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Delay is no problem; I've hit the point where I probably won't come up with anything new for another week at least. Thanks for coming back! Aquinas' point is h

Delay is no problem; I've hit the point where I probably won't come up with anything new for another week at least. Thanks for coming back! Aquinas' point is highly relevant: if both God and his creation were infinitely perfect, they'd be indistinguishable and we'd be back at pantheism.

knightoffaith 3y ago
To be sure - God and creation being indistinguishable isn't something that Spinoza would agree with either. Two relevant items here. One is that God has an infinite number of attributes, only two of which are extension and thought (the only ones we can know). All physical things are modes of the attribute of extension, and all "mental" things are modes of the attribute of thought. So if creation just means the set of all physical things (or even "mental" things), these are just the set of all modes of extension, an attribute of God, (along with the set of all modes of thought, another attribute of God, if you include mental things). But these are but extension and thought are but two of the infinitely many attributes of God. Two is that Spinoza draws a distinction between the set of all of the modes of the attributes of God (Natura naturata) and God himself (Natura naturans). (See the Note of Proposition 29 of Part 1 of Ethics.) So if by pantheism we mean that God is nothing but the set of all things, Spinoza does not seem to be a pantheist. That isn't to say that Spinoza is just a perfectly orthodox theologian, of course, but just that reducing the radical nature of his theology to the word "pantheism" (construed as creation and God being the same) appears to be an oversimplification. (Also, minor note, in the last comment I said Leibniz thinks God actualizes the best possible worlds, that's a typo, I meant the best possible world, singular.)
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  thanks for the relevant items. I've started in on https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm so it may be a while before I make it back to this thread... pedantry: 1P29 runs seriously afoul of Quantum Mechanics
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  Rough going so far, as Spinoza is both precise and uses words in the senses they had in Scholastic times. I think I understand how Spinoza is not a pantheist, though: God determines Creation, in that the Creation is the maximal object that could be created from God, and the Creation determines God, in that God is the minimal object that could create the Creation, so they're two very distinct things, but in a 1:1 relationship. (examples: intension/extension in logic, cones/gamut in vision, grammar/language in informatics) I'm not sure how easy the distinction between his viewpoint and pantheism would have been to explain to someone with a XVII background, but Aquinas defo would've been unhappy with the "the deity can create any universe he wants, as long as it's black" part. (hmm. if our universe only uses up two attributes, 'thought' for all the abstracts and 'extent' for all the concretes, are there any other universes lurking in the remaining infinity of attributes? this also opens the question of whether we're dealing with a countable infinity of attributes, or a higher cardinal...)
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    this looks useful; a modern formalisation: https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/1537/1/MoL-2017-02.text.pdf https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/1537/1/MoL-2017-02.tex...
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      starting to get a little clearer; was Gödel's proof inspired by Spinoza's? They both use many of the same mathematical tools...
      - knightoffaith 3y ago
        They are both ontological proofs, yep. Though Godel is using modal logic, which won't be invented for centuries until after Spinoza's time.
        082349872349872 3y ago
        oops, I was reading the "contingent things must be dependent upon necessary things" as implying modality, but you're right that if it's there it's only implicit.

knightoffaith 3y ago

To be sure - God and creation being indistinguishable isn't something that Spinoza would agree with either. Two relevant items here. One is that God has an infinite number of attributes, only two of which are extension and thought (the only ones we can know). All physical things are modes of the attribute of extension, and all "mental" things are modes of the attribute of thought. So if creation just means the set of all physical things (or even "mental" things), these are just the set of all modes of extension, an attribute of God, (along with the set of all modes of thought, another attribute of God, if you include mental things). But these are but extension and thought are but two of the infinitely many attributes of God. Two is that Spinoza draws a distinction between the set of all of the modes of the attributes of God (Natura naturata) and God himself (Natura naturans). (See the Note of Proposition 29 of Part 1 of Ethics.) So if by pantheism we mean that God is nothing but the set of all things, Spinoza does not seem to be a pantheist. That isn't to say that Spinoza is just a perfectly orthodox theologian, of course, but just that reducing the radical nature of his theology to the word "pantheism" (construed as creation and God being the same) appears to be an oversimplification. (Also, minor note, in the last comment I said Leibniz thinks God actualizes the best possible worlds, that's a typo, I meant the best possible world, singular.)

082349872349872 3y ago
thanks for the relevant items. I've started in on https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm so it may be a while before I make it back to this thread... pedantry: 1P29 runs seriously afoul of Quantum Mechanics
082349872349872 3y ago
Rough going so far, as Spinoza is both precise and uses words in the senses they had in Scholastic times. I think I understand how Spinoza is not a pantheist, though: God determines Creation, in that the Creation is the maximal object that could be created from God, and the Creation determines God, in that God is the minimal object that could create the Creation, so they're two very distinct things, but in a 1:1 relationship. (examples: intension/extension in logic, cones/gamut in vision, grammar/language in informatics) I'm not sure how easy the distinction between his viewpoint and pantheism would have been to explain to someone with a XVII background, but Aquinas defo would've been unhappy with the "the deity can create any universe he wants, as long as it's black" part. (hmm. if our universe only uses up two attributes, 'thought' for all the abstracts and 'extent' for all the concretes, are there any other universes lurking in the remaining infinity of attributes? this also opens the question of whether we're dealing with a countable infinity of attributes, or a higher cardinal...)
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  this looks useful; a modern formalisation: https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/1537/1/MoL-2017-02.text.pdf https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/1537/1/MoL-2017-02.tex...
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    starting to get a little clearer; was Gödel's proof inspired by Spinoza's? They both use many of the same mathematical tools...
    - knightoffaith 3y ago
      They are both ontological proofs, yep. Though Godel is using modal logic, which won't be invented for centuries until after Spinoza's time.
      - 082349872349872 3y ago
        oops, I was reading the "contingent things must be dependent upon necessary things" as implying modality, but you're right that if it's there it's only implicit.