We have seen in the last few posts, especially in the cases of Galileo and Hobbes, that toward the middle of the 17th century, many of the Christian doctrines which until that point had largely been taken for granted began to be challenged. Nevertheless, both Galileo and Hobbes were both Christians in the sense that they accepted, to one degree or another, the God of the Bible. Baruch Spinoza, however, did not and was the first modern philosopher to flat out reject the Judeo-Christian God; but even he was not an atheist. In this post we will discuss the nature of Spinoza’s God as well as see what implications his God has for his ideas concerning metaphysics, mind as well as axiology. (more…)
