Spinoza In Plain English pt 10a: The Essence of God
(Book 1 Propositions 34–36 and Appendix)
In Propositions 34-36 Spinoza is tying up some last threads of his argument before moving on to Book 2, but en route he throws in a whopper of an Appendix which will occupy most of this essay.
First, the last three propositions.
Spinoza writes that God’s power is his very essence. What does this mean? For Spinoza the essence, or the nature of something, is equivalent to its power. This is a brilliant way of looking at things. What Spinoza means is that things that exist are all action. Power is the ability to have an impact, to make things happen, to change reality. Everything that exists is defined by what it does: a table reflects light, takes up space, exerts force on the floor. A human being has a very complex essence, and complex power. God’s essence is God’s activity, which causes everything to be.
Since God’s essence, or nature, is that God is cause of itself and of all things, that is the scope of God’s power. This power is the very essence of God, it is what we mean when we say “God”: a reality whose inherent nature is to cause itself and all things.
Spinoza goes on to say that “what is within the abilities of God” and “what is” are equivalent phrases. Since “anything that exists expresses the nature or essence of God in a specific and determinate way” it follows 1) that every thing is an expression of God’s power, and 2) that all existent things have their own derivative causal power.
In other words, everything that exists causes other things. Things logically follow from the essence of any existent thing, since that essence is an expression of the essence or power of God, whose very nature it the power to cause things to follow necessarily from itself.
Fewf. If that wasn’t crystal clear, don’t worry. Now we come to the really interesting part.
Spinoza sums up what he accomplished: With this I have explained the nature of God and his properties: that he necessarily exists; that he is unique; that he is and acts solely from the necessity of his own nature; that he is the free cause of all things and how this is so; that all things are in God and so depend upon him so that without him they can neither be nor be conceived; and finally that all things have been predetermined by God, not however by his freedom of will or at his absolute pleasure but by God’s absolute nature or infinite power.
Remember that for Spinoza “absolute nature or infinite power” means that unlimited things follow necessarily from God’s essence: God is not a person with infinite power but Reality itself, whose nature is such that it causes unlimited things to follow from itself.
Spinoza then turns to attack what he views as the central prejudice that will prevent people from understanding what he is saying: the belief that God acts with a purpose in mind. Spinoza sets out to explain where this delusion originates, explores possible refutations, and then discusses the implications of viewing things his way. If we do so, it will radically change our understanding of ideas like order and chaos, beauty and ugliness, and good and bad, and thus transform the way we understand reality.
To that we will come next essay.
