Spinoza on the Essence, Mutability and Power of God

This paper argues that Spinoza makes a distinction between the constitutive essence of God (the totality of His attributes) and the essence of God per se (His power and causal efficacy). Using this distinction, I explain how Spinoza can conceive of God as being both an immutable simple unity and a subject for constantly changing modes. Spinoza believes that God qua Natura Naturans is immutable while God qua Natura Naturata is not. With this point established, Curley’s claim that Spinozistic modes are causally dependent on but not properties of God loses much of its attraction. In conclusion, I suggest how God’s essence is related to His attributes and His modes. Beginning with Bayle and his article on Spinoza in the Dictionary, commentators have often assumed that Spinoza believed that substance is a subject or substratum in which modes inhere as properties or qualities. Since Spinoza held that there is only one substance, God, this traditional view assumes that all modes are properties of or qualities inhering in God. Curley criticizes this traditional interpretation and offers an alternative (Curley 1969, 12-19). Spinoza conceives of substance as that which is dependent on nothing else. Modes are dependent on substance for their existence so cannot themselves be substances. This much is widely accepted. Curley also makes the further claim that for Spinoza modes do not inhere in the substance on which they depend. Rather, Curley argues, Spinoza believes that modes are only causally dependent on substance. In other words, God causes modes but modes are not qualities of God. The question, therefore, is whether modes merely causally depend on substance (as Curley argues) or depend on substance because they are inhering properties of substance (as is traditionally argued). This paper argues that Curley’s criticism of the traditional interpretation fails and that his own interpretation is therefore not attractive. In doing so, however, it suggests that modes are properties of substance in a very particular way. Specifically, modes are expressions of the essence of substance. I believe that this intuition is central to Spinoza’s thought, but this paper can do no more than flesh out some issues directly relevant to it. The Problem Curley’s position is supported by a seeming ambiguity in how early modern philosophers Philosophy & Theology 11, 1 (1998) 2 defined substance. Descartes provides an obvious example. He sometimes defined substance as a subject or substratum in which properties inhere (CSMI, 214). At other times, he defined substance as "a thing which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence" (CSMI, 210). According to the first definition, the difference between substance and mode is the difference between a subject and its qualities. Substance is the subject of all predication and everything which is not substance is an inhering quality of substance. According to the second definition, the difference between substance and mode is the difference between a causally self-sufficient thing and a causally dependent thing. Substance is what is self-caused and everything which is not substance is caused by substance. Although a traditional Aristotelian would not think of taking one definition without the other, it is possible that a Seventeenth century reformer would see these definitions as sufficiently distinct that one could coherently be accepted without the other (Curley 1969, 4-11), although Descartes himself never did so. In the Ethics, Spinoza defines substance as ‘"what is in itself and is conceived through itself, i.e., that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing" (E1D3). On the face of it, this definition is in accordance with Descartes’ second definition and does not necessarily imply the first (cf. Curley 1991, 48-49). Consequently, the idea that Spinoza thinks of substance solely in terms of causal self-sufficiency is not completely implausible. In other words, it is not absurd to argue that Spinoza conceived the substance-mode relationship as a purely causal one. Even if Curley’s interpretation is possible, however, it is not very convincing. Spinoza was well aware of the meaning of ‘substance,’ and we cannot assume that he would use it in the misleading way that Curley suggests (cf. Bennett 1991, 53). Curley’s account is feasible only if he explains why Spinoza would deny that modes are also inhering qualities of substance. Curley defends his position by arguing that Spinoza could not claim that modes are qualities of God without holding obviously absurd beliefs about God. Since Spinoza would not want to hold absurd beliefs about God, Curley argues, he must not have claimed that modes are qualities of God. The argument is based on the notion--which is entailed by the traditional interpretation--that properties of modes are properties of God. If a mode is merely a quality of a substance, then Philosophy & Theology 11, 1 (1998) 3 anything predicated of that quality is also predicated of the substance. This notion leads to three ‘absurdities’: that we would have to predicate properties of God which are unworthy of him (we would have to ascribe directly to God every odious action that man performs); that we would have to predicate contradictory properties of God (since...one man may want what another man does not want); and that we would have to think of God as changeable (since every time a man changes his mind, it would be God who was changing his mind). (Curley 1991, 37) The first two ‘absurdities’ clearly pose no problem for Spinoza. Spinoza would find the first absurdity to be based on a confused way of thinking. It is only by a "mode of imagining" (El Appendix, iii) that we find things ‘odious,’ and so God is not really odious in Himself. The second absurdity is not a worry because modes, being finite and durational, are indexed to a place and a time. There is no absurdity in saying that God is blue at one mode (say, a jacket) and not-blue at another spatio-temporally distinct mode (say, a pen). Consequently, only the third ‘absurdity’ is addressed here. Because Curley believes that God would be changeable if the traditional interpretation were correct, he believes that Spinoza must deny that modes are properties of God. On the other hand, if modes are merely causally dependent on God, then properties of modes are not properties of God; modes could change without God changing. According to Curley, either God is changeable or God is immutable and is not a subject of predication. Since Curley believes that Spinoza would not accept the first option, he thinks that Spinoza developed the second. However, a more plausible interpretation is available. Understood in one way, Spinoza’s God does not change; understood in another way, He does. More specifically, Spinoza believes that God qua Natura Naturans is immutable, but God qua Natura Naturata undergoes change. Natura Naturans is "what is in itself and is conceived through itself, or [sive] such attributes of substance as express an eternal and infinite essence, i.e...God, insofar as he is considered as a free cause" (ElP29S, cf. E2P9). Natura Naturans is God considered insofar as he is infinite, eternal and unmodified by modes. Natura Naturata is God considered insofar as he is modified by finite modes (E1P29S). God considered as the infinite cause of all things, or as the attributes that express God’s essence, is immutable. God considered as modified undergoes change. ElP20, the proposition in which Spinoza asserts that God is immutable, refers only to God qua Natura Philosophy & Theology 11, 1 (1998) 4 Naturans--to God considered independently of His modes--and consequently there is insufficient reason to accept Curley’s interpretation. Since Spinoza claims only that God qua Natura Naturans is immutable, there is no reason for him to deny that God qua Natura Naturata has modal properties. The next four sections defend this claim. The Immutability of god First, however, Curley’s challenge should be clarified. According to Aristotle’s famous account of substance in the Categories, substances can remain one and the same thing (i.e., retain the same essence) while accepting different modifications. Thus, Socrates remains Socrates regardless of whether his skin is tan or pale. If this is the case for God, then He could accept different modifications while remaining the same thing. Spinoza argues that God is immutable in ElP20. He writes, God (by P19) and all of his attributes are eternal, i.e. by (D8), each of his attributes expresses existence. Therefore, the same attributes of God which (by D4) explain God’s eternal essence at the same time explain his eternal essence, i.e., that itself which constitutes God’s essence at the same time constitutes his existence. So his existence and his essence are one and the same... (E1P20).