Everything is Perfect

“God or Nature” is limitless and perfect. If that’s the case then everything is as it should be. Everything is perfect.

Spinoza believed that the law of cause and effect, and the perfection of existence, means that everything — including our lives — is predetermined. This is what philosophers call “determinism” — the idea that even our mental “choices” follow the laws of cause and effect. Spinoza has a great deal in common with the ancient Stoics in this respect.

Free will is a misunderstanding of reality. We believe we have free will because we are conscious of our actions. However, we are not entirely aware of all the causes of our actions. The huge web of causes and effects of which we are a part is too complex to understand.

″the infant believes that it is by free will that it seeks the breast; the angry boy believes that by free will he wishes vengeance; the timid man thinks it is with free will he seeks flight.”

If we truly had free will, we would be the cause of ourselves. Actions, after all, require causes. Only “God or Nature” can be the cause of itself.

What about freedom? Freedom, as the philosopher defined it, is the capacity to know that everything is determined. Since “knowing” this needs no powers of observation (in fact it’s impossible prove things are determined by empirical observation), the key to freedom is reason.

Instead of being anxious about our choices in life — and a God that judges and intervenes in the world — Spinoza thought that people’s awareness of this reality would bring tranquility. The attitude we take to our circumstances determines our happiness. If we see the order of existence as perfection, our mind can be put to ease.

Knowledge and understanding are distinct. Knowledge is something you accumulate. You can accumulate more knowledge by buying books or going to an expensive school.

Understanding is free. It comes from the process of reasoning. What’s beautiful about Spinoza’s philosophy is that it shows that we can find freedom through reason alone, not by buying books or going to a school.

Einstein

Spinoza’s philosophical system is one of the most influential in history. Even if they found problems with Ethics, countless philosophers have expressed admiration for the philosopher’s ambition. Spinoza is one of the few to theorise an all-encompassing system that seeks to explain the most difficult questions we face.

Albert Einstein photographed by Ferdinand Schmutzer (source: Wikipedia). Einstein wrote in 1929: “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

Spinoza’s ideas have also proved immensely influential in the scientific field. This is in part because he set out to rationalise the world beyond the observable. Spinoza’s spiritual beliefs inspired Albert Einstein’s own.

“My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem — the most important of all human problems.”

Courage of Convictions

What captures the popular imagination is the courage of Spinoza’s convictions. Despite an assassination attempt, despite being accursed, ostracised and even offered bribes, the philosopher never renounced his views. He was offered a professorship with a generous salary, but Spinoza chose to study and teach privately, lest his views were compromised.

The philosopher worked as a lens grinder to make a relatively humble living instead. Spinoza was fascinated by optics and his work on lenses was significant. He died in 1687 at the age of just forty-four. A lung condition killed him, perhaps as a result of breathing the glass dust from his work.

Ethics was published by his followers posthumously and in secrecy, just in case the authorities attempted to confiscate the original papers.

Spinoza was one of the first truly modern men. This is not only due to his secular life, but because of the original ideas that brought him to his conclusions. Einstein noted that “Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.”

The scientist dedicated a poem to Spinoza. One of the verses goes as follows:

How much do I love that noble man

More than I could tell with words

I fear though he’ll remain alone

With a holy halo of his own.

Thank you for reading. I hope you learned something new.