Critique of Spinoza's Pantheism

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1 CRITIQUE OF SPIOZA’S PATHEISM Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D. 2011. Coming from a family of Portugese Jews that had emigrated to Holland at the end of the sixteenth century, the rationalist and pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam on November 24th, 1632. Though educated by his parents and community in the Old Testament and the Talmud and the various Jewish traditions, his readings into a number of esoteric Cabalist thinkers, the Renaissance pantheistic monism of the apostate ex- Dominican Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), as well as the inherent immanentism of Cartesian rationalism, made Spinoza reject his Jewish faith altogether for pantheism. In 1656, after openly repudiating his Jewish faith, he was solemnly excommunicated from the synagogue at the age of twenty-four. In order to support himself he took to grinding lenses for a variety of optical instruments. He led a quiet and reclusive life of study and writing. In 1660 he retired to Rijnsburg, a small village near Leiden and in 1663 moved to the neighborhood of the Hague. In 1673 he was offered a teaching position in philosophy at Heidelberg, which he refused. 1n 1676, already seriously ill with consumption, he was visited by the German rationalist philosopher Leibniz (1646-1716), who conversed with Spinoza often and at great length, taking a great number of notes from Spinoza’s writings. His consumption having been aggravated by the inhalation of the glass dust from his optical lenses, Spinoza died of tuberculosis on February 21st, 1677 at the age of 44. Spinoza’s few but influential works include A Brief Treatise on God, Man and Happiness (written in 1658 but published only two hundred years later), the Principles of the Philosophy of Rene Descartes (published in 1663 under his own name), his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (which appeared anonymously in 1670), and his Ethics Demonstrated According to the Geometical Order, together with his Political Treatise and his Tractatus de emendatione intellectus (all of which appearing immediately after his death in 1677). Definition of Pantheism Pantheism (from the Greek pan, meaning all, and Theos, meaning God) is the philosophical doctrine which teaches the identity of God with either a part (partial pantheism) or the whole (total pantheism) of the world. It negates the absolute transcendence of the infinite God with respect to the finite world. Since God is basically reduced to the world, which is then divinized, pantheism is, in reality, nothing but a masked atheism (a “crypto,” that is, hidden, atheism). 1 Pantheism’s most famous exponents include Spinoza and the nineteenth century absolute idealist Hegel (who are both classified as total pantheists). Pantheism is popular today in the various New Age philosophies. 1 “Pantheism is nothing else but atheism,” declares the atheist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in his Parerga und Paralipomena. Pantheismusstreit is nothing else but Atheismusstreit. The 19th century atheist Ludwig Feuerbach, in fact, admitted that the pantheist Spinoza was really an atheist, writing: “The Christian philosophers and theologians reproached Spinoza with atheism. And justifiably so:… A God who performs no miracles, who produces no effects differing from the effects of nature, and who thus does not show himself to be a being distinct from nature is in fact simply not God”(L. FEUERBACH, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie von Bacon von Verulam bis Benedikt Spinoza, vol. 3, Stuttgart, 1906, p. 383).

Transcript of Critique of Spinoza's Pantheism

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CRITIQUE OF SPI OZA’S PA THEISM

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D. 2011.

Coming from a family of Portugese Jews that had emigrated to Holland at the end of

the sixteenth century, the rationalist and pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam on November 24th, 1632. Though educated by his parents and community in the Old Testament and the Talmud and the various Jewish traditions, his readings into a number of esoteric Cabalist thinkers, the Renaissance pantheistic monism of the apostate ex-Dominican Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), as well as the inherent immanentism of Cartesian rationalism, made Spinoza reject his Jewish faith altogether for pantheism. In 1656, after openly repudiating his Jewish faith, he was solemnly excommunicated from the synagogue at the age of twenty-four. In order to support himself he took to grinding lenses for a variety of optical instruments. He led a quiet and reclusive life of study and writing. In 1660 he retired to Rijnsburg, a small village near Leiden and in 1663 moved to the neighborhood of the Hague. In 1673 he was offered a teaching position in philosophy at Heidelberg, which he refused. 1n 1676, already seriously ill with consumption, he was visited by the German rationalist philosopher Leibniz (1646-1716), who conversed with Spinoza often and at great length, taking a great number of notes from Spinoza’s writings. His consumption having been aggravated by the inhalation of the glass dust from his optical lenses, Spinoza died of tuberculosis on February 21st, 1677 at the age of 44.

Spinoza’s few but influential works include A Brief Treatise on God, Man and

Happiness (written in 1658 but published only two hundred years later), the Principles of the

Philosophy of Rene Descartes (published in 1663 under his own name), his Tractatus

Theologico-Politicus (which appeared anonymously in 1670), and his Ethics Demonstrated

According to the Geometical Order, together with his Political Treatise and his Tractatus de

emendatione intellectus (all of which appearing immediately after his death in 1677). Definition of Pantheism

Pantheism (from the Greek pan, meaning all, and Theos, meaning God) is the philosophical doctrine which teaches the identity of God with either a part (partial

pantheism) or the whole (total pantheism) of the world. It negates the absolute transcendence of the infinite God with respect to the finite world. Since God is basically reduced to the world, which is then divinized, pantheism is, in reality, nothing but a masked atheism (a “crypto,” that is, hidden, atheism).1 Pantheism’s most famous exponents include Spinoza and the nineteenth century absolute idealist Hegel (who are both classified as total pantheists). Pantheism is popular today in the various New Age philosophies.

1 “Pantheism is nothing else but atheism,” declares the atheist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in his Parerga

und Paralipomena. Pantheismusstreit is nothing else but Atheismusstreit. The 19th century atheist Ludwig Feuerbach, in fact, admitted that the pantheist Spinoza was really an atheist, writing: “The Christian philosophers and theologians reproached Spinoza with atheism. And justifiably so:… A God who performs no miracles, who produces no effects differing from the effects of nature, and who thus does not show himself to be a being distinct from nature is in fact simply not God”(L. FEUERBACH, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie

von Bacon von Verulam bis Benedikt Spinoza, vol. 3, Stuttgart, 1906, p. 383).

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Spinoza’s Concept of Substance and God as “Causa Sui”

Spinoza’s2 point of departure for his pantheist monism is the clear idea of substance. In fact, his entire philosophical system is based on his novel understanding of substance.

2 Studies on Spinoza: H. H. JOACHIM, A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza, Clarendon, Oxford, 1901 ; E. GILSON, Spinoza interprète de Descartes, La Haye, 1923 ; R. P. MCKEON, The Philosophy of Spinoza: The

Unity of His Thought, Longmans, Green, New York, 1928 ; L. ROTH, Spinoza, Benn, London, 1929 ; H. WOLFSON, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1934 ; H. H. JOACHIM, Spinoza’s Tractatus de intellectus emendatione: A Commentary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1940 ; S. HAMPSHIRE, Spinoza, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1954 ; G. H. R. PARKINSON, Spinoza’s Theory

of Knowledge, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1954 ; J. DUNNER, Baruch Spinoza and Western Democracy, The Philosophical Library, New York, 1955 ; H. F. HALLETT, Benedictus Spinoza: The Elements of His

Philosophy, Oxford University Press, New York, 1957 ; D. BIDNEY, The Psychology and Ethics of Spinoza, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1960 ; P. DI VONA, Studi sull’ontologia di Spinoza, 2 vols., La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1960-1969 ; H. H. JOACHIM, A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza, Russell & Russell, New York, 1964 ; C. DE DEUGD, The Significance of Spinoza’s First Kind of Knowledge, Van Gorcum, Assen, 1966 ; H. G. HUBBELING, Spinoza’s Methodology, Van Gorcum, Assen, 1967 ; A. NAESS, Creation and Cognition in

Spinoza’s Theory of Affects, University of Oslo Press, Oslo, 1967 ; C. GALLICET CALVETTI, Spinoza. I

presupposti teoretici dell’irenismo etico, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1968 ; E. M. CURLEY, Spinoza’s

Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1969 ; J. A. WOLFSON, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols., Schoken, New York, 1969 ; T. C. MARK, Spinoza’s Theory of Truth, Columbia University Press, New York, 1972 ; R. SAW, The Vindication of Metaphysics: A Study in the

Philosophy of Spinoza, Russell & Russell, New York, 1972 ; S. P. KASHAP (ed.), Studies in Spinoza: Critical

and Interpretive Essays, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973 ; E. E. HARRIS, Salvation from

Despair: A Reappraisal of Spinoza’s Philosophy, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1973 ; M. GRENE (ed.), Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays, Doubleday-Anchor Press, Garden City, NY, 1973 ; K. JASPERS, Spinoza, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1974 ; G. GIULIETTI, Spinoza: la sua vita, il suo pensiero, Treviso, Canova, 1974 ; S. BRETON, Spinoza, Cittadella, Assisi, 1975 ; P. DI VONA, Baruch Spinoza, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1975 ; A. NAESS, Freedom, Emotion and Self-Subsistence: The Structure of a Central Part of

Spinoza’s Ethics, University of Oslo Press, Oslo, 1975 ; E. FREEMAN and M. MANDELBAUM (eds.), Spinoza: Essays in Interpretation, Open Court, LaSalle, IL, 1975 ; C. MORALES, Baruch Spinoza: Tratado

teológico-politico, Colección Crítica Filosófica, EMESA, Madrid, 1976 ; J. B. WILBUR (ed.), Spinoza’s

Metaphysics: Essays in Critical Appreciation, Van Gorcum, Assen, 1976 ; G. CAMPANA, Liberazione e

salvezza dell’uomo in Spinoza, Città Nuova, Rome, 1978 ; R. W. SHAHAN and J. I. BIRO (eds.), Spinoza: 7ew

Perspectives, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1978 ; C. VINTI, La filosofia come “vitae

meditatio”: una lettura di Spinoza, Città Nuova, Rome, 1979 ; M. GRENE (ed.), Spinoza: A Collection of

Critical Essays, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 1979 ; P. WIENPAHL, The Radical Spinoza, New York University Press, New York, 1979 ; R. KENNINGTON (ed.), The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1980 ; A. GUZZO, Il pensiero di Spinoza, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1980 ; F. MIGNINI, Introduzione a Spinoza, Laterza, Bari, 1983 ; H. A. WOLFSON, The

Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Process of His Reasoning, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983 ; J. BENNETT, A Study of Spinoza’s ‘Ethics,’ Hackett, Indianapolis, 1984 ; R. J. DELAHUNTY, Spinoza, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1985 ; M. GRENE and D. NAILS (eds.), Spinoza and the Sciences, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1986 ; F. ALQUIÉ, Il razionalismo di Spinoza, Milan, 1987 ; H. ALLISON, Benedict de

Spinoza: An Introduction, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1987 ; P. MARTINETTI, Spinoza, Bibliopolis, Naples, 1987 ; A. DONAGAN, Spinoza, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988 ; E. CURLEY, Behind the

Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza’s Ethics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1988 ; R. DIODATO, Sub specie aeternitas: luoghi dell’ontologia spinoziana, CUSL, Milan, 1990 ; E. CURLEY and P.-F. MOREAU (eds.), Spinoza: Issues and Directions, Brill, Leiden, 1990 ; E. G. BOSCHERINI, Che cosa ha

vermente detto Spinoza, Ubaldini, Rome, 1991 ; E. G. BOSCHERINI, Baruch Spinoza, Editori Riuniti, Rome, 1991 ; V. CHAPPELL (ed.), Baruch de Spinoza, Garland Publishing, New York, 1992 ; G. LLOYD, Part of

7ature: Self-Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1994 ; P. CRISTOFOLINI, Spinoza per tutti, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1993 ; D. GARRETT (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995 ; H. DE DIJN, Spinoza: The Way to Wisdom, Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, IN, 1996 ; G. LLOYD, Spinoza and the ‘Ethics,’ Routledge, London, 1996 ; M. DELLA ROCCA, Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996 ; R. MASON, The God of Spinoza: A Philosophical Study, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999 ; J. CARRIERO, On the Relationship Between Mode and Substance in Spinoza’s Metaphysics, in The Rationalists:

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Though he accepts the Cartesian definition of substance3 as “a thing which exists in such a way that it does not need any other thing in order to exist,”4 Spinoza rejects Descartes’ dualism of substance into res cogitans (thought) and res extensa (extension), which he thinks is inconsistent, since he interprets the Cartesian definition of substance in a wholly monistic and pantheistic sense: substance can only be One (wherein essence is identified with existence), and this One Substance can apply only to “God” (which he identifies with Nature). Spinoza’s own definition of substance is the following: “By substance I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words, that, the conception of which does not need the conception of another thing from which it must be formed.”5 Now, the One Substance (which is the ultimate and supreme foundation, without need for having recourse to some ulterior foundation) is, for Spinoza, self-foundational, that is, “Cause of Itself” (causa sui). This reality, he says, cannot be conceived but as existing necessarily (God’s essence and existence necessarily are identical), and as Substance is “that which is in itself and is conceived through itself,” that is, that which in order to exist and in order to be

Critical Essays on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, edited by D. Pereboom, Rowman & Littlefield, New York, 1999, pp. 131-164 ; M. GULLAN-WHUR, Within Reason: A Life of Spinoza, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000 ; D. STEINBERG, On Spinoza (Wadsworth Philosophers Series), Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont, CA, 2000 ; G. LLOYD (ed.), Spinoza: Critical Assessments, 4 vols., Routledge, London, 2001 ; S. NADLER, Spinoza: A Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001 ; R. SCRUTON, Spinoza: A Very Short

Introduction, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002 ; R. H. POPKIN, Spinoza (Oneworld Philosophers), Oneworld Publications, London, 2004 ; S. M. NADLER, Spinoza’s Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004 ; S. HAMPSHIRE, Spinoza and Spinozism, Oxford University Press, New York, 2005 ; J. CARRIERO, Spinoza on Final Causality, in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, vol. 2, edited by D. Garber and S. Nadler, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2005, pp. 105-148 ; R. MASON, Spinoza:

Logic, Knowledge and Religion, Ashgate, Farnham, 2007 ; S. DEVEAUX, The Role of God in Spinoza’s

Metaphysics, Continuum, London, 2007 ; M. DELLA ROCA, Spinoza (The Routledge Philosophers), Routledge, London, 2008 ; O. KOISTINEN (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009 ; M. LEBUFFE, From Bondage to Freedom: Spinoza on Human Excellence, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010 ; F. L. DIXON, Spinoza’s God, Alondra Press, Houston, 2010 ; C. HUENEMANN (ed.), Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010. 3 Descartes’ definition of substance “introduces an absolute independence into the notion of substance as such which is applicable only to the substance of God”(C. HART, Thomistic Metaphysics: An Inquiry Into the Act of

Existing, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959, p. 190). The founder of modern philosophy’s definition of substance is erroneous, since substance can be applied either to God (Infinite Substance, in whom essence and act of being are identified. Cf. De Potentia Dei, q. 1, a. 1) or to contingent beings (finite substances, wherein essence and act of being are really distinct) which have been created and are preserved in existence by the Infinite Being God. Naturally, God does not come under the genus substance. We are not referring to predicamental or categorical substance (God is not substance understood predicamentally or categorically), which involves univocal predication and is applicable only among finite beings. Rather, we are referring to non-predicamental substance (which involves analogical predication) when we refer to the Infinite Substance God, in whom essentia and esse are identical. Holloway explains: “In Thomistic metaphysics, which is concerned primarily with the act of to be, substance, as that whose essence requires existence in itself, is identified with essence: therefore it may be a limiting principle for the act of to be which is received into it, or it may be unlimiting if the very essence or substance is simply to be. Such an essence or substance is then identical with the act of existing. In the first case, the substance is in the category or predicament of substance, a supreme genus, one of the ten modes of existence in a finite being. In this way, substance itself as a genus is, of course, predicated in the same manner (or univocally) of the various species of substance. In the second case, substance is not predicamental, but transcends all categories or predicaments of being and is as wide as being itself in the full and proper sense of that term. In this way, it is strictly a kind of transcendental of being, because it is predicable analogically of Infinite as well as finite being. That is why St. Thomas says: God alone is Pure Act. Therefore only the substance of God is its ‘to be’ and ‘to act’’(Summa Theologiae, I, q. 54, a. 1). Here we have one of the most important contributions of Thomistic metaphysics to the precise nature of substance by putting it into relation with the true and proper notion of being as not simply an essence but as an essence whose act is to be”(C. HART, op. cit., pp. 185-186). 4 R. DESCARTES, Principia philosophica, I, no. 51. 5 B. SPINOZA, Ethics Demonstrated According to the Geometrical Order, I, d. 3.

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conceived in the mind, has no need of any other previous thing, it coincides with causa sui. Spinozian substance is that which has no need of any other for it is the reason or cause of itself.

Refutation of God as “Causa Sui”

Contrary to Spinoza’s position, God is not causa sui “cause of Himself,” (or for Spinoza “cause of itself” since his “God” is an impersonal Substance) for no being is the efficient cause of itself. Every cause is prior to its effect. Now, if a thing were said to be the cause of its proper being, then it would be understood to be before having being (to exist before coming to be), which is impossible. If a being were the cause of itself it would be giving itself the act of being (esse) in order to be, implying that it would both be and not be at the same time, which is a flagrant violation of the first of all principles, namely, the principle of non-contradiction. Therefore, non est possibile quod aliquid sit causa efficiens sui ipsius. God is not causa sui; rather, He is the Uncaused Cause. How did Spinoza arrive at such an error? By “severing the principle of causality from experience and by considering it as an a

priori principle which applies to being as such…The error of rationalism in this matter is that of identifying cause with ratio: ‘we must look for the cause, that is, the ratio of any given reality’6 Applying this to God, Descartes asserted that since God is ens a se, He must be causa sui, in other words, since God’s being is explained from His essence (ratio sui) He can only be the cause of Himself (causa sui). Spinoza followed the same reasoning: ‘by causa

sui, I mean that whose essence implies its existence.’7 He went on to say that the divine essence is a prius that connotes existence. Therefore, God is not only ens a se; He is also the Cause of Himself.”8

Substance Exists ecessarily, Is Infinite, Is Unique

Three propositions are deduced by Spinoza from the clear idea of substance, namely,

that substance exists necessarily, that substance is infinite, and that substance is unique: “1) Substance exists necessarily. For Spinoza, as for Descartes, the clear idea of substance is that of a being which has no need of another in order to subsist; this is the idea of a perfect being who subsists by Himself. From this definition of substance, one moves on to the affirmation of its real existence, for the denial of its existence destroys its definition; to stipulate its definition is to stipulate its real existence. Besides, since we have an intuition of this definition through the clear idea, which is infallible, we thus know that substance exists necessarily in reality.

“2) This substance is infinite. It would be repugnant to hold that substance, whose

total definition implies existence through itself, could, in some way, be any sort of ‘non-being.’ But finite being can be understood only as a sort of ‘non-being’, and as a limitation which is a non-perfection. It is thus impossible that substance be finite; it is infinite by definition.

“3) This substance is unique. As a matter of fact, a second substance, which would be

distinguishable from the first, is impossible. For to hold this, the first would have to possess a perfection which the second one would not; in that case, the second substance would involve

6 B. SPINOZA, op. cit., I, prop. 11, aliter. 7 B. SPINOZA, op. cit., I, d. 1. 8 T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, Metaphysics, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1991, p. 183.

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some ‘non-being’ and be finite, a situation which would be impossible, since it has been demonstrated that every substance is infinite.

“This substance, Spinoza concludes, is God, the necessary being, infinite and unique,

simple, immutable, eternal and sovereignly independent.” 9 The Attributes and Modes of the One Substance

Spinoza’s One Substance (the Spinozian “God”) is constituted of an infinity of attributes, of which only two are known to us, namely, thought and extension. He defines an attribute as “what the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of a substance.”10 Men and things are nothing but “modes” (accidental modifications) of the one Divine Substance (God or Nature).11 Spinoza defines mode, stating: “By mode, I understand the affections of substance, or that which is in another thing, through which also it is conceived.”12

“Deus Sive atura”: God or ature

For Spinoza, the world is not separate from God. For him, the world (Nature) is identified with God: Deus sive 7atura (God or Nature). They are one and the same thing. God would be natura naturans (naturing nature), that is, infinite productive activity that produces the world. God as naturing nature is that reality brought back to its constitutive oneness and constituting itself in actuality, in nature and as nature. The world, instead, is natura naturata (natured nature), that is, the infinite product. Natured nature refers to the duality of the attributes as well as the multiplicity of modes further unifying the unity of the One Substance expressed in naturing nature. Chervin and Kevane write: “Spinoza, using the traditional word ‘substance’ with a new meaning, forthwith identifies this one infinite divine Substance with Nature, that is, with this visible cosmos. Hence the famous phrase Deus sive

7atura, which recurs unforgettably in his writings in his careful and precise Latin. The Latin language has two words for ‘or’: vel, to state that the two terms are distinct; and sive, to state that they are identical. When Spinoza says ‘God or Nature,’ therefore, he means that they are one and the same. When he uses the word ‘God,’ as he does constantly, he does so deceptively, for he means ‘Nature.’ And when he uses the word ‘Nature’ he means what pantheism calls ‘the Divine.’ This confusion between existing in itself and existing of itself erases the distinction between the Creator and His creatures, who are indeed independently existing substantial realities because they have received from Him a participated form of existence. They exist in themselves as distinct substantial realities. But in Spinoza the doctrine of creation disappears…The doctrine of the eternity of matter follows as a quick and necessary corollary. And matter is introduced as an element of God: thus the very concept of God suffers a reduction to nothingness. For ‘God’ has become only a word. Pantheism is a disguise for atheism…”13

9 F. J. THONNARD, A Short History of Philosophy, Desclée, Tournai, 1956, p. 540. 10 B. SPINOZA, op. cit., I, d. 4. 11 Man, for Spinoza, would not be “a composition of two finite substances but only of two corresponding modes of the one divine substance. Spinoza’s answer to the Cartesian dualism of mind-substance and body-substance is to deny the substantial character of the two terms and to achieve the harmony of mind and body through their mutual expression of the same substance, even though they do so under different attributes”(J. COLLINS, God

in Modern Philosophy, Gateway Edition, Regnery, Chicago, 1967, p. 75). 12 B. SPINOZA, Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated, I, definition 5. 13 R. CHERVIN, E. KEVANE, Love of Wisdom, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988, pp. 222-223.

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God, for Spinoza, is identified with Nature. 7atura naturans (naturing nature) is Nature as the one infinite self-dependent and self-determined unique Substance (with its infinite attributes), without reference to its modifications, while 7atura naturata (natured nature) is Nature considered as a system of infinite and finite modes. Copleston observes: “Nature necessarily expresses itself in modifications, and in this sense Nature is the immanent cause of all its modifications or modes. ‘God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things,’14 for all things exist in God or Nature. But this does not mean that God exists apart from the modes and can interfere with the chain of finite causes. The chain of finite causality is the divine causality; for it is the modal expression of God’s self-determination.

“It is a help, then, towards understanding the drift of Spinoza’s thought if for the word

‘God’ one substitutes the word ‘Nature.’ For example, the sentence, ‘Particular things are nothing else than modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which attributes of God are expressed in a certain and determined manner,’15 becomes clearer if for ‘God’ one reads ‘Nature.’”16

For Spinoza, God or the totality of nature includes both natura naturans and natura

naturata, the former being logically and ontologically prior the latter. 7atura naturans is not one substance distinct from another substance called natura naturata. Rather, there is only One Substance for Spinoza (God or Nature), but this One Substance can be looked at from different points of view.

Spinoza’s Determinism or egation of Free-Will

A consequence of his pantheism of the sole Divine Substance with innumerable modes (individual men and the things of the world) is Spinoza’s negation of free will in men and the elimination of the problem of evil.17 For him, people are but modes, emanations, accidents of the One Substance, which is God identical with Nature (Deus sive 7atura). Free-will is illusory; men live and breathe in a world of strict determinism. Men are insignificant parts of a larger whole, which is Nature. He says that men think that they are free because they are ignorant of the causes that determine their actions. One’s feeling that we are the causes of our free acts is only an illusion. He gives the example that if a stone were thrown up in the air and while falling were to become conscious it would imagine that it was flying of its own free will, but this would all be an illusion for other causes that determine the stone’s descent are at work. Though free will is an illusion, one can be “free,” he says, in the detached acknowledgement that everything in the end is determined or necessary: “Spinoza’s answer is that we shall be free by understanding and acceptance – understanding that we are part of a bigger whole and seeing that, as such, nothing that happens to any one of us could have fallen otherwise, given the state of the whole from which it arises. Once we see this clearly we shall stop fretting and we shall come free from the cycle of ego-centric, reactive transactions in which we are puppets on a string.”18 “Spinoza holds that it is not by fighting what constitutes such determinism that human beings can find freedom, move from a state of bondage to one of freedom, but, paradoxical as it may sound, by accepting it. Such

14 B. SPINOZA, Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated, P. I, prop. 18. 15 B. SPINOZA, op. cit., P. I, prop. 25, corollary. 16 F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, vol. 4, Image Doubleday, New York, 1985, pp. 221-222. 17 “Since pantheism denies liberty, Spinoza’s morality merely states the facts which occur, denying the idea of evil, and replacing it by that of a man being of little repute”(F. J. THONNARD, op. cit., vol.3, p. 549). 18 I. DILMAN, Free Will, Routledge, London, 1999, p. 129.

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acceptance is achieved through detachment and self-knowledge…Given that the situation that faces him cannot be changed, how can he come out of such a state of bondage, emerge into a state of freedom? Spinoza’s answer is: by accepting his situation, by stopping to fight it. This involves detachment, which is not the same as indifference. The detachment in question is from the ego…if in my feelings I am at one with Nature then everything that happens will be what I am in agreement with, not because of what it is, but regardless of what it is. Paradoxically in yielding myself, in the sense of giving up my ego and becoming part of nature, I stop yielding to something external to myself…the will of Nature, as it were, is imposed on one because one separates oneself from it by rooting oneself in one’s ego. If one embraces it, makes the will of Nature one’s command, one will be set free.”19

Spinoza’s Way to Happiness

The object of Spinozian ethics is the intellectual love of God (or Nature). In elevating oneself from one’s passions through the life of reason and the intellectual contemplation of

19 I. DILMAN, op. cit., pp. 134, 138. Against Spinoza’s determinism we must reply that the existence of free-will in human beings is a spontaneous certainty of common sense, and that the various proofs as to our being endowed with free-will include the testimony of consciousness, an examination of the natures of the operative faculties of will and intellect, and the enumeration of the various disastrous consequences ensuing as a result of the denial of free-will (such as the denial of good and evil and the legitimacy of laws). Of the first and last proofs, Glenn writes: “The first, the direct, and the most evident proof of this fact is found in consciousness. Man is aware that he is not the victim of a nature that forces his actions in all things; he is aware that he is not the helpless prey of circumstances; he is aware that he is not compelled to yield to the attractions of any object, however powerful these may be. In a word, man is aware that he is master of his human conduct. Let us make no mistake; we do not assert that man has control of every activity, even every conscious activity, or that he exercises what control he has by continuous volitions or will-acts. What we do assert is that man is master of his human acts, that is, of such acts as he deliberately and advertently performs, and which he knows as the fruit of his own decisions. A good deal of man’s ordinary daily life runs along on the wheels of habit and takes a course determined by the man’s character and the attractions of the various objects and situations that he encounters. But the even current of man’s life (colored by his character and by the motives found in the attractiveness or repulsiveness of particular objects and situations) is willed in its cause, for the man is its cause; and now and again, during a day or week or month, the man must avert more or less directly to the sort of life he regularly leads, and, so adverting, must give practical approval to it, must will it in short. Only occasionally, perhaps, in a person’s ordinary day, is there demand for a special, clearly realized, and deliberate choice or volition. Such clearly realized will acts are most evident in the judgments of conscience on the moral qualities of a situation to be faced and decided. It is particularly in conscience-judgments that a man is reflectively aware that his decision, his volition, his will-act, is the essential factor which makes his ‘doing’ or ‘avoiding’ his own activity, of which he is cause, author, and responsible determinant. – Man is conscious of the control he wields over his own acts. And he experiences this consciousness before, during, and after his deliberate volitions. Before he acts, he may, and frequently does, take counsel with himself or seek advice of others. He weighs reasons pro and con; he considers advantages or disadvantages to follow. During the action, he is aware that he is doing what he might have left undone, doing one thing while he might have chosen to omit it or to have done something else, even something opposite. After acting, man is conscious of self-approval or remorse; he is glad or sorry that he has acted as he did. Consciousness, is therefore, an evident proof of the existence of free-will… “A proof of the freedom of the will is found in the absurdities which follow upon its denial…this denial is entirely destructive of morality. For it takes away responsibility. And if a man has no free-will, and no choice in his conduct, no control of his acts, it follows that there is no such thing as right and wrong, no such thing as merit and demerit. Saint and sinner, the good man and rogue, the solid citizen and the gangster, are equally blameless in the face of fated necessity. Prisons then are torture chambers, but, of course, men are fated to build prisons and confine prisoners. Good conduct and evil conduct are equally valueless, but men are forced by blind necessity to praise the one and condemn the other. No sense or reason is to be found, therefore, in the common conduct of mankind; we are all blind fools together. Morality comes to naught, and with morality all social sense and social security perish. Here is the fruit of the denial of human free-will. But we cannot, without denying all value to human knowledge, accept this fruit as true food of minds. We find it absurd; we find it impossible to accept. Therefore, we find the denial of free-will impossible. We are driven to conclude that human free-will is a fact”(P. J. GLENN, Psychology, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1955, pp. 367-369, 372-373).

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the One Substance (God or Nature) in its most profound aspect one obtains supreme happiness. It is a salvation by means of philosophical reasoning alone. “Taken together, the divine substance and its infinite number of attributes constitute natura naturans, or nature in its dynamic, productive aspect; the totality of modes constitutes natura naturata, or nature in its explicated and produced aspect. When Spinoza sets the goal of philosophy to be the discovery of the union of the mind with the whole of nature, he means the knowledge of the totality of nature as both naturans and naturata, for this constitutes the full reality of God. The mind which fails to see God or nature in this integral way is taking an imaginative and erroneous view of things. It thinks that individual things are contingent, temporal substances, that man is a free agent, and that he is subject to external forces and chance events. To take this imaginative view of nature is to be subject to the passions, to be the hapless victim of all the miseries of life. Liberation from the passions comes when we abandon this false outlook and embrace the true doctrine on substance-attributes-modes. The modal world is then seen in proper, eternal perspective, and a change takes place in the individual’s moral condition. He is no longer at the mercy of every external circumstance, for he has learned to regard natura

naturata precisely as it stems from natura naturans and hence to see it in the true light of eternity. The total determination of the modal world and everything in it springs from its very definition as a reality caused by another. Far from leading to a depressing fatalism, however, this conception is the basis for whatever hope and enthusiasm may enliven the human breast. For this ‘other,’ this causal principle of the world of modes, is none other than the omnipotent and wholly immanent God. Hence the causal determination of things is really from within and is an expression of the divine rationality and power themselves. To pass from an imaginative to a true or eternal view of the universe is nothing more than to share in Spinoza’s own vision of God’s identity with the necessary unfolding of nature.”20

Refutation of Spinoza’s Pantheism

Contrary to Spinozian monism, God is not identified with Nature; The Infinite God is to be distinguished absolutely from the world (whose finite and imperfect beings merely participate in the act of being given to them by the Infinite Being, in whom act of being and essence are identified). To say, as Spinoza does, that there is only one Substance (Deus sive

7atura), does violence to the testimony of common sense. Everyday experience shows us that there are many things in the world, distinct from one another because of their specific essences, and those of the same form (apple, horse, cat, etc.) are many because their form is received in different parcels of matter (matter is the principle of individuation21). If the world were identical with God, the world would necessarily be a single being, for God is Himself

20 J. COLLINS, op. cit., pp. 77-78. 21 Studies on individuation: G. M. MANSER, Das thomistische Individuationsprinzip, “Divus Thomas,” 12 (1934), pp. 221-27, 279-300 ; E. HUGUENY, Résurrection et indentité corporelle selon les philosophies de

l’individuation, “Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques,” 23 (1934), pp. 94-106 ; J. B. WALL, The Mind of St. Thomas on the Principle of Individuation, “Modern Schoolman,” 1940-1941, pp. 41ff. ; U. DEGL’INNOCENTI, Il pensiero di San Tommaso sul principio di individuazione, “Divus Thomas,” 45 (1942), pp. 35-81 ; U. DEGL’INNOCENTI, De Gaetano e il principio d’individuazione, “Divus Thomas,” 26 (1949), pp. 202-208 ; J. BOBIK, La doctrine de Saint Thomas sur l’individuation des substances corporelles, “Revue Philosophique de Louvain,” 51 (1953), pp. 5-41 ; J. BOBIK, Dimensions in the Individuation of Bodily

Substances, “Philosophical Studies,” 4 (1954), pp. 60-79 ; J. KLINGER, Das Prinzip der Individuation bei

Thomas von Aquin, “Münsterschwarzacher Studien (II),” Vier Turme Verlag, Münsterschwarzacher, 1964 ; U. DEGL’INNOCENTI, Il principio d’individuazione dei corpi e Giovanni di S. Tommaso, “Aquinas,” 12 (1969), pp. 59-99 ; U. DEGL’INNOCENTI, Il principio d’individuazione nella scuola tomistica, Pontificia Università Lateranense, Rome, 1971 ; S. P. SFEKAS, The Problem of Individuation in Aristotelian Metaphysics, New York, 1979 ; J. OWENS, Thomas Aquinas: Dimensive Quantity as Individuating Principle, “Medieval Studies,” 50 (1988), pp. 279-310.

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supremely one, undivided and indivisible.22 But such a position blatantly contradicts both the testimony of the senses and of reason. At the foundations of Spinoza’s substantialistic pantheism lie the erroneous notions of substance and subsistence (which he inherited from Descartes), and his failure to understand the real distinction of essentia and esse in creatures (finite beings, diverse in essence, only participate in esse; they merely have esse by participation). Charles Hart explains: “But whether a substance (an ens per se) is also an Ens

a Se, that is, a being in whom existence is intrinsic and proper to its nature or essence, will be quite a distinct problem from that of the constitution or nature of substance as such. It will involve the question as to whether the substance or essence is in potency to an act of to be received into this substance (and thus at the same time a principle of limitation and therefore multiplication), or whether it is a substance or essence identical with its act of to be (and therefore not a principle of limitation and multiplication). The substances of our immediate experience are all of the former character, namely, principles of limitation. This accounts for their multitude. They are therefore finite predicamental substances. They also point to the necessity of inferring the existence of a substance which is not a principle of limitation but is identical with its act of to be and without which the limited substances could not exist, since they must receive their respective acts of to be which are not intrinsic to their substances, if they are to exist at all. This substance which does not limit its act of to be and whose existence must be inferred is therefore not only a being existing in itself (ens per se), but it is also a Being that exists of itself (Ens a Se). This however is not necessarily a note of substance as such. Its demand for existence in itself may be met either by caused or uncaused being. Its substantiality as such does not include the question of the source of existence in itself. Every substance requires that it exist in itself. Only Infinite Substance also exists of itself; that is, only the Infinite Substance is necessarily Self-Existing. What makes all this clear and permits a sound doctrine of substance which involves no such error as the pantheism of Spinoza is the understanding of the real distinction of essence and act of being in all beings of our experience, that is, their participated character. It is this principle which permits Thomism to anticipate and refute the error of the substantialistic pantheism of Spinoza, in whose philosophy no such insight into the true nature of being is possible.”23

God is not infinite and finite at the same time (God as Nature and Nature as God) as

the pantheistic monism maintains. How should we understand the infinity of God, as understood, for example, by St. Thomas, in contrast to the pantheistic monism of Spinoza? God is the Pure Act of Being. Since His Being is completely in act, He is completely perfect. Absolutely nothing is lacking to his Being. Therefore, we affirm that God is also infinite. There is no term or limit to His Being. But being perfect and being infinite are not the same thing. Being perfect posits God in complete actuality of being and all the perfections of being, while being infinite removes or denies any term or limit to God’s being. But infinity follows from perfection. As God’s being is completely in act, there can be nothing potential or limiting within it.

God is absolutely infinite: “A thing is called infinite because it is not finite (limited).

Now matter is in a way made finite by form, and the form by matter. Matter indeed is made finite by form, inasmuch as matter, before it receives its form, is in potentiality to many forms; but on receiving a form, it is terminated by that one. Again, form is made finite by matter, inasmuch as form, considered in itself, is common to many; but when received in matter, the form is determined to this one particular thing. Now matter is perfected by the

22 See the third and eleventh questions of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae. 23 C. HART, Thomistic Metaphysics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959, p. 194.

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form by which it is made finite; therefore infinite as attributed to matter, has the nature of something imperfect; for it is as it were formless matter. On the other hand, form is not made perfect by matter, but rather is contracted by matter; and hence the infinite, regarded on the part of the form not determined by matter, has the nature of something perfect. Now being is the most formal of all things, as appears from what is shown above (q. 4, a. 1, ob. 3). Since therefore the divine being is not a being received in anything, but He is His own subsistent being as was shown above (q. 3, a. 4), it is clear that God Himself is infinite and perfect.”24

Though some beings can be relatively infinite (one thinks, for example, of the relative

infinity of matter, or of the relative infinity of the form of an angel which is not received in matter), only God can be essentially and absolutely infinite: “Things other than God can be relatively infinite, but not absolutely infinite. For with regard to infinite as applied to matter, it is manifest that everything actually existing possesses a form; and thus its matter is determined by form. But because matter, considered as existing under some substantial form, remains in potentiality to many accidental forms, what is absolutely finite can be relatively infinite; as, for example, wood is finite according to its own form, but still it is relatively infinite, inasmuch as it is in potentiality to an infinite number of shapes. But if we speak of the infinite in reference to form, it is manifest that those things, the forms of which are in matter, are absolutely finite, and in no way infinite. If however, any created forms are not received into matter, but are self-subsisting, as some think is the case with the angels, these will be relatively infinite, inasmuch as such kinds of forms are not terminated, not contracted by any matter. But because a created form thus subsisting has being, and yet is not its own being, it follows that its being is received and contracted to a determinate nature. Hence it cannot be absolutely infinite.”25

The nature of a pure form such as an angel is not received in matter and, therefore is

not limited. An angel is infinite in the order of essence and since it realizes the fullness of its specific perfection, it is actually, not potentially, infinite. Nevertheless, the actual infinity which is attributable to angelic forms is not predicated of them in an absolute way or unqualifiedly (simpliciter), but only qualifiedly (secundum quid). The reason for this is that angels are not their own act of being. Though angels are infinite as regards their essence, nevertheless, this is not an existential infinity. There is a real distinction of essence and act of being in an angel, the former metaphysical principle limiting the latter. God alone is His own Act of Being, unreceived by a limiting essence. Therefore, He is infinite unqualifiedly, infinite simpliciter.

Bittle presents and answers the objections of the pantheists against the actual,

essential, existential infinity of God, which is said of Him alone, and not of the finite beings that make up the universe: “A formidable objection has been raised against the ‘infinite perfection’ of God. It runs somewhat as follows: Besides the essence of God there exist many other essences and beings, namely, the physical world and everything in it. These essences and beings, and therefore also their perfections, are not present in God. Consequently, their perfections are missing in the essence and being of God, and He is not infinitely perfect.

“The answer to this objection is not difficult. The infinite being must certainly possess

all the perfections found in the beings present in the universe. However, it is not necessary for Him to possess them according to their individual existence; it suffices, if He possesses these

24 Summa Theologiae, I, q. 7, a. 1, c. 25 Summa Theologiae, I, q. 7, a. 2, c.

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perfections according to their worth or value virtually and eminently. These things do not and cannot possess any perfection greater than His or nor independent of Him; whatever they possess in the line of reality and perfection, they have received from Him. So long as God does not lose any perfection of His own thereby, one cannot say that these things possess perfections which He does not possess. Their existence merely multiplies the number of beings possessing perfection, but the perfection itself does not thereby become greater. A teacher imparting knowledge to his pupils does not lose his own knowledge, nor do the pupils have a more perfect knowledge than the teacher, nor does the addition of the knowledge of all the pupils to that of the teacher make the knowledge as a whole greater or more perfect. The knowledge has the same amount of perfection, whether communicated or not; the number of knowing individuals has been increased, but not the perfection of the knowledge itself. The objection is thus seen to be invalid.

“A somewhat similar objection, though different in form, is also made against God’s

infinity. The beings in this world possess a certain amount of real perfection. Let us suppose that God’s perfection is infinite. Then the addition of the perfections of the creatures to the perfection of God gives an amount of perfection which is greater than infinite. But that is impossible. Now, one cannot deny the existence of creatural perfections. One must, therefore, deny the infinity of God’s perfection.

“The answer to this objection is about the same as that to the foregoing objection. By

adding the perfections of creatures to the perfection of God one does not increase ‘perfection as such,’ since perfections are predicated of God and creatures only in an analogical sense; one merely increases the number of those possessing perfection. The number of creatures is only finite, though it is potentially infinite; adding God as another number to the number of creatures does not increase this number to such an extent that its magnitude would be ‘actually infinite.’”26

The reason why pantheists are in error concerning God’s absolute essential, existential

infinity is that they mistake mathematical infinity, which is a potential infinity only, for actual and absolute infinity in the existential order, which is proper only to God, the Pure Act of Being. Potential infinity is based on quantitative matter and is termed mathematical infinity. Mathematical infinity is not actual infinity; it signifies indefiniteness which is in no way actual. It merely affirms that we can keep on adding another unit ad infinitum. It is therefore at most, only a potential infinity. Potential infinity is the indefinite multiplication of an univocal unit. It is an univocal indefiniteness. And the acceptance of an univocal indefiniteness in God is the error committed by pantheists.

Pantheistic monism is contrary to the facts of experience and to the principles of

reason. Pantheistic monism identifies the world with God or the Absolute. It is an erroneous philosophical doctrine that maintains that there exists only One Substance, the One-Being (God or the Absolute), and that the universe is either an emanation, a modification or manifestation, or a determination of this One Substance or One-Being. The One Substance or One-Being and the universe are, therefore, entitatively one and the same substantial reality. This would be the ultimate reason and ground for the unity of the world, claim the pantheistic monists. But the facts of experience tell us that there is an entitative multiplicity of beings in the universe. The physical world that we see around us is extra-mental, for it is outside the thinking human mind, and also completely external to the perceiving subject or person. As

26 C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 230-231.

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such, it is both extra-‘I’ and non-‘I.’ My consciousness is witness to the fact that me myself and the things of the world (i.e., trees, dogs, horses, cats) are entitatively distinct beings, the former, me, being a different entity from the latter entities and therefore not identical.

Bittle adds: “Consider the fact of other minds. No sane person can doubt the existence

of ‘other minds’ which are distinct from our own. Our experience is witness to the fact that we have direct and immediate knowledge of no other mind but our own. And yet we are certain that other minds really exist. This is proved by language, because we communicate with these minds through the medium of words which signify ideas. That these other minds are realities distinct from myself is clear, because the ideas which I receive in the course of this thought-communication from the other minds are often new to me and are evidently given ‘from without.’ That these ideas are not the product of my own thinking, is an incontrovertible certainty: they are frequently foreign and antagonistic, even contradictory, and in many instances I experience great difficulty in understanding them. Many times it happens that these ‘other minds’ attempt to communicate ideas to me in a language which I do not understand. How could this be so, if these minds were entitatively identical with my own? There can be no doubt, then, that they have an existence independent of myself; they are the minds of other human persons. But that proves that the beings of the universe are not a substantially identical One-Being, otherwise it is incomprehensible why this One-Being should not be able to understand its own language and grasp its own ideas.

“Needless to say, the natural sciences are in accord with our view, not with that of

pantheistic monism. Astronomy, physics, geology, anthropology, zoology, botany, chemistry – all lead to the inevitable conclusion that nature is a real world of existing, discrete, entitatively distinct bodies, some living and some nonliving. The ultimate particles of matter, electrons and protons, are irreducible entities. The sciences find nothing to indicate that all things are identical in the One-Being.

“And thus we see that pantheistic monism, with its doctrine of a single substantial

entity, is contrary to experience.”27 Bittle also explains that pantheistic monism is contrary to reason as it confuses the

real and logical orders, destroys the most fundamental laws of thought and being by violating the principle of non-contradiction, abandons the principle of sufficient reason, and thrives on the illogical: “It is based on a confusion of concepts. All the differences between things, pantheists say, are neutralized in the concept of being. Each individual thing is a ‘being,’ whether it be spiritual or material, whether it be an element or a compound, whether it be organic or inorganic, whether it be an atom or a star, whether it be the world or God or the Absolute. The concept of ‘being’ is realized in each and in all together; and it is a unitary concept, meaning simply ‘that which exists.’ Since the concept of ‘being’ is one, all that exists is one being; hence, all things are identified in the One-being, God or the Absolute. Pantheists fail to see that this line of thought rests on a confusion of the real and logical

orders. The unity of ‘being,’ predicated of all things here, is an abstraction of the mind, a logical unity, made by ignoring the real differences which exist concretely in the things. I can, of course, compare living and nonliving beings, ignore the real difference between ‘life’ and ‘lifelessness,’ and focus my attention solely on the fact that they agree in the concept of ‘being.’ I can also compare material and spiritual things, God and the world, and concentrate solely on their ‘being.’ Thereby I arrive at the one concept of ‘being’ which is common to all

27 C. BITTLE, From Aether to Cosmos: Cosmology, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1949, pp. 386-387.

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things. It is, however, only in my concept that they are viewed as ‘one’; in their reality they are still many and different, because I cannot remove their multiplicity and their differences in the ‘real’ order by merely ignoring them in the ‘conceptual’ or ‘logical’ order. Our experience, as was pointed out, proves that things are multiple and entitatively distinct in the real order of things, and the logical unity of all things in the concept of ‘being’ by means of mental abstraction does not make all things actually ‘one’ in the real order: they remain multiple and distinct beings, no matter how we conceive them in our ideas. Pantheistic monism, since it is based on a confusion of the real and logical order, is thus seen to rest on an illogical foundation.

“Furthermore, pantheistic monism destroys the most fundamental laws of thought and

being. The universe, as it exists, is composed of beings having activities and properties which are contrary and contradictory if present in one single reality. Some beings are inorganic, others organic; some are sentient, others non-sentient; some are rational, others irrational; some perform acts which are morally good, others perform acts which are morally evil; some assist one another, others combat and destroy one another. But these are contrary and contradictory activities and properties. If, then, there exists but a single substance, a solitary One-Being, it would be simultaneously living and nonliving, sentient and non-sentient, rational and irrational, morally good and morally evil, self-developing and self-destroying, etc. In that case, however, the principle of non-contradiction is abolished and contradiction becomes the supreme law of thought and being; this we cannot admit.

“Similarly, if pantheistic monism were true, we must abandon the principle of

sufficient reason. The universe is supposed to be an emanation, evolution, or determination of the One-Being (God or the Absolute). Now, the reality of the result of this process of world formation was either present in the One-Being before the process began, or it acquired this reality by means of this process. But if the One-Being possessed all this reality beforehand, why should the process of emanation, evolution, or determination occur at all? What could the One-Being gain by it? But if the One-Being lacked all this reality in its original condition, whence could it receive it? Not from itself, because it did not have it in the first place. Not from another being, because no other being exists which could give it. In the first case, we have no sufficient reason to explain why there should be an emanation, evolution, or determination of the One-Being in the formation of the universe; in the second case, we have no sufficient reason to explain whence the new reality in the universe could be acquired. We have but two alternatives: either pantheistic monism must be rejected as an irrational system, or the principle of sufficient reason must be thrown into the discard. The latter alternative involves the abandonment of reason and the bankruptcy of all knowledge, in which case, pantheistic monism itself as a system of thought is also of no value. The only thing left, then, is the rejection of pantheistic monism.

“Finally, the very concept of the ‘One-Being,’ of ‘God,’ of the ‘Absolute,’ as

envisioned by the pantheists, is illogical, because contrary to reason. The existence and nature of God, as the Supreme or Absolute Being, is proved or explained in theodicy (natural theology or philosophy of God). Here we assume the findings of theodicy without question or proof, and we argue as follows. A being which is uncaused and which, therefore, has the ground of its existence and essence in itself (a se), must be infinitely perfect, unchangeable, absolutely independent, without composition of any kind, supremely intelligent, and personal. The pantheistic One-Being, God or Absolute, has none of these attributes, no matter what type of pantheism we examine. Since the One-Being is identical in substance with the universe, the attributes must be the attributes of the One-Being. But the universe, as was

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shown repeatedly, contains beings of various degrees of perfection in their entity, is in a continuous process of change, is dependent on the mutual interaction of its parts, is a totality composed of many discrete members, is a whole without inherent intelligence, and is devoid of personality. The pantheistic God or Absolute or One-Being is thus seen to be a mass of contradictions in its very concept.

“Pantheistic monism, therefore, is in opposition to the facts of experience and to the

principles of reason. Its attempt to explain the unity of the world by means of a pantheistic interpretation, ends in failure.”28

Critique of Spinoza’s Rejection of Final Causality

Spinoza rejected final causality in the world, maintaining that it was a simple

anthropomorphism, a projection of man’s experiences onto the physical world of nature. Nature, he believed, has no ends and that therefore finality in nature is a sheer human invention. Spinoza repeatedly attacks final causality in an entire Appendix to his Ethics

Geometrically Demonstrated. He states in his Ethics: “We thus see that men have been in the habit of calling natural things perfect or imperfect, more out of prejudice than out of any true knowledge of them. For we show in the Appendix to the First Part that Nature does not act for an end; for that eternal and infinite Being we call God or Nature, necessarily acts by the very fact that it exists. For we have shown (Prop. 16, p. I) that that Being acts by the same necessity of nature whereby it exists. Therefore the reason or cause why God or Nature acts and why that same God or Nature exists is one and the same. Just, therefore, as that Being exists without the impulsion if any cause, so does that Being act without the compulsion of any end; but rather has no end or principle of action and operation any more than of existing.”29

Barrow and Tippler describe Spinoza’s arguments against final causality, writing:

“Such (teleological) notions, he claims, have only arisen because of our ignorance of mechanical laws of Nature and our gullibility regarding the prejudices of anthropocentric philosophy. Far from being in a position to determine the causes and effects of most things we tend to react in amazement, thinking that however these things have come out, they cannot but be for our benefit…Those who employ finalistic reasoning simply confuse causes with effects…Also, if the doctrine of final causes is correct, he argues, then those most perfect things we are seeking as irrefutable evidences of the ‘perfect principle’ must, by definition, lie in the observable future…Spinoza claims that our deductions of final causes are probably nothing more than mere wish-fulfillment; expressing, not the nature of the real world, but the nature we hope it has.”30

Against Spinoza’s Rejection of Final Causality: A Correct Understanding of Final

Cause. In his two volume work God: His Existence and 7ature, the French Thomist Dominican Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange had this to say about the reasons behind Spinoza’s rejection of final causality: “Spinoza admitted only an immanent cause for the origin of the world, because of his theory of absolute realism by which he maintained that universal being exists as such apart from spirit. Thus he confuses being as such with the divine Being, at the same time admitting both the univocity and unicity of being. Another reason for this view

28 C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 387-390. 29 B. SPINOZA, Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated, P. IV, Praefatio, ed. Gebhardt, vol. 2, pp. 206f. 30 J. D. BARROW and F. J. TIPPLER, op. cit., p. 139.

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held by Spinoza was that he unjustly applied to metaphysics that process of reasoning which belongs to mathematics.

“This latter science, which is concerned only with quantity, rightly abstracts from

sensible qualities, as well as from efficient and final causality. This cannot be the case with that science which is concerned only with being and which considers individual things in so far as they have being, and in so far as they come into existence and are kept in existence. This science must seek for the efficient and final cause of these beings.”31

What is the final cause? The final cause

32 is defined as that for the sake of which

something is done, that is, that which determines the agent to act or the goal towards which it

tends through its operations. The term final comes from the Latin noun finis,33 meaning end, and the Latin adjective finalis, meaning having reference or relation to an end. End here means the end in view, goal, purpose or aim. A final cause, which is an extrinsic cause, is an end to be achieved which moves the efficient cause to act to achieve it. That which makes the production of an effect desirable is the final cause of that effect. I would like to think that the final cause, for example, of the Pietà would be Michelangelo’s goal to give glory to God through his marble sculpture masterpiece.

Cause of Causes (Causa Causarum). The final cause is called the “cause of causes” (causa causarum) for it is the end which draws the efficient or agent cause into action, sets the goal, indicates suitable instrumental and exemplar causes to aid the efficient or agent cause in its work, and brings the agent subject to the task of utilizing the material cause and in the determination of the formal cause of the effect. St. Thomas writes that “the first cause

of all causes is the final cause. The reason is that matter does not get its form unless it is moved by the agent, for nothing reduces itself from potency to act. But the agent does not move except for the sake of the end.”34 The final cause is a true cause for it exercises a positive (though mediate) influence over the being of a thing, moving the agent to act. The final cause does not exercise its causality in the way the efficient or agent cause does, for the latter operates through physical influence in the order of execution, while the former operates through a moral influence in the intentional order.

31 R. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, God: His Existence and 7ature, vol. 2, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1946, p. 25. 32 Studies on final causality: P. JANET, Les causes finales, Paris, 1882 ; E. A. PACE, The Teleology of St.

Thomas, “The New Scholasticism,” (1927), pp. 213-231 ; R. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, Le Réalisme du

Principe de Finalité, Descleé, Paris, 1932 ; C. HOLLENCAMP, Causa Causarum, “Laval Théologique et Philosophique,” 4 (1948), pp. 77-109; 311-328 ; R. COLLINS, Finality and Being, “Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association,” 23 (1949), pp. 36-46 ; J. WARREN, 7ature and Purpose, “The New Scholasticism,” 31 (1957), pp. 364-397 ; G. P. KLUBERTANZ, St. Thomas’ Treatment of the Axiom

“Omne Agens Agit Propter Finem,” in An Etienne Gilson Tribute, C. J. O’Neal (ed.), Bruce, Milwaukee, 1959, pp. 101-117 ; J. M. RIST, Some Aspects of Aristotelian Teleology, “Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association,” 96 (1965), pp. 337-349 ; A. GOTTHELF, Aristotle’s Conception of Final

Causality, “Review of Metaphysics,” 30 (1976), pp. 226-254 ; R. ALVIRA, La noción de finalidad, EUNSA, Pamplona, 1978 ; G. VICENTE BURGOA, Omne agens agit propter finem. El principio de finalidad en Santo

Tomàs de Aquino, in Atti del VIII Congresso tomistico internazionale (V), Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City, 1982, pp. 329-341 ; R. F. HASSING (ed.), Final Causality in 7ature and Human Affairs, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1997 ; R. M. AUGROS, 7ature Acts for an End, “The Thomist,” 66 (2002), pp. 535-575. 33 Finis in Greek is telos and so we say that the science of final causes is called teleology, and any explanation or argument which looks at something with reference to its end, purpose or goal is called teleological. The Fifth Way (Quinta via) a posteriori demonstration of the existence of God has been called the teleological argument. 34 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 1, a. 2.

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The Principle of Finality. The principle of finality states: omne agens agit propter

finem, that is, every agent acts for an end. This is a self-evident principle understood immediately when the terms in which the principle is expressed are analyzed, for “were an agent not to act for a definite effect, all effects would be indifferent to it. Now that which is indifferent to many effects does not produce one rather than another: wherefore, from that which is indifferent to either of two effects, no effect results, unless it be determined by

something to one of them. Hence it would be impossible for it to act. Therefore, every agent

tends to some definite effect, which is called its end.’35 Renard comments on this passage from the Summa Contra Gentiles, writing: “In this penetrating analysis, the nature of the agent as such is considered. The argument is applicable, therefore, to all agents, intellectual or not. An action is necessarily ordered to a definite effect, for the effect must be determined to be this effect and not another. But what is it that determines the agent to this particular action? Certainly not the agent as agent, for in that case all agents would always be ordered to this particular action, to this particular effect. Consequently, the agent as agent is indifferent to any particular action. Therefore, it must be determined by something else. This something else is what we call the end or final cause. In this case we shall find it to be a tendency, an intention, an appetite.”36

The principle of finality, omne agens agit propter finem, is again explained by

Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae: “Every agent of necessity acts for an end. For if, in a number of causes ordained to one another, the first be removed, the others must of necessity be removed also. Now the first of all causes is the final cause. The reason of which is that matter does not receive form, save in so far as it is moved by an agent; for nothing reduces itself from potency to act. But an agent does not move except out of intention for an end. For if the agent were not determinate to some particular effect, it would not do one thing rather than another: consequently, in order that it produce a determinate effect, it must of necessity be determined to some certain one, which has the nature of an end. And just as this determination is effect in the rational nature by the rational appetite, which is called the will; so, in other things, it is caused by their natural inclination, which is called the natural appetite.”37 We see here in this passage that if the agent were not determined to a definite effect it could not act and produce this effect and not another. Thus, it would not act at all. It is this determination of the agent to a determinate effect is what is meant by the end.

An agent tends to its end by its action or movement in two ways says Aquinas: “First,

as a thing moving itself to the end – man, for example. Secondly, as a thing moved by another to the end, as an arrow tends to a determinate end through being moved by the archer, who directs his action to the end. Therefore, those things that are possessed of reason, move themselves to an end; because they have dominion over their actions, through their free will (liberum arbitrium) which is the faculty of will and reason. But those things that lack reason tend to an end, by natural inclination, as being moved by another and not by themselves; since they do not know the nature of an end as such, and consequently cannot ordain anything to an end, but can be ordained to an end by another. Consequently, it is proper to the rational nature to tend to an end, as directing (agens) and leading itself to the end; whereas it is proper to the irrational nature to tend to an end, as directed or led by another, whether it apprehend the end (by sense faculties), as do irrational animals, or do not, as is the case of those things which are altogether void of knowledge.”38

35 Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 2. 36 H. RENARD, op. cit., p. 145. 37 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 1, a. 2. 38 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 1, a. 2.

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The inclination which an agent has to attain the end, to act because of the end, is called an appetite. Now such a tendency to act for an end is obvious in the case of man. But what about other creatures, animate and inanimate? Do plants have tendencies? What about rocks and chemical elements? Do all things, insofar as they are agents, have appetite, that is, an orientation to act in a definite and determined manner? The Angelic Doctor explains that this indeed is the case: “There is an appetite which arises from an apprehension existing, not in the subject of the appetite, but in some other: and that is called the natural appetite. This is because natural things seek what is suitable to them according to their nature, by reason of an apprehension which is not in them, but in the Author of their nature. And there is another appetite arising from an apprehension in the subject of the appetite, but from necessity and not from free will. Such is in irrational animals, the sensitive appetite. Again, there is still another appetite following freely from an apprehension in the subject of the appetite. And this is the rational or intellectual appetite, which is called the will.”39

“Every agent tends to some effect which is the end,”40 writes Aquinas. The end,

therefore, is the effect as intended and not as produced, that in which the intellect tends. The end cannot be a physical determination, for the end which determines the action of an agent is not yet produced but intended. The end, consequently, is in the intentional order, the order of reason. But how can an irrational being, a plant for example, have a tendency determined by an effect not yet actuated? A plant is devoid of reason and therefore we are unable to postulate a final cause formally present and actually desired in the intentional order, the order of reason. But the plant acts for a determinate end, it has been finalized. The answer is that if a being acts for a definite end it acts intelligently. “Every work of nature,” writes the Angelic Doctor, “is the work of intelligence,”41 because nature acts for a definite end and since our rock is devoid of intellect, this inclination, this tendency to a determined end must have been impressed on it by an intelligent cause: “Therefore, things which can in no way know, can nevertheless have desire; that is, in so far as they are directed to a definite thing which exists in the material order. For appetite does not of necessity argue a spiritual existence as does cognition. Wherefore, there can be a natural appetite without a natural cognition. Nor yet is the truth of this hindered by the fact that in all cases appetite follows upon cognition; for this cognition does not belong to these appetitive beings themselves, but to Him who ordains them to their end.”42

“Since a material being is determined in its own material existence, and has but one

tendency to a determined thing, for this reason no knowledge is required whereby it would distinguish according to the norm of appetibility what is appetible from what is not. But this knowledge is prerequisite in the One who forms the nature, and who has given each nature its proper and befitting tendency.”43

We find that the natural appetite, the natural tendency drawing our natural irrational

being (the plant, for example) to its end can only be explained in the final analysis by God, the Subsistent Being Itself, Author of nature, the Giver of finality, and the End of all beings. Aquinas writes in the Summa Theologiae that “the natural necessity inherent in those beings

39 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 26, a. 1, c. 40 Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 2. 41 De Veritate, q. 5, a. 2, ad 5m. 42 De Veritate, q. 22, a. 3 ad5m. 43 De Veritate, q. 15, a. 1.

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which are determined to a particular thing is a kind of impression from God…that which creatures receive from God is their nature.”44

Proof of the Existence of Final Causality Against Spinoza and Other Anti-Finalists.

Against the anti-finalists, we affirm that the principle of finality is a fact operating in the world. We find final causality operative in intellectually conscious beings, in sentiently conscious beings, as well as in inanimate beings (like rocks and chemical compounds). Bittle writes: “We find final causes at work in intellectually conscious beings. Such a being is man. It takes but a little reflection to see the truth of the statement that man acts under the direction of ends and purposes. When a farmer plows his field and plants seeds in the springtime, he does his work with a definite end in view: he wishes to harvest an abundant crop in the future, and this intention determines the time, place, manner, and duration of his labor, etc.

“In fact, it is the exception that man acts without a definite end in view. The entire

structure and operation of industry, business, commerce, art, invention, labor, governments, etc., is the result of a host of actions, all of which are directed and dominated by definite ends and purposes. All the activities of peace and war are based upon final causes. It is only the somnambulist, or the insane, or the idiot, who acts without a conscious rational end in view. Intellectually conscious beings, therefore, act in consequence of final causes or purposes, and this happens from morning until night throughout the length of their life. That this is really the case, is evidenced by the direct testimony of our own consciousness; and the validity of this testimony cannot be denied or impunged without destroying the foundations of all knowledge, science, and philosophy.

“That these ends and purposes actually influence our productive actions in a positive

manner, is obvious. The examples mentioned above show this conclusively. Nothing more is required as a proof for the existence of finality and final causes in some form. It proves that the concept of ends and purposes as ‘final causes’ is valid and legitimate and not merely a fiction of the mind. For the sake of completeness, however, we will extend the argument to the remaining two groups of beings.

“We also find final causes at work among sentiently conscious beings. Brute animals

are such beings. Their actions manifest finality. When a cat watches at the hole in the floor with unswerving eyes, crouches with tensed muscles, chases the mouse that unwisely comes forth, pounces upon it with exposed claws, and then devours it, is this not done for the purpose of catching her prey? When a bird flies about, seeks bits of string, feathers, straw, and twigs, brings them together to a certain tree, and then shapes them with a co-ordinated sequence of apt motions into a nest, is this not done for the purpose of fashioning a nest? Animals may not (and for that matter, do not) understand the ‘rationality’ of their actions, but they certainly perceive things, desire them, and strive for them. This is finality, or purposive action, pure and simple. Hence, sentiently conscious beings also act in consequence of final causes determining their productive actions.

“Finally, there are final causes at work among unconscious beings. Such are the

chemical compounds and physical bodies in the world at large. Here, naturally, the existence of final causes is not so obvious. It is quite evident, of course, that inorganic beings can have no knowledge of any good and in consequence of this knowledge strive for it. The question is not, however, whether they ‘knowingly’ strive for ends, but whether they do, as a matter of

44 Summa Theologiae, I, q. 103, a. 1.

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fact, tend to realize definite results in the future as the effects of their activities, so that these activities have a definite direction given to them in virtue of the effects striven for. This, we contend, is actually the case.

“Inorganic beings are governed by natural and necessary laws, to which they are

subject at all times. Chemical affinity, for instance, is a selective attraction existing between different kinds of elements and it controls the activity of the elements and their compounds throughout all chemical changes. This affinity, however we may conceive it in its nature and operation, is the expression of a natural law. But what is a natural law, if not the expression of the inner tendencies of the nature of such things? Chemical affinity is not a fortuitous event, occurring sporadically here and there and now and then, but a constant and regular occurrence which takes place without exception, provided the conditions are the same. Hence, elements tend to form specific compounds by means of a selective tendency, and this selective tendency runs through a set series of changes, until it realizes the compound as the end-result of its activity; this done, its activity ceases.

“The finality existing in unconscious beings is observed more clearly in the

tendencies of vegetant beings, as manifested in the growth and development of their structural forms. Attention has already been called to the ‘intrinsic finality’ existing in the human ovum. This applies with equal force to every organism, whether man or brute or plant, in the vegetative functions of its growth, beginning with one original cell and developing into a completely mature individual. Growth is an unconscious operation of living tissue. Notwithstanding the unconsciousness of the process, there is a very distinct tendency and direction in it toward a specific result. Somehow, the germ-cell contains within itself the design of the mature individual of a particular specific type, and it tends to develop this type under all conditions. The individuals vary in height, size, weight, and characteristics within certain limits; but they develop according to a well-defined plan, so as to carry out the pattern of the type. The development of the germ-cell into an individual of a specific type is constant, regular, natural; it is the result of an internal driving power present in the germ-cell and prolonged through the whole life history of the organism.

“As the result of this internal principle of development, billions of cells are formed,

combine together into various kinds of structural members, tissues, and organs, placed in mutual relationship as to position and function. These members, tissues, and organs have their own individual kind of activity, but they are coordinated and interdependent in such a manner that the well-being of the organism as a whole is the evident purpose and tendency of all combined. This tendency to produce and maintain the type-individual is an immense fact of nature which can be adequately explained only through finality and final causes, because the original cell has the positive tendency to produce a definite effect in the future.”45

Critique of Spinoza’s Rejection of Miracles

Spinoza was noted for his staunch rejection of the possibility of miracles. Since God

is identified with the world (Deus sive natura), Nature is the only reality which exists. Thus, there can be nothing outside of, or above, or contrary, to Nature, for that would be equivalent to saying that something exists outside the entire range of being, or above, or contrary to, all existing being. For Spinoza, the One Substance acts always from the necessity of its nature, so that its action is always invariable; hence miracles are impossible.

45 C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 362-365.

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Arguing against miracles ‘against nature,’ Spinoza writes in his Tractatus Theologico-

Politicus that such miracles would either involve the absence of general laws of nature, or suppose that the One Substance could act against the law of its own nature. But as Bernard Boedder writes, in defense of miracles, “the phrase, ‘against nature,’ means no more than this, that the natural tendency to action proper to a corporeal being in a particular case remains potential, instead of becoming actual, as it would have become had not God decreed to make this cause an exception to the general rule.”46

Spinoza continues to write in the Tractatus: “But if miracles are, strictly speaking, all

above nature, then you must admit a break in the necessary and immutable course of nature, which is absurd. It would follow also that the principles of reason are violable; for after all they are but laws of nature. In that case we are unable to trust them, unable to prove the existence of God; and thus miracles, far from being a help to the knowledge of God, prove a total impediment to that knowledge.”47

Boedder responds to the above passage by Spinoza as follows: “This argument

confounds in the first place the course of nature as decreed by the Divine mind from eternity with the course of nature as it commonly occurs in human experience. Under the former respect it is absolutely immutable, not under the latter; and this suffices for the possibility of miracles, as has been shown in the proof of our thesis. If in a particular case the common rule is not followed, if, for instance, water changes miraculously into wine, it does not follow that equally well in another particular case two and two might become five, and thus a principle of reason be violated. If Spinoza had studied St. Thomas, he would have found the solution of his difficulty.48 St. Thomas says, that if we speak of an action against principles of nature (or more accurately, against the natural tendency of physical forces), we imply thereby that such an action surpasses created agencies, from which it does not follow that the Almighty Creator cannot effect it, supposing it to be in keeping with His justice and wisdom. But the principles

of reason are not tendencies of physical forces, but enunciations of inviolable truths, which cannot be set aside by any rational being without the ruin of all certainty, much less be over-ruled by God, Who is the First Truth and the Source of all truth.

“Spinoza’s difficulty regarding the perturbation of order by miracles has been

repeated by Voltaire, Strauss, and others, and seems to be a chief stumbling-block for many, because they forget the distinction between order as conceived by God and order as manifested in the uniformity of nature. Order under the first aspect reigns everywhere; order under the second aspect is the normal thing, but there are exceptions for wise reasons. Such exceptions are no more perturbations of the laws of nature than in human society privileges modifying the tenor of a general, civil, or criminal law, granted by the lawgiver at the same time he establishes the law, and granted with wise limitations, can be called abrogations of the law itself.”49

Against the assertion of Spinoza and the other pantheists, we affirm that miracles are

indeed possible. God, the Infinite Being, who is essentially different from the finite beings He created, can work miracles. God is all-powerful, omnipotent. Therefore, it is not repugnant to reason that He be able to work miracles. A miracle is fact produced by God in the world, which is outside the order of action of the whole created nature: “Miracles are effects

46 B. BOEDDER, 7atural Theology, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1927, p. 425. 47 B. SPINOZA, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, c. 6. 48 De Potentia Dei, q. 6, a. 1, objection 11 and response to objection 11. 49 B. BOEDDER, op. cit., pp. 425-427.

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wrought by the power of God alone in things which have a natural tendency to a contrary effect, or to a contrary way of producing it.”50 In itself, a miracle need not be something perceptible to the senses. St. Thomas does not define a miracle as sensible nor does he hold that all miracles are sensible (Cf. Summa Theologiae, III, q. 29, a. 1, ad 2; In IV Sent., d. 11, q. 1, a. 3, sol. 3; De Potentia Dei, q. 6, a. 2, ad 2). An example of a non-sensible miracle that St. Thomas gives is the miracle of transubstantiation. This miracle wrought by God is a direct object of faith.

On the other hand, a miracle wrought by God as a sign to strengthen our faith must be

a sensible phenomenon; this miracle worked by God for the strengthening of our faith is a sensible, unusual, Divine and supernatural work. It is a perceptible event which exceeds the order and power of nature and has God as its author. Examples of such observable miracles: the raising the dead back to life, the miraculous walking of a formerly paralyzed man, the blind being made able to see.

Miracles are Possible. Michael Shallo writes: “It cannot be denied that miracles are possible. For if any impossibility existed, it should be either on the part of God or on the part of what is effected. But on neither hand can there be such an impossibility. Therefore, etc. The minor is thus proved. (a) There is no impossibility on the part of God. (1) For God is omnipotent and acts not necessarily but freely. (2) His immutability is not thus called into question, since God has so established the order of nature as to reserve to Himself occasions wherein He Himself will work otherwise than the created agent. (3) Neither does any consequence follow contrary to His wisdom. God does not thus correct His work of creation. ‘The divine art of God,’ writes St. Thomas, ‘is not fully unfolded by what God has accomplished in the natural order. Hence, He can work otherwise than the course of nature. Hence again, it does not follow that if God act contrary to the course of nature He thus acts contrary to His own divine art.’ (b) There exists no impossibility on the part of what is miraculously effected. This is clear from what we have said of the contingency of the laws of nature (Cosmology, 23).”51

Only God Can Work Miracles, But Angels and Men Can Act as Instruments of the

Divine Power for the Accomplishment of a Miracle. St. Thomas writes: “A miracle properly so called is when something is done outside the order of nature. But it is not enough for a miracle if something is done outside the order of any particular nature; for otherwise anyone would perform a miracle by throwing a stone upwards, as such a thing is outside the order of the stone’s nature. So for a miracle is required that it be against the order of the whole created nature. But God alone can do this, because, whatever an angel or any other creature does by its own power, is according to the order of created nature; and thus it is not a miracle. Hence God alone can work miracles.”52

Angels cannot work miracles by their own natural power, nor can men; however,

angels and men can act as instruments of the Divine power for the accomplishment of a miracle.

Division of Miracles. There are two divisions of miracles. The first division is the division of miracles 1. as to substance, 2. as to subject, and 3. as to mode: “A miracle as to substance, i.e., with respect to the very thing effected, is such, as from the very nature of it, 50 De Potentia Dei, q. 6, a. 2, c. 51 M. SHALLO, Lessons in Scholastic Philosophy, Peter Reilly, Philadelphia, 1916, p. 385. 52 Summa Theologiae, I, q. 110, a. 4, c.

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can not be effected in any way by a natural agent, e.g., ‘the compenetration of bodies.’ A miracle as to subject, i.e., with respect to that in which it is effected, is such as to exceed any natural agency on account of the condition of the subject in which it is worked, e.g., ‘raising the dead to life.’ A miracle as to mode, i.e., with respect to the way in which it is effected, is such, as to baffle all natural powers not with regard to the very thing effected, nor the subject in which it is produced, but the way in which it is done, e.g., ‘a sick man cured instantly.’”53

The second division is the division of miracles into miracles above nature, miracles

beside nature, and miracles against nature: “Above nature are those miracles which are worked in material subjects, in which the ordinary course of nature similar effects never occur. Thus, it never happens naturally, that a dead and decomposing body rises to life again. Therefore, the resurrection of Lazarus was a miracle above nature.

“Beside nature are those miracles that occur in material subjects, in which through the

forces of nature, either left to themselves or artificially applied, similar effects do occur. Here an effect is known to be miraculous by its occurring at a prophesied time, or simply upon the word of a thaumaturgus, and that in cases in which similar effects could not have been obtained through natural forces otherwise than gradually and with no certainty about the success. Thus, the fact that in Egypt, upon the word of Moses, all the first-born of men and beasts died in one night, whilst the Israelites were spared, was a miracle beside nature. Such a miracle also was the sudden withering of the hand of Jeroboam, when he stretched it out against the Prophet of God; and the blindness of the sorcerer Elymas, caused upon the prediction of St. Paul.

“Against nature are the miracles which happen in material subjects that naturally tend

to a contrary effect, and are not prevented from producing their effect by any natural cause. Thus, the preservation of the three companions of Daniel was a miracle against nature; also the going back of the shadow upon the sun-dial of Archaz.”54

53 M. SHALLO, op. cit., p. 384. 54 B. BOEDDER, op. cit., pp. 419-420.