Baruch Spinoza's non-dual Monism

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Guruevents, "purushaz" <purushaz> wrote:

The writer of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy called

Spinoza's philosophy "Panthiesm" which in my opinion would be less

appropriate than "Monism"; which is more consistent with what the

following writer has to say on Spinoza:

http://www.friesian.com/spinoza.htm That writer finds Hinduism

compatible with Spinoza since the latter uses the term "Substance"

(akin to "Brahman"); but declares that Spinoza is non-Buddhist since

the latter don't use the term "Substance". To me such words are only

semantic. Clearly, Spinoza is a Monist, non-dualist and his

philosophy resonates well with both Hinduism and Buddhism...at least

non-dualist, monist versions of the former. Let's see what Karen

Armstrong in "The Battle for God, A History of Fundamentalism" has to

say (selected quotes): page 22...

 

"He noted that there were contradictions in the biblical text that

proved it to be of human not divine origin. He denied the

possibility of revelation, and argued that "God" was simply the

totality of nature itself."

(page 23): "Jews and gentiles alike found his irreligion either

shocking or disconcerting"

"Yet there was spirituality in Spinoza's atheiesm, since he

experienced the world as divine. It was a vision of God immanent

within mundane reality which filled Spinoza with awe and wonder. He

experienced philosophical study and thought as a form of prayer; as

he explained in his Short Treatise on God (1661), the deity was not

an object to be known but the principle of our thought. It followed

that the joy we experience when we attain knowledge WAS the

intellectual love of God . A true philosopher, Spinoza believed,

would cultivate what he called intuitive knowledge , a flash of

insight that fused all the information he had acquired discursively

and which was an experience of what Spinoza believed to be God. He

called this experience "beatitude": in this state, the philosopher

realized that he was inseparable from God, and that God exists

through human beings. This was a mystical philosophy, which could be

seen as a rational version of the kind of spirituality cultivated by

John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, but Spinoza had no patience

with this type of religious insight. He believed that yearning for a

transcendent God would alienate human beings from their own nature.

Later philosophers would find Spinoza's quest for the ecstasy of

beatitude embarrassing, and would dispense with his God altogether.

Nevertheless, in his concentration on this world and in his denial of

the supernatural, Spinoza became one of the first secularists in

Europe."

"Like many modern people, Spinoza regarded all formal religion with

distaste. Given his experience of excommunication, this was hardly

surprising. He dismissed the revealed faiths as a "compound of

credulity and prejudices" and "a tissue of meaningless mysteries".

 

(page 24): "Originally, the kingdom of Israel had been theocratic but

because, in Spinoza's view, God and the people were one and the same,

the voice of the people had been supreme. Once the priests seized

control, the voice of God could no longer be heard. But Spinoza was

no populist. Like most premodern philosophers, he was an elitist who

believed the masses to be incapable of rational thought. They would

need some form of religion to give them a modicum of enlightenment,

but his religion must be reformed, based not on so-called revealed

law but on the natural principles of justice, fraternity, and

liberty."

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