It was with the Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being, that Spinoza challenged the rabbinate by advocating complete freedom of thought. According to Jewish tradition, dissent was traditionally confined to people in the clergy. However, Spinoza proposed "a priesthood of all believers" (Edelstein, Part 2). Perhaps the greatest threat posed by Spinoza was that his discussions with the Jews of Constantinople had become religious services. Although the tradition began innocently

After all, if there is an infinite God, then it becomes easy to assume that he is an all-powerful God. If there is an all-powerful God, it is difficult to argue against the idea that he controls every action, which would be an argument in favor of final causation. Spinoza's challenge to the idea of final causation and even an argument against the idea of something like predestination comes

Enlightenment Baruch Spinoza believed that humans' actions and activities are not based on free will, but rather humans are moved to action and thought because he believed that nothing happens by mere chance. His rationale for believing as he does is the basis for this essay. Free Will vs. Determinism A review of what Spinoza believed is not the easiest thing to accomplish since some of what Spinoza puts forward is seemingly esoteric

As a result, each substance can have multiple attributes. In fact, an entity with an infinite essence will, by definition, have infinite attributes. Spinoza builds upon the idea of an infinite God by going further and stating that absolutely infinite substance is indivisible. This is because, if it were divisible, and if each part would retain the nature of the infinite substance, which would result in there being more than

Spinoza defines "substance" as "what is in itself and is conceived through itself, i.e. that whose concept doesn't have to be formed out of the concept of something else." He defines "attribute" as "what the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence." Spinoza sets up his argument for the nondivisibility of God by establishing that substances are exclusive. In Proposition 2, he establishes that "Two substances having different

The implications of Spinoza's thinking in light of Descartes' assertions of the mind-body split ultimately come to nothing. If the real distinction between the mind and body exists as Descartes insists it does, then the object of the idea constituting the human mind cannot be the body except through a mistake made in the mind (or in the body) and its thinking process. That is, it is through a misconception