draws on the Latin term 'virtus' which means 'power'. And so, as we know more and more,
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we become more and more rational, we also become better at being human beings.
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We understand ourselves, we understand what's good for us and how to act, and how to become
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stronger and better at being what we are.
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And so as we become more rational, more virtuous, we're sort of climbing up the ladder to greater
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virtue and knowledge, Spinoza says we also become more blessed.
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And what he really seems to mean by that is that we kind of regain more and more of our
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essence as it exists in God.
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So human beings, along with all other finite beings, have an essence which exists in God;
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in being, that it to say for Spinoza.
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And as we regain more and more of our true essence, what we truly are, it's almost as if
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we come back to our true nature which is to be in God.
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And that sort of how Spinoza understands blessedness and the notion of the love of God.
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It's kind of an affirmation of our being as being part of nature.
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And the importance of religion, which you've already alluded to, it's not just bringing
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order to daily life, it actually plays a role in the formation and the perpetuation of political states.
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It does.
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One of the interesting aspects of the theological political treatise--this is the text that
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Spinoza wrote, well that he published in 1670 and which was promptly banned and censored
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all across Europe and was censored for hundreds of years.
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One of the interesting factors of this text is the way in which Spinoza brings religion
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and politics together.
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So he offers an extensive analysis of the Bible. And he argues that in the Bible and
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particularly with respect to the Mosaic Law, the laws that Moses got supposedly directly
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from God were actually laws about how to govern the State of the Israelites.
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And Spinoza's pretty clear throughout that politics holds a very similar role to religion.
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Political systems, systems of civic laws, are fictions in the same way that religion is a fiction.
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If people were perfectly rational, people would be able to govern themselves without
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recourse to laws because everyone would behave according to their true nature, their true essence,
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and there wouldn't be any conflict or any problems.
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But of course, people aren't fully rational and therefore people need governance, and
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they need to be punished when they do the wrong thing and they need to be praised
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when they do the right thing.
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And therefore, government systems of law work hand-in-hand with religion to keep people
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in check.
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Well keep people in check, yes. You said earlier that this could potentially sound slightly
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sinister and I wonder, it's as though you, I and Spinoza can talk about atheism but
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not in front of 'the help' in case they get uppity.
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That's a bit worrying, isn't it?
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Spinoza certainly thinks that there is potential for these fictions, whether they be political
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or religious fictions, to be used in negative ways.
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For instance, if you had a leader of a group of people who was himself or herself not very
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rational and very dependent on their own emotions and passions and images, that person would
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likely not be a very good leader.
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They would probably rule tyrannically and they would make use of fictions and affects
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in order to rule people through fear. And Spinoza's pretty clear that that's
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a bad form of governance.
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And of course religion can also effect fear and loathing among people as well.
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Again, as people become more and more rational, more and more rational forms of governance
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and civil state and religion come about.
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So Spinoza's clear that a democratic civil state is the best kind of political state,
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and the most rational kind of political state, the one which most allows people most freedom
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and tolerance among each other.
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In the 18th century the German writer and philosopher, Novalis, referred to Spinoza
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as "ein Gott betrunkene mensch", a God-intoxicated man.
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Do you think that despite his notion that God is a fiction, this is an accurate description
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of Spinoza? I do in a sense.
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It's clear if you read the Ethics that the notion of God as Nature is absolutely central
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to Spinoza's system.
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And as I was saying earlier, it is important that Nature is called 'God' for Spinoza, because
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Spinoza thinks that this is what God is.
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At the same time, I don't think it's essential that we use the term 'God' when we're talking
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about Spinoza's God.
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I often say to my students that, you know, if you don't like the word 'God', it's perfectly
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acceptable to use the word 'being' or to use the word 'energy' to refer to Spinoza's God
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or indeed to use the word 'nature' as he sometimes does.
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So while I think Spinoza had good reason for using the word 'God' and while I think he
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believed that this is what God is, that God is being, nevertheless I think he thinks the
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word 'God' is really just a word, and we don't necessarily have to use that word.
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Well, for more on Spinoza or to share your thoughts on him, or for that matter, God
23:47
or Nature, with us and your fellow listeners, check our our website.
23:55
Beth Lord, thank you very much for joining us today.
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Thank you.
23:59
Beth Lord teaches philosophy at the University of Dundee.
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And she's the Director of the Spinoza Research Network, which itself has an extensive web page
24:10
devoted to all things Spinozistic. Links to that too on our website.
24:16
The show is produced by Kyla Slaven, Charlie McCune is the sound engineer, I'm Alan Saunders.
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