Spinoza strongly believes the existence of god, and the presence of god is a great matter in human lives. Spinoza views God as a high being that is everywhere, God is in nature, God in the universe. People’s actions, events in the world are all works of god. Spinoza says that God is substance, which means that god is the matter that makes up every aspect of this world.
Spinoza also highly emphasize on the strength of mind. Spinoza suggests that in order to adequately know god, the mind must be active. An inactive mind will have a barrier between god and itself. An active mind is a strong mind, thus it is more capable of avoiding evil; and vice versa, an inactive mind is weaker from temptations of evil. So Spinoza suggests that people should keep an active mind to connect with God.
A question arouses when there are evil in this world; if God is Supreme Being, why did God allow evil to exist? Spinoza suggests that evil does not exist; the phenomenon we call evil is mere absence of good, and falsehood is absence of truth. I find this very interesting, Spinoza uses scientific phenomenon to correlate with his philosophy. For example, darkness does not exist (you can not say “I want more darkness”), darkness is the result of lack of light, and just as cold is the lack of heat energy. Falsehood arises from lack of active mind, lack of knowledge to God; thus evil arise from lack of knowledge.
Spinoza believes that human need to think about the truth, think about good and evil. According to Spinoza, people should be aware of their actions, and follow what they believe is good or evil (ethic), and not let passion lead the way. Spinoza suggests that the more people love God, the more control they will have over their emotion, which people will less likely to commit regrettable actions due to emotions such as anger, hatred, and sadness.
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