But Spinoza’s God requires no such faith, as the one substance is fully fathomable by reason. We enter into “a relationship” with it precisely through our employment of reason, the very same organ allowing us to perform geometrical constructions and produce deductive arguments, as well as recognize the truth of axioms. Rational insight and cogitation is, for Spinoza, the analogue of entering into a meditative state or a state of divine bliss: for it is in such endeavors that we join our minds with the very same metaphysical space that allows for – no, demands – the existence of the one substance.
Getting distracted by ideas
Another line from my Spinoza manuscript
One response to “Another line from my Spinoza manuscript”
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As I consider my growing but minimal knowledge of philosophy, I remain thoroughly a buberian Christian.
In a combination of Barth (god is completely separate – holy), Aquinas (negative theology of god is truest thus god is mystery only), and Buber (human spirit is found ‘between man and man’) the personal god only becomes personal in the incarnation of humanity.
1. Thus, I am Christ (who is in heaven) to the world (st. James and st. paul). I am the incarnate hands, feet, and face of the personal god to my neighbor.
2. Thus, as with the Mother Teresa who saw the face of Christ in the poor, diseased child in the gutter of Culcutta, my neighbor is the incarnate face of god to me.
Buber and Levinas would equate face to face ‘I-Thou’ relation as the ‘spirit’ in between human and human. Our neighbor is face of incarnate god who we encounter. That is why god has a face in words.
‘Employment of reason’ as the avenue of relationship to the divine seems a bit hollow even in Einstein’s more poetic statement. It does encourage a participatory humility before the wonderful infinities of Pascal, but what is the answer it gives to ‘What is man?’ except ‘the one who considers and wonders at the divine world.’ Is there a better answer from Spinoza that I am missing?
Really, I think Spinoza has a great view of the world-god. I do prefer a god behind the world (the world and god both have faces, but separate faces).
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