" {37d}
The whole of God is FACT, and Spinoza denies any reserve in Him of
something unexpressed. "The omnipotence of God has been actual from
eternity, and in the same actuality will remain to eternity," {38} not
of course in the sense that everything which exists has always existed
as we now know it, or that nothing will exist hereafter which does not
exist now, but that in God everything that has been, and will be,
eternally IS.
The reader will perhaps ask, What has this theology to do with the "joy
continuous and supreme"? We shall presently meet with some deductions
which contribute to it, but it is not difficult to understand that
Spinoza, to use his own word, might call the truths set forth in these
propositions "blessed." Let a man once believe in that God of infinite
attributes of which thought and extension are those by which He
manifests Himself to us; let him see that the opposition between thought
and matter is fictitious; that his mind "is a part of the infinite
intellect of God"; that he is not a mere transient, outside interpreter
of the universe, but himself the soul or law, which is the universe, and
he will feel a relationship with infinity which will emancipate him.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43