Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God.”
Baruch Spinoza · Rationalism · Early modern · 1677
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the proposition as a consequence of there being only one substance: whatever exists is in God, and nothing can even be conceived apart from that substance. The claim is immanence, not a governor standing outside a creation and looking in. A rival reading hears ordinary piety, the world held in God's care, which keeps the separation the proposition denies. It is Ethics, part one, proposition 15, after the arguments that a substance cannot be produced by another substance.
Did Baruch Spinoza really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Edwin Curley's translation of Ethics, part one, proposition 15. To be in God is to be a mode of the one substance, not to sit inside a container beside the world. This wording is a translation.
Where it comes from
Ethics I, proposition 15
Approximate date: 1677.
How to use it
A parish newsletter in Durham can say the world is held in God and still mean a protector who might have arranged things otherwise. Spinoza's in will not do that job. If the close wants a watcher who could have chosen a different weather, it needs a different doctrine; The proposition is about what it is to exist at all, and it will not double as reassurance that someone is supervising the street.
A mindset reading
The line is short enough to be borrowed by any spirituality that likes the word God. The test is whether anything is allowed to exist or be thought outside God. If the answer is yes, the proposition has been left behind; If the answer is no, a great deal of speech about a God who waits, decides, and replies has to be rewritten or dropped.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is substance, that which is in itself and conceived through itself, and part one argues there is only one, called God or nature. Modes are ways that substance is, not independent things standing beside it. Proposition 15 states the consequence in a single line. Curley's translation is the English this library uses; The claim is why he was read as an atheist and as a thinker of a severe piety.
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FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the proposition as a consequence of there being only one substance: whatever exists is in God, and nothing can even be conceived apart from that substance. The claim is immanence, not a governor standing outside a creation and looking in. A rival reading hears ordinary piety, the world held in God's care, which keeps the separation the proposition denies. It is Ethics, part one, proposition 15, after the arguments that a substance cannot be produced by another substance.
Did Baruch Spinoza really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Edwin Curley's translation of Ethics, part one, proposition 15. To be in God is to be a mode of the one substance, not to sit inside a container beside the world. This wording is a translation.
Which work is it in?
Ethics I, proposition 15 Approximate date: 1677.