![]() ![]() The briefness of a letter and want of time do not allow me to enter into my opinion on the divine nature, or the questions you have propounded. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped. I am not astonished for I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. When you say that if I deny, that the operations of seeing, hearing, attending, wishing, &c., can be ascribed to God, or that they exist in him in any eminent fashion, you do not know what sort of God mine is I suspect that you believe there is no greater perfection than such as can be explained by the aforesaid attributes.Letter to William van Blyenbergh (1665) as quoted by Sir Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (1880) pp.I know, meanwhile (which is the highest pleasure of all), that all things happen by the power and unchangeable decree of the most perfect Being. But if in any case I did find error in that which I have collected from my natural understanding, I should count it good fortune, since I enjoy life, and endeavour to pass it not in weeping and sighing, but in peace, joy, and cheerfulness, and from time to time climb thereby a step higher. For one truth cannot conflict with another, as I have already clearly shown in my Appendix to the "Principles of Descartes". ![]() For my part, since I plainly confess that I do not understand the Scriptures, though I have spent many years upon them, and since I know that when once I have a firm proof I cannot by any course of thought come to doubt of it, I rest wholly upon that which my understanding commends to me, without any suspicion that I am deceived therein, or that the Scriptures, even though I do not search them, can speak against it. If you find the light of Scripture clearer than the light of reason (which also is given us by divine wisdom), you are doubtless right in your own conscience in making your reason yield.Nature is satisfied with little and if she is, I am also. I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy. The eternal wisdom of God … has shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ. Quotes I say that all things are in God and move in God, thus agreeing with Paul, and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers, though the phraseology may be different. 2.5.3 The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics (1991).2.5.2 Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God (1933).2.5.1 Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (1880).1.2 Theological-Political Treatise (1670). ![]() 1.1 On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662).Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated (1677) When you say that if I deny, that the operations of seeing, hearing, attending, wishing, &c., can be ascribed to God, or that they exist in him in any eminent fashion, you do not know what sort of God mine is I suspect that you believe there is no greater perfection than such as can be explained by the aforesaid attributes. He was named Baruch ("blessed" in Hebrew) Spinoza by his synagogue elders and known as Bento de Spinoza or Bento d'Espiñoza, but afterwards used the name Benedictus ("blessed" in Latin) de Spinoza. Controversy regarding his ideas led to his excommunication from the Jewish community of his native Amsterdam. ![]() I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them.īenedictus de Spinoza ( 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a social and metaphysical philosopher famous for the elaborate development of his monist philosophy, which has become known as Spinozism. ![]()
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