09-05-2018, 07:46 AM
At this point Spinoza inserts a note explaining in terms of
his philosophy a pair of mediaeval technical terms, the Latin
of which can be translated as ‘naturing Nature’ (Nature as a
cause) and ‘natured Nature’ (Nature as an effect) respectively.
The distinction has attracted much attention from scholars,
but in itself it is fairly trivial, and it has no structural role in
the Ethics. Spinoza uses the terms only in 31, to which he
makes no further reference anywhere in the work. The note
and that proposition are omitted from the present version,
and along with them 30, which has almost no role except in
31.]
32: The will cannot be called a free cause, but only a
necessary one.
The will, like the intellect, is only a certain mode ·or
way· of thinking. And so (by 28) each volition—·each
act of the will·—can exist and be fit to produce an
effect only if it is caused by another cause, and this
cause again by another, and so on, to infinity. So the
will requires a cause by which it is caused to exist and
produce an effect; and so (by D7) it cannot be called a
‘free’ cause but only a necessary or compelled one.
That was based on the will’s being a finite entity to
which 28 applies. Suppose it is infinite, making 28
irrelevant to it. Then it falls under 23, which means
that it has to be caused to exist and produce an
effect by God—this time by God-as-having-the-infiniteand-
eternal-essence-of-thought rather than God-ashaving-
this-or-that-temporary-and-local-quality. So
on this supposition also the will is not a free cause
but a compelled one.
Corollary to 32: God doesn’t produce any effect through
freedom of the will.
Second corollary to 32: Will and intellect are related to
God’s nature as motion and rest are, and as are absolutely
all natural things, which (by 29) must be caused by God to
exist and produce an effect in a certain way.
The will, like everything else, requires a cause by
which it is caused to exist and produce an effect in a
certain way. And although from a given will or intellect
infinitely many things may follow, God still can’t be
said on that account to act from freedom of the will,
any more than God can be said to act from ‘freedom
of motion and rest’ on account of the things that
follow from motion and rest! So will doesn’t pertain to
God’s nature any more than do other natural things;
it is related to God in the same way as motion and
rest. . . ·In short: acts of the will, such as human
choices and decisions, are natural events with natural
causes, just as are (for example) collisions of billiard
balls. And to attribute will to God, saying that because
the cause of each volition is God (= Nature) therefore
God has choices and makes decisions, is as absurd as
to suppose that God is rattling around on the billiard
table·.
33: Things could not have been produced by God in any
way or in any order other than that in which they have
been produced.
All things have necessarily followed from God’s given
nature (by 16), and have been caused from the necessity
of God’s nature to exist and produce an effect in a
certain way (by 29). To think of them as possibly being
different in some way is, therefore, to think of God as
possibly being different; that is to think that there is
some other nature that God could have—some other
divine nature—and if such a nature is possible then
it is actually instantiated, which means that there
are two Gods. But it is absurd to suppose that there
could have been two Gods. So things could not have
been produced in any other way or in any other order
than they have been produced.
Note on 33: Since by these propositions I have made it as
clear as day that there is absolutely nothing in things on the
basis of which they can be called contingent, I wish now to
explain briefly what we should understand by ‘contingent’—
but first, what we should understand by ‘necessary’ and
‘impossible’. A thing is called ‘necessary’ either •by reason of
its essence or •by reason of its cause. For a thing’s existence
follows necessarily either from its essence and definition
or from a given efficient cause. And a thing is also called
‘impossible’ for these same reasons—namely, either because
its essence or definition involves a contradiction, or because
no external cause has been caused to produce such a thing
·in which case the external causes that do exist will have
been enough to prevent the thing from existing·.
A thing is called ‘contingent’ only because of a lack of
our knowledge. If we don’t know that the thing’s essence
involves a contradiction, or if we know quite well that its
essence doesn’t involve a contradiction, but we can’t say
anything for sure about its existence because the order of
causes is hidden from us, it can’t seem to us either necessary
or impossible. So we call it ‘contingent’ or ‘·merely· possible’.
Second note on 33: From this it clearly follows that things
have been produced by God with the highest perfection, since
they have followed necessarily from a most perfect nature.
God’s producing everything there is doesn’t mean that God
is in any way imperfect. The suggestion that God could have
acted differently is, as I have shown, absurd. . . .
I’m sure that many people will reject my view as absurd,
without even being willing to examine it. Of course they
will! because they have been accustomed to credit God
with having an absolute will—·that is, with just non-causally
deciding what to do·—which attributes to God a ‘freedom’
quite different from what I have taught (D7). But I am also
sure that if they would consent to reflect on the matter, and
pay proper attention to my chain of our demonstrations,
they would end up utterly rejecting the ‘freedom’ they now
attribute to God, not only as futile but as a great obstacle to
science. I needn’t repeat here what I said in the note on 17.
Still, to please them ·or at least meet them half-way·, I
shall argue on the basis that God’s essence does involve will,
and shall still prove that it follows from God’s perfection that
things could not have been created by God in any other way
or any other order. It will be easy to show this if we consider
·two things·. First, as my opponents concede, it depends on
God’s decree and will alone that each thing is what it is; for
otherwise God wouldn’t be the cause of all things. Secondly,
all God’s decrees have been established by God from eternity;
for otherwise God would be convicted of imperfection and
inconstancy. But since in eternity there is neither when,
nor before, nor after, it follows purely from God’s perfection
that God could never have decreed anything different. It is a
mistake to think of God as having existed for a while without
making any decrees and then making some.
The opponents will say that in supposing God to have
made another nature of things, or supposing that from eternity
God had decreed something else concerning Nature and
its order, one is not implicitly supposing any imperfection in
God.
Still, if they say this, they will ·have to· concede also
that God’s decrees can be changed by their maker. Their
supposition that God could have decreed Nature and its
order to be different from how they actually are involves
supposing that God could have had a different intellect
and will from those that God actually has; and they—·the
opponents·—hold that this could have been the case without
any change of God’s essence or of God’s perfection. But
if that is right, why can’t God now change God’s decrees
concerning created things while remaining just as perfect?
·It is absurd to suppose that God can do this—e.g. that from
now on the laws of physics will be slightly different every
second Tuesday—but my opponents have left themselves
with no basis for ruling this out as the absurdity that it
really is·. . . .
Therefore, since things could not have been produced
by God in any other way or any other order, and since the
truth of this follows from God’s supreme perfection, we have
to accept that God willed to create all the things that are
in God’s intellect, with the same perfection with which God
understands them.
The opponents will say that there is no perfection or
imperfection in things: what is to count in things as making
them perfect or imperfect, and thus called ‘good’ or ‘bad’,
depends only on God’s will. So God could have brought it
about, simply by willing it, that what is now perfection would
have been the greatest imperfection, and conversely that
what is now an imperfection in things would have been the
most perfect. ·Thus the opponents·. But God necessarily
understands what God wills; so what the opponents say here
is tantamount to saying outright that God could bring it
about through an act of will that God understands things in
a different way from how God does understand them. And
this, as I have just shown, is a great absurdity. . . .
I confess that •this opinion that subjects all things to a
certain unguided will of God and makes everything depend
on God’s whim is nearer the truth than •the view of those
who maintain that God does all things for the sake of the
good. For the latter seem to suppose something outside God,
something not depending on God, to which God in acting
attends as a model and at which God aims as at a goal. This
is simply to subject God to fate [Latin fatum, here = ‘something
independently fixed and given’]. Nothing more absurd can be
maintained about God—shown by me to be the first and only
free cause of the essence of all things and of their existence.
I shan’t waste any more time refuting this absurdity.
34: God’s power is God’s essence itself.
It follows purely from the necessity of God’s essence
that God is the cause of God (by 11) and (by 16 and
its corollary) the cause of all things. So God’s power,
by which God and all things exist and act, is God’s
essence itself.
35: Whatever we conceive to be in God’s power, necessarily
exists.
Whatever is in God’s power must (by 34) be so related
to God’s essence that it necessarily follows from it,
and therefore necessarily exists.
36: Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does
not follow.
Whatever exists expresses the nature, or essence of
God in a certain and determinate way (by the corollary
to 25), that is, whatever exists expresses in a certain
and determinate way the power of God, which is the
cause of all things. So (by 16) from everything that
exists some effect must follow.
his philosophy a pair of mediaeval technical terms, the Latin
of which can be translated as ‘naturing Nature’ (Nature as a
cause) and ‘natured Nature’ (Nature as an effect) respectively.
The distinction has attracted much attention from scholars,
but in itself it is fairly trivial, and it has no structural role in
the Ethics. Spinoza uses the terms only in 31, to which he
makes no further reference anywhere in the work. The note
and that proposition are omitted from the present version,
and along with them 30, which has almost no role except in
31.]
32: The will cannot be called a free cause, but only a
necessary one.
The will, like the intellect, is only a certain mode ·or
way· of thinking. And so (by 28) each volition—·each
act of the will·—can exist and be fit to produce an
effect only if it is caused by another cause, and this
cause again by another, and so on, to infinity. So the
will requires a cause by which it is caused to exist and
produce an effect; and so (by D7) it cannot be called a
‘free’ cause but only a necessary or compelled one.
That was based on the will’s being a finite entity to
which 28 applies. Suppose it is infinite, making 28
irrelevant to it. Then it falls under 23, which means
that it has to be caused to exist and produce an
effect by God—this time by God-as-having-the-infiniteand-
eternal-essence-of-thought rather than God-ashaving-
this-or-that-temporary-and-local-quality. So
on this supposition also the will is not a free cause
but a compelled one.
Corollary to 32: God doesn’t produce any effect through
freedom of the will.
Second corollary to 32: Will and intellect are related to
God’s nature as motion and rest are, and as are absolutely
all natural things, which (by 29) must be caused by God to
exist and produce an effect in a certain way.
The will, like everything else, requires a cause by
which it is caused to exist and produce an effect in a
certain way. And although from a given will or intellect
infinitely many things may follow, God still can’t be
said on that account to act from freedom of the will,
any more than God can be said to act from ‘freedom
of motion and rest’ on account of the things that
follow from motion and rest! So will doesn’t pertain to
God’s nature any more than do other natural things;
it is related to God in the same way as motion and
rest. . . ·In short: acts of the will, such as human
choices and decisions, are natural events with natural
causes, just as are (for example) collisions of billiard
balls. And to attribute will to God, saying that because
the cause of each volition is God (= Nature) therefore
God has choices and makes decisions, is as absurd as
to suppose that God is rattling around on the billiard
table·.
33: Things could not have been produced by God in any
way or in any order other than that in which they have
been produced.
All things have necessarily followed from God’s given
nature (by 16), and have been caused from the necessity
of God’s nature to exist and produce an effect in a
certain way (by 29). To think of them as possibly being
different in some way is, therefore, to think of God as
possibly being different; that is to think that there is
some other nature that God could have—some other
divine nature—and if such a nature is possible then
it is actually instantiated, which means that there
are two Gods. But it is absurd to suppose that there
could have been two Gods. So things could not have
been produced in any other way or in any other order
than they have been produced.
Note on 33: Since by these propositions I have made it as
clear as day that there is absolutely nothing in things on the
basis of which they can be called contingent, I wish now to
explain briefly what we should understand by ‘contingent’—
but first, what we should understand by ‘necessary’ and
‘impossible’. A thing is called ‘necessary’ either •by reason of
its essence or •by reason of its cause. For a thing’s existence
follows necessarily either from its essence and definition
or from a given efficient cause. And a thing is also called
‘impossible’ for these same reasons—namely, either because
its essence or definition involves a contradiction, or because
no external cause has been caused to produce such a thing
·in which case the external causes that do exist will have
been enough to prevent the thing from existing·.
A thing is called ‘contingent’ only because of a lack of
our knowledge. If we don’t know that the thing’s essence
involves a contradiction, or if we know quite well that its
essence doesn’t involve a contradiction, but we can’t say
anything for sure about its existence because the order of
causes is hidden from us, it can’t seem to us either necessary
or impossible. So we call it ‘contingent’ or ‘·merely· possible’.
Second note on 33: From this it clearly follows that things
have been produced by God with the highest perfection, since
they have followed necessarily from a most perfect nature.
God’s producing everything there is doesn’t mean that God
is in any way imperfect. The suggestion that God could have
acted differently is, as I have shown, absurd. . . .
I’m sure that many people will reject my view as absurd,
without even being willing to examine it. Of course they
will! because they have been accustomed to credit God
with having an absolute will—·that is, with just non-causally
deciding what to do·—which attributes to God a ‘freedom’
quite different from what I have taught (D7). But I am also
sure that if they would consent to reflect on the matter, and
pay proper attention to my chain of our demonstrations,
they would end up utterly rejecting the ‘freedom’ they now
attribute to God, not only as futile but as a great obstacle to
science. I needn’t repeat here what I said in the note on 17.
Still, to please them ·or at least meet them half-way·, I
shall argue on the basis that God’s essence does involve will,
and shall still prove that it follows from God’s perfection that
things could not have been created by God in any other way
or any other order. It will be easy to show this if we consider
·two things·. First, as my opponents concede, it depends on
God’s decree and will alone that each thing is what it is; for
otherwise God wouldn’t be the cause of all things. Secondly,
all God’s decrees have been established by God from eternity;
for otherwise God would be convicted of imperfection and
inconstancy. But since in eternity there is neither when,
nor before, nor after, it follows purely from God’s perfection
that God could never have decreed anything different. It is a
mistake to think of God as having existed for a while without
making any decrees and then making some.
The opponents will say that in supposing God to have
made another nature of things, or supposing that from eternity
God had decreed something else concerning Nature and
its order, one is not implicitly supposing any imperfection in
God.
Still, if they say this, they will ·have to· concede also
that God’s decrees can be changed by their maker. Their
supposition that God could have decreed Nature and its
order to be different from how they actually are involves
supposing that God could have had a different intellect
and will from those that God actually has; and they—·the
opponents·—hold that this could have been the case without
any change of God’s essence or of God’s perfection. But
if that is right, why can’t God now change God’s decrees
concerning created things while remaining just as perfect?
·It is absurd to suppose that God can do this—e.g. that from
now on the laws of physics will be slightly different every
second Tuesday—but my opponents have left themselves
with no basis for ruling this out as the absurdity that it
really is·. . . .
Therefore, since things could not have been produced
by God in any other way or any other order, and since the
truth of this follows from God’s supreme perfection, we have
to accept that God willed to create all the things that are
in God’s intellect, with the same perfection with which God
understands them.
The opponents will say that there is no perfection or
imperfection in things: what is to count in things as making
them perfect or imperfect, and thus called ‘good’ or ‘bad’,
depends only on God’s will. So God could have brought it
about, simply by willing it, that what is now perfection would
have been the greatest imperfection, and conversely that
what is now an imperfection in things would have been the
most perfect. ·Thus the opponents·. But God necessarily
understands what God wills; so what the opponents say here
is tantamount to saying outright that God could bring it
about through an act of will that God understands things in
a different way from how God does understand them. And
this, as I have just shown, is a great absurdity. . . .
I confess that •this opinion that subjects all things to a
certain unguided will of God and makes everything depend
on God’s whim is nearer the truth than •the view of those
who maintain that God does all things for the sake of the
good. For the latter seem to suppose something outside God,
something not depending on God, to which God in acting
attends as a model and at which God aims as at a goal. This
is simply to subject God to fate [Latin fatum, here = ‘something
independently fixed and given’]. Nothing more absurd can be
maintained about God—shown by me to be the first and only
free cause of the essence of all things and of their existence.
I shan’t waste any more time refuting this absurdity.
34: God’s power is God’s essence itself.
It follows purely from the necessity of God’s essence
that God is the cause of God (by 11) and (by 16 and
its corollary) the cause of all things. So God’s power,
by which God and all things exist and act, is God’s
essence itself.
35: Whatever we conceive to be in God’s power, necessarily
exists.
Whatever is in God’s power must (by 34) be so related
to God’s essence that it necessarily follows from it,
and therefore necessarily exists.
36: Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does
not follow.
Whatever exists expresses the nature, or essence of
God in a certain and determinate way (by the corollary
to 25), that is, whatever exists expresses in a certain
and determinate way the power of God, which is the
cause of all things. So (by 16) from everything that
exists some effect must follow.