Spinoza’s God or Spinozism is the is a philosophical system of Baruch Spinoza which defines God as a self-subsistent substance that is ever changing and growing, but not a static thing. The concept of Spinozism is that everyone is a derivative of God and interconnected with each other. Humans may experience some form of thought and extension but through their actions, they will influence others. Everything around is part of God and that the universe is essentially all planned out. Everything that has happened or will happen would not happen any other way and that is the way of God.
Spinoza’s God Has No Will or Intentions
Accordingly, Spinoza thus came to the conclusion that God has no will or intentions and that everything happens because it just is. This is largely in contrast with how the normal Christian God or God of any religion operates as they are independent organisms and thus will interact with humans. Spinoza’s God is nature and there is no superstition to it. Whatever happens in this world, it is simply because of nature and how it is.
Spinoza’s God Has No Plan for Us. It Is Not a Personal Providential God
Because of that, God will have no plan for us, nor will he provide us with an alternative path in life or help us along the way. Humans tend to view God as someone with an attribute of humans, except boosted to unimaginable heights. This God is, therefore, able to perform miracles and faith in Him can result in a disruption of the laws of nature. Spinoza argued that the reason why the Bible could not be trusted was because it was written by men. The only way to truly confirm the truth was for the truths to be identified and in turn revealed from the Bible instead of the other way around. Besides, men back in that time may not have been intelligent enough to have perceived what was happening and thus attributed it to miracles.
Religions’ Gods Are Born from Superstition
Think about this, if a friend had just died and you had to break the news to another friend, your friend would question you about the death of the friend. To which you will reply that your friend had been walking along the road when a brick landed on his head and killed him. Now your friend will keep on asking you about the circumstances that arose leading to his death and you will continue answering him. It may be because of the weather on that day, due to the climate of the country and so on, but ultimately you will find that you run out of reasons that explain why something happened. That is when religion comes in because religion is made up of superstitions to explain what occurs. Humans rely on religion in order to explain the unexplainable because we simply have to attribute something to a cause.
Now Spinoza’s God refutes this completely, believing instead that the reason why the friend died was simply because of the laws of nature and ordained by God. What do you think?