As I explained when answering a
follow-up question after I presented my paper ‘Was Spinoza a Forerunner to
Darwin’ at Groningen University 2016, I have a reading of Spinoza’s metaphysics
and writings on God and nature which shows that he was not a pantheist,
although he may have agreed with a type of panentheism which is compatible with
Judaism[i].
Although the term Panentheism was not around in Spinoza’s era, panentheistic
concepts were around well before his time and have been held by many people
down the ages. Culp excellently summarises the background to the emergence of
panentheism thus:
“Although Karl Krause (1781–1832)
appears to be the first to use the explicit label of “panentheism” (Gregersen
2004, 28), Schelling used the phrase “Pan+en+theism” in his Essay on Freedom in
1809 before Krause used “panentheism” in 1829 (Clayton 2010, 183). However,
various advocates and critics of panentheism find evidence of incipient or
implicit forms of panentheism present in religious thought as early as 1300
BCE.” [ii] …….“From Plato to Schelling (1775–1854 CE),
various theologians and philosophers developed ideas that are similar to themes
in contemporary panentheism. These ideas developed as expressions of
traditional theism.”[iii]
So I wish to make use of this
more precise term for referring to features of Spinoza's thought but using a
non-teleological methodology in my interpretation because although the term is
relatively contemporary, the beliefs and concepts it refers to pre-date
Spinoza’s era.
A reason for this is proposition
15 in the first part of his Ethics which states “Whatever is, is in God…”[iv].
“Quicquid est in Deo est, et
nihil sine Deo esse neque concipi potest.”[v]
In other words, everything is in
God and God is in everything because everything only exists as a result of God.
Moreover, in White’s translator’s note to E. I. p29s, he states that the
expressions natura naturata and natura naturans “signify by the same verb the
oneness of God and the world, and yet at the same time to mark by a difference
of inflexion that there was not absolute identity.”[vi]
Indeed, Spinoza wrote to
Oldenburg[vii]
(letter 73) affirming that he did not equate God with nature in his
terminology. This would mean that Spinoza cannot be a pantheist because
pantheism sees God and the world as being identical. Furthermore, the
Panentheistic description of God inhering in things in the world, as opposed to
pantheism which would see things in the world as being identical to God,
resembles Spinoza’s description of things being a mode of God and godliness
inhering in things. An example of this difference: the Pantheist would think
this tree in front of me is one and the same thing as God. Whereas the
Panentheist would think that the tree is a tree but that it has the property of
God in it and that its existence comes from God.
Martial Guéroult (1891-1976)
suggested Spinoza may have been more panentheistic than pantheistic. However, I
shall be connecting panentheistic elements in Spinoza’s writings with Judaism
especially since it appears around the same passages where Spinoza emphasizes
that God is one and that “nothing can either be or be conceived without God”[viii].
I wonder whether the concept of
conceiving belies the Jewish notion of Tzimtzum, the idea that God contracted
Himself and partially withdrew Himself to provide a conceptual space within
which the world could exist. Although it is a kabbalistic explanation for the
final stages when God created the world, I don’t interpret Spinoza as a
Kabbalist because it is a type of Jewish mysticism and Spinoza is very much
into reason so I think is more generally in line with Jewish Rationalism.
However, it is possible he may have drawn some metaphysical inspiration from
such descriptions, given that the notion of Tzimtzum predates Spinoza’s era and
his Rabbi, Menasseh ben Israel was very interested in kabbalah. So, although he
mostly chose not to include them in his writings, he may have thought them metaphysically relevant at times. So I would like to explore the possibility of and the extent to which
the concept of Tzimtzum in Judaism can be found in Spinoza’s
passages on God conceiving.
On this picture, God is
transcendent in the sense that God is different, unique, perfect with a
different quality of attributes, a bit like Spinoza’s analogy of the difference
between the “celestial constellation of the Dog and the animal which barks”[ix].
However, God is not transcendent in the sense of being outside of the world.
This can be seen explicitly in E. I. p18 and 18d when Spinoza states God
abides/endures (immanens) in everything,
everything is conceived (concipi which encompasses conceive/be the mother
of/understand) and caused by God and that God is the only substance (meaning
substance but can carry implications of resources, nature and be used to refer
to every living thing) and that there is nothing beyond/outside of/without
(extra) God. This perhaps lends support to my suggestion of Spinoza seeing God
as having provided a conceptual space within which He conceived the world.
To illustrate this, I think of
Spinoza’s claim that everything is in God yet not identical to God to be a bit
like an Eulerian circle (see figure 1) which shows a smaller circle, call it x
and think of it as the world, within a larger circle, call it y and think of it
as God. In this way, x and y are not identical, and the world, represented by
the smaller circle x, is within God, represented by the larger circle y. And
there is nothing outside of God since God is the main circle, y, but God is not
strictly speaking outside of the world because that would be like being outside
of Himself since God is the larger circle and is encompassing the whole world
rather than being outside of it in the sense of being an external circle, z,
which doesn’t overlap with the world, circle x.
Or, the visual representation of
this would look something like this (drawing on the Euler diagram):
|
|
|
|
 |
Figure 1 Panentheism, Tzimtzum
|
 |
Figure 2 Pantheism: God and the world are identical to each
other
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Figure 3 God is outside of the world
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So, for panentheism and tzimtzum (figure 1), God would be like the black circle and the world would be like the white circle. For pantheism (figure 2), the world and God are identical so completely combine into the one grey circle. For the standard theist account (figure 3), God would be like the black circle outside of the white circle representing the world which, according to Spinoza, is the mistaken notion of God being outside of the world. The adjustment to this mathematical representation is that the white circle representing the world only exists through and because of the black circle representing God and everything in the white circle is a mode (property) of the black circle (see figure 1). And perhaps, if it were to fit with tzimtzum, then the white circle exists because it has been created in the sense of it being conceived out of and by the black circle (see figure 1), rather than it being created in the sense of figure 3, where the black circle is bringing the white circle, representing the world, into existence from outside of itself. In this way, God (see figure 1) can be the only substance (substance monism), whereas if God were like the black circle in figure 3, this would lead to substance dualism, which Spinoza rejects. Another Spinozian adjustment (to figure 1) would be that the black circle representing God causes everything that happens in the white circle, representing the world, by acting in it through the laws of nature (not through emotion or willing).
Also, this style of Euler diagram
suits panentheism because it clearly retains the different identities between
God and the world and reflects the language of the world being in God. It also
avoids the possible panentheist language describing the world as a part of God
which would be a problem for Spinoza given that he rejects breaking up wholes
into parts yet it retains the underlying panentheist view. So it shows where
Spinoza coincides with and deviates from panentheism. As can be seen in figure
2, I imagine that the pantheist diagram would look like the black circle and
the white circle in figure 1 but, unlike in figure 1, they are the same size
and completely overlapping, making it impossible to refer to one as x and the
other as y because they would be identical. Therefore, I have represented the
circle in figure 2 as grey to reflect this complete and combined identity and
reference found in pantheism.
[i] Liba Kaucky, “Panentheism and Spinoza,” My
Spinoza Research Diary (blog), September 18, 2017,
http://myspinozaresearchdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/panentheism-and-spinoza.html. This chapter was first
written for my blog post available at:
http://myspinozaresearchdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/panentheism-and-spinoza.html
but figures 1 to 3 which appear in this book were created by me for this
chapter and are based on Euler’s diagrams and other diagrams found in maths and
set theory.
[ii] John Culp, “Panentheism,” ed. Edward N.
Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Metaphysics Research
Lab, Stanford University, June 3, 2017),
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/panentheism/.
[iii] Culp.
[iv] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. P15, 14.
[v] Spinoza, Opera: Ethics, I:E. I.
p15, 197.
[vi] Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), footnote 4 on p28. about E. I. p29s (full Latin
sentence which appears in Spinoza, Opera:
Ethics, I:E. I. p29s, 210-11: “SCHOL. Antequam ulterius pergam, hic quid
nobis per na turam natur ante m et quid per naturam natura tam intel ligendum
sit, explicare volo, vel potius monere. Nam ex antecedentibus iam constare
existimo, nempe, quod per naturam naturantem nobis intelligendum est id quod in
se est et per se concipitur, sive talia substantiae attributa quae aeternam et
infinitam essentiam exprimunt, hoc est (per coroll. 1. prop. 14. Et coroll. 2.
prop. 17.) Deus, quatenus ut causa libera consideratur. Per naturata m autem
intelligo id omne quod ex necessitate Dei naturae sive uniuscuiusque Dei
attributorum sequitur, hoc est, omnes Dei ttributorum modos, quatenus
considerantur ut res, quae in Deo sunt et quae sine Deo nec esse nec concipi
possunt.”
[vii] Benedict de Spinoza, “Correspondence,”
trans. Edwin Curley, Early Modern Philosophy Texts, 2017, 104–5,
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/spinoza1661.pdf.
[viii]
Spinoza, Ethics (Transl. White,
Stirling), E. I. p15,14.
[ix] Spinoza, E. I. p17s, 20.
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