Overview
- The philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, also known as Benedictus de Spinoza, was born in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, on 24 November 1624. He died on 21 February 1677.
- Two of his major works were “Ethics” and “Theological-Political Treatise”
- He put forward advanced, controversial, ideas about theology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and political theory.
- He denied that the Bible contained philosophical truth, and he saw God as not having human form or attributes, but rather as a fundamental reality of which all things are part.
- He said that God and Nature are essentially the same. This is expressed by his phrase Deus sive Natura - "God or nature". This was deleted from the Dutch translation of Ethics to prevent any accusation of atheism. Nethertheless it was clear that Spinoza challenged the idea that most monotheistic religions had of God and that he saw God as not having reasons for acting and as being unconcerned about human beings in particular.
“Spinoza held that it is possible for the human mind to know God's own essence, and that the use of reason reveals that the Bible should be seen simply as historically-conditioned text... to convey a simple moral message (and so is not a source of philosophical truth). No other major rationalist saw human reason as having such reach.”
New World Encyclopedia
- He denied that miracles and revelation existed, and therefore the divine character of scripture and the divinity of Christ did not exist either. However, refuting these things was prohibited throughout western society.