A Case for Spinoza's determinism

Overarching objective

In this paper, I will offer a case for Spinoza’s Necessitarianism and deterministic philosophy. I will show how Spinoza attempts to do this in trying to establish a metaphysical grounding that understands ‘God’ as inhering the totality of nature of which there exist an immutable causal order of things that flows immanently from the necessity of God’s eternal infinite essence. Hence, in the realm of the mind-body and affects, we are all determined to act in this or that way. But why does Spinoza want to make us look like automatons? Or are we like automatons? The castration i.e. the negative of anything especially with regards to freedom is usually taken to be ignominious. Depriving the freedom of man to act in a climate where freedom and liberty are embellished is always a revolting idea. But in a world where passions of men can lead men astray from the common good of things, I argue that Spinoza’s philosophy can not only eliminate the chimerical notions of our free-willing to act in this or that way, but to encumber the attempts of people who may want to act for their own good to the detriment of our conari.

Spinoza’s metaphysical foundations

Spinoza’s metaphysics yields a strict necessitarianism position. Based on IP29, Spinoza proffers that “In nature, there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and to produce an effect in a certain way.” The implications of this is mammoth for Spinoza is trying to confer the idea that there is a certain causal deterministic order of affairs that follows necessarily from God’s absolute essence or nature. God himself by ID3, is a substance i.e. something conceived and understood through itself and is by ID6, absolutely infinite and as a corollary, inheres in him, an infinity of attributes. In the Spinozistic metaphysical picture then everything is conceived as modes of God under this or that attribute. All modes cannot exist or be conceived of without God i.e. substance for modes by ID5 are affections and modifications of a substance (by which in nature, there is only one i.e. God). Thus, from God’s infinite essence, there must follow infinite modes under his infinite attributes. As such, everything stems from God or in other words, God is the ‘proximate’ and or ‘efficient’ cause of all things under his infinite intellect. Yet, by configuring all modes or natura naturans under the dominion of one God, Spinoza wants to achieve a greater purpose which is to propose that there are laws of nature which are God’s laws of nature (under his infinite intellect) and God by IP17, acts from the necessity of his laws of nature alone. Thus, this brings us back to IP29 that in nature (or in God), there is no contingent event or occurrence. Everything that happens, happens from the necessary nature of God or the laws of nature i.e. from the causal order and relations of things inheres in nature or God which is reiterated in IA3, which states that from given determinate cause, the effect, will follow necessarily. So, Since by IP15, nothing can be conceived without God for modes are simply an expression of God’s infinite essence, God then is the determinate cause of all modifications or modes in nature and as above explicated, since there is only one substance God inhering the entirety of nature and as shown in IP17, if God acts from the necessity of his infinite essence and hence, his laws of nature, then everything under God must and will have a cause or causal relation to God and his infinite essence that spans the whole of nature. Thus,

“For each thing, there must be assigned a cause or reason, for both its existence and for its nonexistence.” (IP11)

Just like how,

“There must necessarily be a cause why each [NS: particular man] exists but cannot be contained in human nature itself… [but] must necessarily be outside each of them.” (IP8)

For in nature, there is only one God or substance and the definition of substance (God) is strictly, what is conceived in itself and through itself only and hence, by this definition, in order not to commit the mistake that Descartes made, if everything is to be conceived through this one substance, then everything in nature are simply only modifications of this one substance (God) and everything follows from the laws of his nature alone. There is then only one God, one substance and the all of nature are synonymous to his infinite expressions or in the Spinozistic term, modes.

Hence, the consequence of this metaphysical conception of God and everything as modal effects of God as part of his infinite essence is the effacing of ‘contingency’ or for that matter, of all notions of ‘miracles’ and ‘chance’ for if everything is caused or determined by God, in a certain way from his infinite nature and essence, then what is ‘contingent’ is only a sign of our inadequate knowledge or what Spinoza would also claim as a defect in knowledge. It is simply a result of our unknowing of the order of causes in God. An even further consequence of this is thus, Spinoza taking on a deterministic stance of things and hence that there is a lawful causal order in all things which follows necessarily from God’s infinite nature.

On causal laws governing the all of modal life

1) Of the mind

Thus, Spinoza in part two of the ethics tries to establish a more pristine and clear picture of a causal order of ideas. In the famous proposition IIP7,

“The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.” (IIP7)

In this proposition, Spinoza makes the move (notably against Descartes) that the formal being of an idea or a circle for instance, must be seen in the same order and connection of causes which follows formally from God’s infinite intellect or the attribute of thought and of a real circle perhaps, a hula-hoop for instance, under the attribute of extension although all attributes are attributes of God and everything conceived under the respective attributes are simply modes. Also then, whatever that is perceived in the mind will parallel and with whatever happens in the body by IIP12. Hence, what I am trying to show is how Spinoza in his whole works of ethics tries to create a whole deterministic causal order of things. Another further instance of which is Spinoza’s attempt to establish laws of how the human body works with the mind in such a parallelism.

This I think is reflected very accurately in IIP17:

“If the human body is affected with a mode that involves the nature of an external body, the human mind will regard the same external body as actually existing, or as present to it, until the body is affected by an affect that excludes the existence or presence of that body.” (IIP17)

What this essentially means is then not only that whatever the body is affected by, the mind perceives (by IIP12) but also that how the mind works is such that the very idea that the mind has (of an actually existing mode) when the body is affected, it will exist until there is some nugatory effect that the body gets affected by which removes this idea. Otherwise, the mind will still regard the idea as present. Nothing is thus a chanced occasion or that we still happen to imagine and remember this or that but there is even a structure as to how our mind-body works for Spinoza.

In IIP18, the same thing occurs where Spinoza makes a clear attempt to try to draft objective laws of how things work.

“If the human body has once been affected by two or more bodies at the same time, then when the mind subsequently imagines one of them, it will immediately recollect the others also. (IIP18)

Hence here, he tries to elucidate the laws governing how our memory works i.e. that it is not per chance that we remember things or reminisce about things but it stems from an objective law like nature that we will immediately recollect the connection of ideas involving things outside the human body that affect our own body in such a manner.

What is most important then in this sub-section for our purposes is in IIP48 and IIP49 when Spinoza asserts:

“In the mind, there is no absolute, or free will, but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause which is also determined by another, and this again by another, and so to infinity.” (IIP48)

“In the mind, there is no volition, or affirmation and negation except that which the idea involves insofar as it is an idea.” (IIP49)

IIP48 is clearly against Descartes who claims man’s mind and will to be free i.e. that God produced a multiplicity of free-willing substances who on this basis can use his volition to judge, deny or affirm ideas. Substances in Descartes conception thus have unlimited will to do this or that. But for Spinoza, clearly, this of this conception of a free-willing man or substance (in metaphysical terms) as ludicrous if not even, preposterous. (Note: As to why such a view like Descartes has is reprehensible for a thinker like Spinoza, I will give a more elaborate account below). Spinoza himself says this explicitly that “there is in the mind, no absolute faculty of understanding, desiring, loving and the like… these and similar faculties are […] complete fictions.” A way of putting this is that ideas themselves are concepts of thought for Spinoza. Concepts that immanently inhere volitions of affirmation or negation that is why in IIP49 he argues that there are only singular volitions in which affirmation or negation pertains to the essence of the idea itself. Thus, unlike Descartes, Spinoza asserts that our will and intellect are one and the same (IIP49) and it is not that man can freely will this or that or freely desire this or that, but that our affirmation or negation of an idea wholly lies in the idea itself which determines our corresponding affirmation or negation of it. There are hence not only in the negative sense, causal structures governing the mind-body union but also, Spinoza wants clearly to make the case that we are not free willing substances.

2) Of Affects

Similarly, in the realm of affects, Spinoza does the same thing where there is a lawful manner and order of human affects. Here I would like to suggest that although there is a strict deterministic order of things in a Spinozistic philosophical system, Spinoza still recognizes man’s ability to act freely albeit still strictly in accordance with the established laws of nature under God’s infinite essence. The famous IIIP6 proposition offers a good exemplification of such an interpretation.

“Each thing as far as it can by its own power strives to persevere in its being” (IIIP6)

As singular modes under God’s infinite attributes which are as established above, expressed in a determinate way, singular modes then will act in a determinate way. The determinate way they act by follows the principle of the conari i.e. that singular modes under God will always strive to persevere in its being for as established in the following proposition IIIP7, it is in the actual essence of all modes under God to strive to persevere in their being. In other words, I think it is arguable that the way man acts is thus, in necessary accordance with determined laws of nature. Man can act freely or still acts freely but with strict accordance to the laws of nature i.e. freedom within this web of laws. Hence then, we should read the other propositions consistently in such a fashion.

“The mind as far as it can strives to imagine those things that increase or aid the body’s power of acting.” (IIIP12)

“When the mind imagines those things that can diminish or restrain the body’s power of acting, it strives, as far as it can, to recollect things which exclude their existence.” (IIIP13)


i.e. that man strives in his own unique and idiosyncratic ways in the specifics of everyday to do this or that but in accordance with such laws of IIIP12 and IIIP13 for instance. At this juncture, I find it important to dismiss how some Spinozistic scholars can argue that man is “a kingdom within a kingdom” that in this paper’s context of speaking, he has a special willing different from perhaps an inanimate object such as a stone, table, chair or chalk. As I have asserted, man can act freely within the given law-like parameters but this certainly does not mean that Spinoza wishes to grant man a special status as a relatively more free-willing substance. I wish here to refer us back to several very crucial passages of the preface of part three of the ethics where Spinoza clearly writes:

“Most of those who have written about affects and men’s ways of living, seem to treat, not of natural things, which follow the common laws of Nature, but of things which are outside Nature. Indeed, they seem to conceive man in Nature as a dominion within a dominion. For they believe that man disturbs rather than follows, the order of Nature, that he has absolute power over his actions, and that he is determined only by himself.” (Preface of IIIe)

“Nothing in Nature can be attributed to any defect in it, for Nature is always the same, and its virtue and power of acting are everywhere one and the same, that is, the laws and rules of Nature, according to which all things happen and change from one form to another, are always and everywhere the same.” (Preface of IIIe)

In my reading of Spinoza, especially from the above two passages from the preface of IIIe, Spinoza does not seem to want to make any exceptions to the status of man for making man special, granting him a special status would give way to what he sought so hard to avert (by constructing a leveled, equal and deterministic ground of things) i.e. the special status of some men (arguably since man is special, then there ought to be even more special ones: a dominion, within a dominion within a dominion) like the prophets who can then use their especial statuses for surreptitious and deceitful gains. This is I think a likely position for if we can grant something a special position, surely we can make several other grants and justify them ad infinitum and this would completely implode and undermine the Spinozistic Necessitarianism-determinism grounds. Thus following Michael Della Rocca’s paper on metaphysical psychology, we cannot think that man has a special status and that he is not to be determined wholly by the causal laws. For people who think man special argue that he can for instance, have the capacity to striving for the future (even if it entails eating a bitter medicine that will diminish his happiness at the present which compromises the doctrine of the conatus at t1) vis-à-vis stones or tables that cannot act for their future . This grants man a special status that Spinoza I must assert, does not want to do as shown from the earlier passages in the preface of IIIe. It is thus, I think, important when reading Spinoza, to keep strictly within Spinoza’s whole metaphysical-philosophical schema that all things act in accordance with the principles of nature or i.e. under the infinite essence and necessary laws of God.

As a final note to this sub-section, I want to reiterate that where affects or specifically put passions are concerned, for Spinoza, it is also not that men are freely able to will themselves to love, hate, envy etc. As Spinoza puts it,

“…men believe themselves free because they are conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined.” (IIIP2)

Men think themselves free only because they are ignorant of the necessity of nature and its causal order that extends itself over everything including affects. Men experience passions like hate or indignation for instance because they have inadequate ideas of the whole causal-nexus of things under the eternal infinite nature of God. For if they have adequate ideas through understanding things under the infinite essence of God i.e. via reason under intuitive knowledge or the third kind of knowledge (to understand the formal essence of things), then one will not be acted upon and enslaved by passions but instead, the mind considering itself under the species of eternity (i.e. under God – the broader picture of things), will gain eternity or a feeling of eternity and blessedness for he understands a greater causal nexus of things. For by IVP39, understanding things under the infinite essence of God essentially entails having power to re-order and connect affections of his finite body to the order of the eternal intellect. This simultaneously entails understanding things not only via our imaginations that may retain archaic ideas as above shown, but through the eternal laws that govern our mind, body and affects. Hence, the point is still that only when men fail to recognize that there exist an eternal order of things, that he thinks himself as a free substance independent of all things and even God.

The significance of understanding that there exist eternal causal laws governing life and rationalizing from inadequate ideas to adequate knowledge is mammoth for it gives the mind a greater power and control over his passions stemming from inadequate ideas and knowledge of its cause. This is as opposed to willfully or ignorantly thinking oneself as free and being led head to tail by passions even without being conscious of them for even if we are not conscious of something, it does not mean that the immutable laws and order does not exist. By VP42, understanding (blessedness) gives men power to restrain affects so he will not be enslaved and driven by it. This man will then by such an intellectual love of God (considering things under the eternal formal essence of God), gain blessedness and joy. But most crucially by placing the locus of this divine blessedness in the eternity of nature and its determined laws, I think Spinoza is trying to emancipate man from the fetters of traditional religion and hence, from the covetous men who use the anthropomorphized God for their own wishes. For if we accept the Spinozistic ontology, then the traditional God cannot or men’s claim of his special status to this God will not hold since the only possible sign of blessedness lies in one’s understanding of God and his formal essence via rationalizing and re-ordering of inadequate ideas to adequate ones. For as shown in the corollary of VP17, “God loves no one and hates no one” and especially from VP19, “He who loves God cannot strive that God should love him in return,” we can see again that Spinoza is trying to establish that no one holds a special status in Spinoza’s God. One cannot demand that God loves him in return or love him more. The latter is completely out of the question since God is infinite, has infinite intellect (and hence adequate ideas) and thus, cannot reciprocate love (a passion) to anyone at all although as finite beings (modes under God), we can express our love towards God through the dictates of reason which is common to all men [by VP20]. Thus, what Spinoza is trying to do is to try to ensure that no one can claim that God loves him more or shows him more grace and hence he is a special elect of God vis-à-vis the traditional notion of God that is open to a profusion and multiplicity of arbitrary claims.

A case for Spinozistic determinism

Hence, the whole of Spinoza’s ethics must be understood in the context of Spinoza’s conception of traditional religion. Spinoza himself recognizes that most men do not understand things from the eternal and formal essence of God (in Spinoza’s terms). Most men do not make full use of their rationality and do not always try to understand things from the third kind of knowledge. This is already well corroborated by his elaborate account on the passions of men and his notion of inadequade ideas further on in the ethics. Spinoza himself makes it clear that as a corollary of such a deplorable state of men,

“men [as easily] are taken in by any kind of superstition” (Preliminaries, A Critique of Traditional Religion).

By not trying to use reason to understand occurrences in a broader light, and by situating themselves in a parochial view of events, men are subjecting themselves to being swayed and acted upon by prejudiced ideas or the prophesying of others who claim they know God. Yet Spinoza is committed to wanting to free man from the talons of people or prophets who claim to have seen or communicated God and to want to use God each for their own purposes and who by their own idiosyncratic disposition of his imaginations and physical temperaments etc can say freely this and that in the name of God.

Yet, from the Preliminaries of Spinoza’s Critique of Traditional religion, Spinoza writes that:

“I do not find in the Sacred Texts any others by which God communicated himself to men… So there can be no doubt that the other Prophets did not hear a true voice.” (pp. 14)

Spinoza wants to establish that we cannot claim to know God and much less know God from prophets, miracles, providences etc. But if we understand that all things in nature are determined as in the eternal essence of God (as an infinite substance), then, we can only know God through inferring from the immutable determined laws and order of nature. To love God then, is to understand clearly and distinctly via reason the causal-mechanisms of nature which are manifestations of God’s will and intellect. Thus, the purpose of Spinoza’s determinism and Necessitarianism is that of a defense against the portentous and arbitrary prophesying of people which are not only counter-productive but also detract us from true knowledge and ideas of things. Spinoza’s intellectual love of God through understanding the determined laws and causal-order of nature then I think aims at a greater objective which is to not only free man from the bondage of passions in the realm of affects, but to free man from the bondage and sway of other men and religious prophesying.