Spinoza's Ethics
“men believe themselves free solely because they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined”
Benedictus de Spinoza, Clare Carlisle, • Spinoza's Ethics
each finite human consciousness is part of God’s infinite consciousness, and each finite human body is part of the physical universe, interconnected with countless other beings.
Benedictus de Spinoza, Clare Carlisle, • Spinoza's Ethics
The etymological connection between “mode” and “mood” may illuminate this metaphysical point: a human life is to God what one of my moods is to me—ephemeral, substanceless, and impossible to conceive as separate from or independent of my existence. More metaphorically still, we are to God as waves are to the ocean.
Benedictus de Spinoza, Clare Carlisle, • Spinoza's Ethics
God is really moral in its influence—it really cherishes all that is best and loveliest in man—only when God is contemplated as sympathizing with the pure elements of human feeling, as possessing infinitely all those attributes which we recognize to be moral in humanity.”
Benedictus de Spinoza, Clare Carlisle, • Spinoza's Ethics
“the highest state of mind inculcated by the Gospel is … to dwell in Christ by spiritual communion with his nature, not to fix the date when He shall appear in the sky.”
Benedictus de Spinoza, Clare Carlisle, • Spinoza's Ethics
Feuerbach developed Spinoza’s panentheist insistence that everything is in God—including, of course, human beings—into the quite contrary doctrine that the human being is God.
Benedictus de Spinoza, Clare Carlisle, • Spinoza's Ethics
“An emotion which is a passion, ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it” (E5, P3).
Benedictus de Spinoza, Clare Carlisle, • Spinoza's Ethics
We are not substances but modes of substance: ways in which substance is modified or affected.
Benedictus de Spinoza, Clare Carlisle, • Spinoza's Ethics
When we worship God, he explained, we are really worshipping the perfection of humanity.