This I know, that between finite and infinite there is no comparison; so that the difference between God and the greatest and most excellent created thing is no less than the difference between God and the least created thing.
~Spinoza, Let58-P04.
No one can deny that Baruch Spinoza was a genius; a misguided genius, but a genius nonetheless. His work on Infinity was 300 years ahead of its time, though few people give him the credit he deserves.
Last semester, I took a seminar course on Spinoza’s greatest work, The Ethics. I was amazed at the complexity of the work. For those of you who have not come across it, it is all done in geometric proof form. Almost every definition, corollary, postulate, and proposition interlink to form a web that goes from the beginning of book I to the end of book V. True, he does make several slips here and there. At one point, he references a postulate that doesn’t exist; and at another, he declines to give a proof for a proposition, stating it is “self evident.” However, if something is self evident, it falls under the umbrella of a definition in Spinoza’s work, and should not be a proposition.
In the end, however, the system in flawed. There is a fundamental difference between Mathematics and Philosophy. I can make a mathematical system where 2+2=5, and make it internally consistent, much like I can make a simulation of the laws of physics after changing a few constants. The system will not be externally consistent, that is, it will not be equivalent to reality. Philosophy requires external consistency, or it is meaningless. Spinoza never proves that his initial definitions are equivalent to reality, and therefore, we do not know if the system is externally consistent.
This was not the point of this post. The last two paragraphs show that Spinoza was a misguided genius, with the emphasis on the misguided. What I wanted to write on was the absolute genius in the opening quotation. However, on considering it further, I don’t think there is anything I could add to the perfect simplicity of the statement. So, instead, I will leave you to dwell on it.
Yours in Christ,
Thursday
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