Regarding the One Infinite Creator

[Jocie]

KevinAir, have you read Spinoza's The Ethics?

Perhaps it will lend some logic behind a lot of these assertions.

Thank you for making mention of this book. A quick search led to the following, of which I excerpted text.

Also there is this download: http://www.fulltextarchive.com/page/The-Ethics/

"To understand why Spinoza caused such outrage, read the following passage from his Preface to the Theological-Political Treatise: I have often wondered that men who make a boast of professing the Christian religion, which is a religion of love, joy, peace, temperance and honest dealing with all men, should quarrel so fiercely and display the bitterest hatred towards one another day by day . . .. I am quite certain that it stems from a widespread popular attitude of mind which looks on the ministries of the Church as dignities, its offices as posts of emolument and its pastors as eminent personages. For as soon as the Church’s true function began to be thus distorted, every worthless fellow felt an intense desire to enter holy orders . . .. Little wonder then, . . . that faith has become identical with credulity and biased dogma. But what dogma! Degrading rational man to beast, completely inhibiting man’s free judgment and his capacity to distinguish true from false, and apparently devised with the set purpose of utterly extinguishing the light of reason. Piety and religion . . . take the form of ridiculous mysteries, and men who utterly despise reason, who reject and turn away from the intellect as naturally corrupt – these are the men (and this is of all things the most iniquitous) who are believed to possess the divine light! (TPT Pref., CW 390–1) Spinoza’s criticism is breathtaking, even today. He accuses the Church of appointing self-aggrandising, anti-intellectual fools to positions of authority and of guiding people through lies and deceit. Religious dogma prevents people from using their reason, while faith is nothing more than superstition that inhibits enlightenment....."

"Enlightenment involves enabling people to make use of their own reason. But Spinoza recognises that increased rationality depends on a change in political and social conditions. A liberal democracy,freedom of expression and the rejection of superstition are necessary conditions for the free use of reason. Spinoza argues that the Bible is not the word of God revealing metaphysical truths, but a human text,subject to critical interpretation like any other work of literature. A miracle is not a divine intervention, but a natural event whose causes are unknown to us. Theology is therefore distinct from philosophy and the sciences, and total freedom of expression should be allowed in the latter. The civil state can flourish and fullfil its purpose – greater freedom – only if people are free to exercise their reason.The Theological-Political Treatise was published anonymously, but Spinoza quickly became known as its author. The result was explosive: he was charged with atheism, sacrilege and denial of the soul,and was attacked by all sides of the religious and philosophical spectrum. Spinoza became known throughout Europe as the dangerous and subversive author of a book that was universally banned.This led to the widespread vilification of Spinoza’s thought, but also to underground currents of interest from free-thinkers all over Europe. ‘Spinozist’ became a term of derision and shorthand fora variety of anti-establishment positions; it was used as an insult and threat to anyone propounding ideas even slightly related to Spinoza’s. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the accusation of ‘Spinozism’ led philosophers to be dismissed from their posts and their books to be banned...."

"The Ethics is therefore not like philosophical texts written in prose. It is not a commentary on reality that explains the truth. Rather, it is an exercise in unfolding the truth through the active thinking of the reader.The Ethics is philosophy as activity and performance. As we read it,we are meant to be caught up in a certain movement of thought and to understand the truth through the activity that Spinoza draws us into. The reader is displaced from her usual position of externality to the text and made to be part of its workings. This is one reason why the Ethics is so difficult to read, but also why it is so intoxicating.The revelation of truth through the reader’s thinking activity reflects Spinoza’s belief (which we will discuss further in Part II) that a true idea is an activity of thought. A true idea is not a picture in the mind and it cannot adequately be expressed using representational means, such as language or pictures. That means that a text – any text – will be inadequate with respect to true ideas. A text can symbolically represent those true ideas, and the best texts will prompt us to actively think true ideas. Spinoza’s text, then, does not tell you the truth as a narrative. It aims to engage you in active thinking, to know the truth for yourself and thus to build your own rational understanding(Deleuze 1988: 83). This is best achieved through the geometrical method, which requires the reader to understand ideas as they follow logically from other ideas. For Spinoza, this logical order is the order of true understanding, as we shall see in Part I. As we perform each demonstration, our own thinking latches on to that order of true understanding. In the Ethics, you will encounter the following elements: ● Definitions which set out the meanings of key terms.● Axioms which set out basic, self-evident truths. (More will be said about definitions and axioms in Part I.) ● Propositions – the points that Spinoza argues for – and their demonstrations. ● Corollaries, which are propositions that follow directly from the propositions they are appended to. ● Lemma: propositions specifically related to physical bodies (these appear only in Part II). ● Postulates: assumptions about the human body that are drawn from (and apparently, justified by) common experience. ● Scholia: explanatory remarks on the propositions. In the scholia, Spinoza comments on his demonstrations, gives examples, raises and replies to objections and makes piquant observations about people’s beliefs and practices. The scholia are some of the most interesting and enjoyable passages of the Ethics.Before we begin, here are a few tips for reading the Ethics: ● It is important to read the book sequentially. Because the later propositions depend on earlier ones, this is not a book in which you can easily skip back and forth. ● If time allows, read the whole of the Ethics. If your university course treats only some sections of the text, read the whole Part in which those sections occur. ● Read slowly and carefully. Try to understand what Spinoza is trying to prove and to work through Spinoza’s demonstration. ● Sometimes it is helpful to read over a few propositions quickly, to get a gist of where Spinoza is going, before returning to read the demonstrations and scholia in detail. ● You may need to read some demonstrations multiple times (and even then, they may not make sense). ● You will encounter a lot of terms that are unfamiliar or that don’t mean what you think they mean. Don’t panic – this book is here to help.Make use of this Philosophical Guide to whatever extent you find helpful.It can be read concurrently with the Ethics or referred to afterwards. I clarify Spinoza’s meaning as I understand it, based on my extensive work with his text and commentaries on it. I offer relevant examples as often as possible. I have developed a series of figures which illustrate some of Spinoza’s most difficult points. My concern throughout has been with the experience of you, the reader, as you encounter the difficulties of the Ethics, and as you discover its fascination."

"Probably the most difficult challenge you will face in reading the Ethics is getting through Part I. You are presented with strange terminology, difficult metaphysical concepts and a series of arguments that don’t seem to be about anything real or concrete. These barriers can make reading this Part confusing, frustrating and boring. But with a little guidance, these initial sections will open up and become clearer.Once you have grasped the basic ideas Spinoza sets out, you will begin to understand his conception of reality, and that gives you the key to everything else in the book. The aim of this section is to help you to read this first Part and to clarify your own understanding – not only of Spinoza’s text, but of reality itself.One of the reasons for the difficulty of Part I is that it is concerned with ontology. Ontology is the theory of being: before we understand what things are, we need to understand what being is. What are we talking about when we say that things are? What is the source of the being of things?Even trying to think about these questions is difficult, let alone trying to answer them. You may wonder why it is important to answer these questions, given that our knowledge and experience is of concrete things, not of abstract being as such. Spinoza believes that we need to start with being because being is not a conceptual abstraction; it is the concrete ground of all of reality. Only once we understand what being is will we have the right basis for understanding objects, people, ideas and the universe.Spinoza’s basic idea is that being is one, that being is equivalent to God and that all the individual beings we experience are ‘modes’of being and thus ‘modes’ of God. This is what Spinoza tries to convince you of in Part I."

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