Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

[attofishpi]

God is not free. Everything that happens in the world is a necessary consequence of the nature of the universe itself.
He means that the universe is wholly deterministic. God does not reflect; does not desire; does not want; nor care.
Care is an emergent quality and is human, all too human.

Yes and I understand that, but I am irked by the term "immanent cause".

I finally found today the research I had done on Spinoza (that was assisted with ChatGPT) before my PC "deterministically" got shagged in a bad way.
This term, an alternative to 'transitive cause' - an actual cause that makes sense to me doesn't make sense.

Is immanent cause a term used widely? There is no causality to it beyond humans applying definitions to things. (retro in time)

I can't see how "transitive" can help in this context.
unless...
So the idea would be that is a leads to b and b leads to c then it hold that c leads to a. I suppose we could conclude that it simplies a uniformitarianism.
Whilst "immanent" would imply ever present. The idea is that the world evolves according to constant change which, in some ways would also have to bu uniform.
That would make both compatible?

The way I see this term immanent cause, is not a cause of anything. God has transitive cause, maybe not necessarily to the cause of the entire universe, but certainly is the cause of our entire perception of reality.

"Ethics" he states "God is the immanent cause of all things" - immanent cause causes nothing, I don't see it as a cause.

Of course I disagree here with Spinoza there.

His strategy is to pick on eveyday assumptions about god so as to unpack them, as either inconsistent to other ideas, or inherently meaningless.
Providence, vengeance, disappointment, and a rage of other characteristics attributed to god is incompatible with omnipotence omnicience and so forth.
Spinoza's geometic "proof" of god is characterised by unpacking and destorying everything beleived about god.

Yes it's easy to find fault, contradictions with much of typical theist belief with their assumptions but certainly by his use of these assumptions I disagree that he has destroyed everything believed about God, I for one and from experience of this entity do not hold these assumptions.

This for example which ends in the statement:- which is nowise in God, who is all goodness and
perfection. From experience this is another assumption, and indeed to look at the nature of life which he includes as God, it is obvious it is not ALL good.

Spinoza:-
either could not or would not give more ? The first i
[alternative] is not true, because it is impossible that a
substance should have wanted to make itself finite, especially
a substance which had come into existence through itself.
Therefore, I say, it is made finite by its cause, which is
necessarily God. Further, if it is finite through its cause,
this must be so either because its cause could not give
more, or because it would not give more. That he should
not have been able to give more would contradict his
omnipotence ; f that he should not have been willing 10
to give more, when he could well do so, savours of ill-
will, which is nowise in God, who is all goodness and
perfection.

[attofishpi]

It's like Skepdick stated - Frank defines his shoe as God - Frank is not an atheist. Spinoza and Frank are rather similar.

I don't think Frank defining his own use of the word God is what decides if other people think he's an atheist or not.

Yes I agree, it was a stretch on my part but I just wanted to explain that calling everything God where Spinoza states "God" has no intelligent agency including to will transitive causality to outcomes, renders him an atheist. His God that caused nothing but just 'IS' nature is a ridiculous way to define God.

[Flannel Jesus]

It's like Skepdick stated - Frank defines his shoe as God - Frank is not an atheist. Spinoza and Frank are rather similar.

I don't think Frank defining his own use of the word God is what decides if other people think he's an atheist or not.

Yes I agree, it was a stretch on my part but I just wanted to explain that calling everything God where Spinoza states "God" has no intelligent agency including to will transitive causality to outcomes, renders him an atheist. His God that caused nothing but just 'IS' nature is a ridiculous way to define God.

Sure sure.

It'd be like me defining meat as "mushrooms" and then, because I don't eat mushrooms, declaring myself a vegan.

[Belinda]

Spinoza was no atheist. Spinoza believed God-or-Nature really exists and is the uncaused cause of everything.

Immanent cause is ongoing and unalterable cause. For Spinoza, God-or-Nature is ongoing and unalterable.

Spinoza was an atheist, since what he called god was nature. Mute. deterministic, non intervening,. ANd not at ll how "god" was defined elsewhere. His contemporaries had they the skills to read his ethics would have condemned him as an atheist.
If he had been honest, he'd have been killed.
As it was his own community excomunicated him.

That is certainly one way to define 'atheist' and as you imply is why the Jews of Amsterdam expelled him from their community. I define 'atheist' as someone who does not believe there is any a priori order in nature.

[Agent Smith]

Spinoza ... there there ... pardon the unfeeling spoon ... was obviously troubled by and grappling with the oldest problem in the Biblia Natura (testing my Latin) and it's apparent who won so to speak. Is there a 22nd century Spinoza, somewhere out there, in the vast sea of people?

[Gary Childress]

Almost true.
The trouble with the word pantheist is that it is most often used to describe an omnipresent "personal" God.
For Spinoza god was not conscious; not reactive; has no desires, wants or needs; is utterly determined. God is the essence and substance of everything, the laws of the universe: nature itself; good and bad.

God is so much the same as nature, it always puzzled me why use the term god at all. That might have had something to do with the fact that atheism was a burning issue; in a very literal sense.

What do you think of the term Spinoza used to refer to the essence, the nature of God as "immanent cause"?

I am irked by it..

God is not free. Everything that happens in the world is a necessary consequence of the nature of the universe itself.
He means that the universe is wholly deterministic. God does not reflect; does not desire; does not want; nor care.
Care is an emergent quality and is human, all too human.

It's been a loooooooong time since I did any reading regarding Spinoza and even with that I never read much about or of him. Did Spinoza believe that God is a "deterministic" machine? I suppose that sounds on par with the technology of his day. Basically, everything (reality) was a giant cog-driven machine because that seems to have been the highest vision any philosopher/scientist/"naturalist" could aspire to in his day. However, my suspicion (without anything to back it up quote-wise) is that Spinoza probably (surely?) had a more sophisticated or nuanced view than that. I've often heard of his "pantheism" but since he apparently departed from the desert religions (at least enough to get its adherents largely against him), he must have thought God something other than the great Archie Bunker in the sky that the God of Abraham seemingly was/is.

[Gary Childress]

Spinoza was no atheist. Spinoza believed God-or-Nature really exists and is the uncaused cause of everything.

Immanent cause is ongoing and unalterable cause. For Spinoza, God-or-Nature is ongoing and unalterable.

Spinoza was an atheist, since what he called god was nature. Mute. deterministic, non intervening,. ANd not at ll how "god" was defined elsewhere. His contemporaries had they the skills to read his ethics would have condemned him as an atheist.
If he had been honest, he'd have been killed.
As it was his own community excomunicated him.

That is certainly one way to define 'atheist' and as you imply is why the Jews of Amsterdam expelled him from their community. I define 'atheist' as someone who does not believe there is any a priori order in nature.

That's pretty much my definition of Atheism as well. Unfortunately, the Church of the Desert seems to view anything short of personal allegiance as heretical. Therefore the highest aspiration they seem to be able to aspire to is the idea that everyone else is going to "hell" or something to that effect.

[Sculptor]

Spinoza:-
either could not or would not give more ? The first i
[alternative] is not true, because it is impossible that a
substance should have wanted to make itself finite, especially
a substance which had come into existence through itself.
Therefore, I say, it is made finite by its cause, which is
necessarily God. Further, if it is finite through its cause,
this must be so either because its cause could not give
more, or because it would not give more. That he should
not have been able to give more would contradict his
omnipotence ; f that he should not have been willing 10
to give more, when he could well do so, savours of ill-
will, which is nowise in God, who is all goodness and
perfection.

Do you realise that he is ending here in an irony.
If god is all then he is not only "all goodness and perfection" but all instances of the opposite in existence.
This would render SPinoza's goid neither good nor evil as the main trust of the ethics would suggest.
It is left up to man to identify that which is good and evil in terms that befits his finate nature.
God being infinite is not good nor evil but both and neither.

[Sculptor]

Spinoza was an atheist, since what he called god was nature. Mute. deterministic, non intervening,. ANd not at ll how "god" was defined elsewhere. His contemporaries had they the skills to read his ethics would have condemned him as an atheist.
If he had been honest, he'd have been killed.
As it was his own community excomunicated him.

That is certainly one way to define 'atheist' and as you imply is why the Jews of Amsterdam expelled him from their community. I define 'atheist' as someone who does not believe there is any a priori order in nature.

That's pretty much my definition of Atheism as well. Unfortunately, the Church of the Desert seems to view anything short of personal allegiance as heretical. Therefore the highest aspiration they seem to be able to aspire to is the idea that everyone else is going to "hell" or something to that effect.

What on earth do you mean by "does not believe in a prori in nature"? A priori in nature does not imply any "god".
I'm perfectly happy with what Spinoza is saying, and am also perfectly happy to call myself an atheist.
Theism does not rise and fall on this issue.

[Skepdick]

What on earth do you mean by "does not believe in a prori in nature"? A priori in nature does not imply any "god".

it does for Spinoza

I'm perfectly happy with what Spinoza is saying, and am also perfectly happy to call myself an atheist.
Theism does not rise and fall on this issue.

So you don't believe in Spinoza's God? You don't believe in the universe?!?

What a nitjob!

[Sculptor]

What do you think of the term Spinoza used to refer to the essence, the nature of God as "immanent cause"?

I am irked by it..

God is not free. Everything that happens in the world is a necessary consequence of the nature of the universe itself.
He means that the universe is wholly deterministic. God does not reflect; does not desire; does not want; nor care.
Care is an emergent quality and is human, all too human.

It's been a loooooooong time since I did any reading regarding Spinoza and even with that I never read much about or of him. Did Spinoza believe that God is a "deterministic" machine?

That is one way of putting it. A rather negative way but yes. Anything less would imply a lack of perfection. A god that has to intevene implies a lack of omnipotence. In fact most of the everyday attributes accorded to god by Theists are undermined by the definition of god as omni-everything.

I suppose that sounds on par with the technology of his day. Basically, everything (reality) was a giant cog-driven machine because that seems to have been the highest vision any philosopher/scientist/"naturalist" could aspire to in his day. However, my suspicion (without anything to back it up quote-wise) is that Spinoza probably (surely?) had a more sophisticated or nuanced view than that. I've often heard of his "pantheism" but since he apparently departed from the desert religions (at least enough to get its adherents largely against him), he must have thought God something other than the great Archie Bunker in the sky that the God of Abraham seemingly was/is.

Spinoza predates L'Homme Machine, and Newton's mechanical world.
But i see no problem here. Even a soul should have inputs, process and output.
I do not see us has proposing anything different. Whilst people are confused by Quantum Mechanics, it's still mechanics, just not yet fully understood.

I've no idea what made you think of Archie Bunker.
SPinoza's "god" is conceived as far the most great and magnifincent concept far and above the petty god of the Abrhamic myths, or other personifications. SPonoza's god is the totality.

It's the Christian god who is the sneeky backbiting pathetic attention seeker.

[Gary Childress]

I've no idea what made you think of Archie Bunker.

I agree with you.

[Sculptor]

I've no idea what made you think of Archie Bunker.

I agree with you.

Did you know he was a second hand character based on Alf Garnet written by Johhny Speight?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbfoSX2YRA8

WARNING CONTAINS OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE and deep irony

[Belinda]

That is certainly one way to define 'atheist' and as you imply is why the Jews of Amsterdam expelled him from their community. I define 'atheist' as someone who does not believe there is any a priori order in nature.

That's pretty much my definition of Atheism as well. Unfortunately, the Church of the Desert seems to view anything short of personal allegiance as heretical. Therefore the highest aspiration they seem to be able to aspire to is the idea that everyone else is going to "hell" or something to that effect.

What on earth do you mean by "does not believe in a prori in nature"? A priori in nature does not imply any "god".
I'm perfectly happy with what Spinoza is saying, and am also perfectly happy to call myself an atheist.
Theism does not rise and fall on this issue.

By " does not believe in a priori order in nature " I mean empirical attitude towards nature(note the small case initial). Spinoza deduced that God-or-Nature is necessary being: Spinoza was not an empiricist , he was a rationalist.

[Belinda]

That is certainly one way to define 'atheist' and as you imply is why the Jews of Amsterdam expelled him from their community. I define 'atheist' as someone who does not believe there is any a priori order in nature.

That's pretty much my definition of Atheism as well. Unfortunately, the Church of the Desert seems to view anything short of personal allegiance as heretical. Therefore the highest aspiration they seem to be able to aspire to is the idea that everyone else is going to "hell" or something to that effect.

What on earth do you mean by "does not believe in a prori in nature"? A priori in nature does not imply any "god".
I'm perfectly happy with what Spinoza is saying, and am also perfectly happy to call myself an atheist.
Theism does not rise and fall on this issue.

I said "a priori order in nature". Spinoza said God-or-Nature is necessary being as there must be something that is cause of itself.