The Role of God in Spinoza's Metaphysics

Sherry Deveaux

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780826488886
• eBook ISBN: 9781441115089
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Baruch Spinoza began his studies learning Hebrew and the Talmud, only to be excommunicated at the age of twenty-four for supposed heresy. Throughout his life, Spinoza was simultaneously accused of being an atheist and a God-intoxicated man. Bertrand Russell said that, compared to others, Spinoza is ethically supreme, 'the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers'. This book is an exploration of (a) what Spinoza understood God to be, (b) how, for him, the infinite and eternal power of God is expressed, and (c) how finite human beings can have a true idea of this greatest of all entities. Sherry Deveaux begins with an analytic discussion of these three questions, and an explication of three different views held by contemporary commentators on Spinoza. She then shows that the commonly held views about Spinoza are inconsistent with Spinoza's texts, especially his magnum opus, the Ethics. Next comes an analysis of topics in Spinoza that must be understood in order correctly to answer the three questions. For example, the notions of 'power' and 'true idea' are discussed, along with Spinoza's definition of the 'essence' of a thing, which is shown to be central to the discussion of Spinoza's God. Deveaux then claims that Spinoza defines God's essence as 'absolutely infinite and eternal power' and that, contrary to the commonly held view that God's essence is identical with the attributes (e.g., thought and extension), God's essence or "power" is expressed through the attributes.

Chapter 1

Three Problems

Problem one: the relation of God to the attributes

I will address three main problems regarding God and the attributes. First, what is the relation of God to the attributes? Currently, there seems to be a general consensus among Spinoza scholars regarding the relation between God and the attributes. A review of contemporary literature on Spinoza’s metaphysics reveals an overwhelming tendency to view God as somehow identical with the attributes. The nature of that identity, however, varies among commentators. Some claim that God is the collection of attributes—that is, the sum of the discrete attributes—while others hold the view that God is the totality of attributes—that is, a whole consisting of non-discrete attributes.

These interpretations of God and the attributes in Spinoza’s metaphysics are motivated in part by statements that, on the surface, appear to support the view that God and the attributes are identical. Consider 1p4 and its demonstration:

1p4: Two or more distinct things are distinguished from one another, either by a difference in the attributes of the substances or by a difference in their affections.

1p4d: Whatever is, is either in itself or in another (by A1), i.e. (by D3 and D5), outside the intellect there is nothing except substances and their affections. Therefore, there is nothing outside the intellect through which a number of things can be distinguished from one another except substances, or what is the same (by D4), their attributes, and their affections, q.e.d.

Others point to Spinoza’s bold claim in the demonstration of 1p15 as support for the view that God is identical with the attributes:

Ipl5d: Except for God, there neither is, nor can be conceived, any substance (by P14), i.e. (by D3), thing that is in itself and is conceived through itself. But modes (by D5) can neither be nor be conceived without substance. So they can be in the divine nature alone, and can be conceived through it alone. But except for substances and modes there is nothing (by A1). Therefore, [NS: everything is in God and] nothing can be or be conceived without God, q.e.d.

Given this statement, one might claim that the attributes must be either substances or modes. Since the attributes are not modes, they must be substances (i.e. the attributes must be God). If God is not identical with the attributes, then any other interpretation must be able to account for claims like those in the demonstrations of 1p4 and 1p15.¹

Although interpretations of God as identical with the attributes may seem straightforward enough, they can pose problems for other interpretations of Spinoza’s views. For example, some commentators hold a subjectivist view regarding the attributes and have suggested that the attributes have no reality outside the intellect. On this reading the attributes are a function of the intellect but do not, in themselves, exist as real entities. Spinoza’s definition of the term “attribute” is 1d4:

By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence.

Some commentators who hold the subjectivist view claim that it is questionable, at the very least, whether the attributes do constitute the essence of God, since the attributes are “what the intellect perceives as” constituting the essence of a substance. Subjectivists frequently claim that the intellect merely perceives the attributes as constituting the essence of God. In other words, on this view, the intellect is mistaken. If the subjectivist view is correct and the attributes have no existence outside the intellect, then the stance that God is identical with the attributes becomes obscure and abstruse. Whether the attributes are subjective or objective in nature, then, is an issue that must be probed and answered. God and the attributes can be identical entities only if the attributes exist as more than ideas in the intellect.

Other commentators interpret the attributes as objective in nature, that is, having existence outside the intellect. Indeed, some commentators claim both that the attributes constitute the essence of God, and that the attributes are somehow identical with God. There are problems with this objectivist view. What constitutes the essence of a thing might not be identical with the thing, since things might not be identical with their essences. Hence, it follows that what constitutes the essence of God might not be identical with God. One can therefore draw the conclusion that Spinoza’s definition of attribute does not commit him to the claim that God is identical with one or all of the attributes.

Questions regarding the number of attributes also naturally arise at this point. By 2p1 and 2p2 we know that there are at least two attributes of God:

2p1: Thought is an attribute of God, or God is a thinking thing.

2p2: Extension is an attribute of God, or God is an extended thing.

According to Id6, God is an absolutely infinite being.² Given 1p9, then, one might think that God has more than two attributes:

1p9: The more reality or being each thing has, the more attributes belong to it.

It has been suggested that since God has infinite reality the quantity of attributes must also be infinite. Are thought and extension the only attributes, or is there an infinity of attributes? How does the number of attributes affect interpretations of God and the attributes in Spinoza’s metaphysics? Spinoza refers at times to the possibility of other attributes, though he concedes that he cannot know any attributes other than thought and extension.³ I will discuss the question of the number of attributes in Spinoza’s meta-physics and entertain various stances on the subject. It may turn out that the number of attributes does not pose a problem for Spinoza. If that is the case, then that may also be the reason why Spinoza entertained the possibility of the existence of more than two attributes without showing much concern for the consequences of that view. I will consider this possibility in my interpretation of the relation between God and the attributes in Spinoza’s metaphysics.

Problem two: the essence of God

What is the essence of God? Commentators frequently suggest that the attributes are the essence of God. In evaluating this opinion one must consider an important definition in Spinoza’s meta-physics—2d2:

I say that to the essence of any thing belongs that which, being given, the thing is [NS: also] necessarily posited and which, being taken away, the thing is necessarily [NS: also] taken away; or that without which the thing can neither be nor be conceived, and which can neither be nor be conceived without the thing.

If the attributes satisfy this definition relative to God, then the attributes are that without which God can neither be nor be conceived and, vice versa, the attributes can neither be nor be conceived without God. In other words, neither God nor the attributes can be or be conceived without the other. The appropriate question to ask, of course, is whether it is one attribute, the collection of attributes, or the totality of attributes which satisfies 2d2. If, on the other hand, the attributes are not the essence of God, then the appropriate question to ask is: what satisfies the stipulations of 2d2 relative to God?

Although many commentators accept 2d2 as Spinoza’s definition of the term “essence”, others question this assumption. Donagan, for example, thinks that 2d2 is the definition of “what pertains to the essence of a thing”. This interpretation of 2d2 may have important ramifications. I will consider this view in my treatment of the essence of God.

A critical examination of Spinoza’s concept of attribute, then, will necessarily require a clear understanding of Spinoza’s concept of essence. Specifically, a clear understanding of the essence of Spinoza’s God will be required. In addition to a thorough exposition of 2d2, an understanding of the essence of God will require an evaluation of Spinoza’s claim in 1p34 that God’s power is God’s essence. A thorough investigation of the attributes of God, therefore, will necessarily involve a careful analysis of how Spinoza understands God, attribute, essence, and power.

Whether the attributes are the essence of God or not, it seems clear enough that, for Spinoza, the attributes both constitute and express the essence of God. Spinoza’s first mention of the attributes constituting the essence of God is found in 1d4, which says that the intellect perceives the attributes as constituting the essence of substance; and the first mention of the attributes expressing the essence of God is in 1d6:

By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence.

What does it mean for the attributes to constitute and express the essence of God? Does “constitute the essence of God” and “express the essence of God” just mean: “is identical with the essence of God”? Does one attribute alone constitute and express the essence of God or does the constitution and expression of God require all the attributes? We will need answers to these questions in order to solve the problem of how to interpret Spinoza’s conception of the essence of God.

Problem three: the true conception of God

What is the true conception of God? That is, what is it to have a true idea of God? Is the true conception of God simply the conception of the attributes?⁴ If this is the case, then we must ask whether the true conception of God is the conception of one attribute, the collection of attributes, or the totality of attributes.

In 2p47 Spinoza claims that the human intellect has an adequate idea of the essence of God:

2p47: The human Mind has an adequate knowledge of God’s eternal and infinite essence.⁵

By 2d2 we know that when the essence of a thing is conceived the thing is necessarily conceived. So, given 2p47 we know that the human intellect has an adequate idea of God. In the scholium of 2pl Spinoza says that we can conceive God through one attribute alone:

2p1s: So since we can conceive an infinite Being by attending to thought alone, Thought (by ID4 and D6) is necessarily one of God’s infinite attributes, as we maintained.

Hence, it seems that the human intellect can have an adequate idea of God through one attribute alone, regardless of whether God is identical with one attribute, the collection of attributes, or the totality of attributes.⁶

However, no attribute can be conceived through another, by 1p1O:

Each attribute of a substance must be conceived through itself.

This information raises problems for the view that God is somehow identical with the attributes. If God is identical with an attribute God can be conceived through that attribute, but this either leaves one other attribute (at the least) unaccounted for, or it suggests that there is more than one substance, which is an impossibility according to 1p14.⁷ If, on the other hand, God is identical with the collection of attributes, then either God is inconceivable (since God is conceivable through any given attribute alone, yet no other attribute can be conceived through any given attribute) or the other attributes are conceivable through one attribute (i.e. the collection is conceivable via one attribute), yet this view directly contradicts 1p10. Finally, if God is identical with the totality of attributes, then either God is inconceivable (since God is conceivable through any given attribute alone, but the totality of attributes cannot be conceived through any given attribute) or the other attributes are conceivable through one attribute (i.e. the totality is conceivable via one attribute), which again contradicts 1p10. None of these scenarios is consistent with the text. A satisfactory solution to this problem must be found in order to explain what a true conception of God is (i.e. of what it consists) and how the human intellect has that idea.

Now that we understand the ramifications of three of the main problems to be discussed, let us turn to the consideration of views held by contemporary Spinoza scholars on the subject of God and the attributes. This will set a foundation for the resolution of the three problems.

Chapter 2

The “God Is the Thing that Has Attributes and Modes as Properties” Interpretation

Jonathan Bennett’s interpretation

Jonathan Bennett understands Spinoza to claim that substances are “things” that have properties; and Spinoza’s substance is the ultimate subject because God is the one and only logically and causally self-sufficient entity of which all other being is predicated.¹ There are two kinds of properties of God on Bennett’s interpretation, viz. modes and attributes, the attributes being the “absolutely basic and irreducible properties” of God.² Attributes, according to Bennett, are “ways of being” for God. That is, God may be understood as being an extended thing or being a thinking thing, etc. Regarding the number of attributes, Bennett thinks it possible that they total only two.³

Although Bennett claims that, for Spinoza, the attributes are the basic properties of substance he also says that the only difference between substance and attribute is that they are different presentations of the content of only one thing, i.e. substance is the substantival presentation and attribute is the adjectival presentation of one entity.⁴ What does this mean? Bennett answers:

The difference between size-shape-location (or for short, extension) and the thing which has those properties (that is, extended substance) is not one of content but just of logical form. … We use the concept of substance to think of what has the attribute, and we use the concept of attribute to think of what the substance has; but it is the same conceptual content in each case.⁵

Presumably, it is not substance and attributes themselves that are presentations of one thing. Rather, Bennett seems to be claiming that the concept of substance and the concept of attribute are two different concepts that present (to the intellect) the content of one thing in two different ways; i.e. the concept “attribute” is the presentation of the unique entity as extension or thought, etc., and the concept “substance’’ is the presentation of the unique entity as that which has … extension or thought or whatever”.⁶ Bennett says that the notion of “that which has attributes” adds not...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Three Problems
• Chapter 2: The "God Is The Thing That Has Attributes And Modes As Properties Interpretation"
• Chapter 3: The "God Is The Collection Of Attributes" Interpretation
• Chapter 4: The "God Is The Totality Of Attributes" Interpretation
• Chapter 5: Benefits And Disadvantages Of The Three Interpretations
• Chapter 6: Essences And True Ideas In Spinoza
• Chapter 7: The Essence Of Spinoza's God
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index