Table of Contents
To God Spinoza for all attributes all the substance's properties. Besides this the divine properties of traditional theology receive an addtional spinozistic extra dimension: God is infinite, uncorporal, immortal and eternal, perfect, allmighty, omniscient, and a supporter of everything. Knowing him provides man with the fruitionof the highest form of knowledge
God exists (001sqq.). God is the cause of everything (090sqq.). Without God nothing exists (150sqq.). God is the most perfect subject and object of cognition (188sqq, 320sqq.). This Spinozistic philosophy is the real content of theology (godsdienst, 300) and politics (358). Methodologically the value here attributed to the proofs of the existence of God are an argument against the validity of the method with which traditional theology provided those proofs.
The traditional concept of God as allmighty and allknowing has consequences for the argument in KV without any need to change the content of these concept.
Related concepts: onveranderlijk.
Time is the most important criterium for the value of cognition. As God is unchangeable, knowing him is a garantee for everlasting knowledge. This knowledge lays at the base of the theological concept of the immortality of the soul (261, 355sqq.). Traditional theological concepts like, eternity, immortality, unchangeability so receive a Spinozist content that enables them to function in this new context. Nature itself is everchanging, but cognition of the unchangeable devine force that created it makes us immortal by knowing the only possile world.
'Heil' and 'welstand' are used synonymously for wellfare. Both of them have '(geluk)zaligheid' as their effect. All the terms in this lemma have a religious connotation that enables reinterpreting them in a Spinozistic way by applying them to to the third kind of knowledge. For 107 see TTP 111,29-30 (Mignini p.388).
Related concepts: poging, noodzaak.
'Voorzien, voorzorgen and onderhouden' here are used to provide a traditional theological terminology with a deterministic Spinozist content.
Realated concepts: oneindig, onveranderlijk, werkelijk.
KV022sqq: the atributes are relatively perfect in their kind (in suo genere perfectus: like in E consequently so in 401sqq., the appendix; 333n has 'oneindig in zijn geslacht'), whereas absolute perfection and infinity only pertain to God. E equates perfection and reality (Per realitatem et perfectionem idem intelligo, 2d6). In KV this equation is used as a premise in reasoning: if the imperfection of God should be concluded, the argument is invalid (053sqq.). The perfection of knowledge depends on the perfection of its object (224sqq.).
Related concepts: volmaakt, bepaald.
'Oneindig': infinite in qualitative and quantitative sense. The form 'oneindig' is remakably frequent in notes and appendix, whereas the text uses the biblical form 'oneindelijk'. The concept infinite became important in the late scholastic philosophy of Cusanus as well as in Spinoza's theology. Spinoza distinguishes an infinite number of attributes (020, 036) of which only two (infinite, 047sqq.) attributes can be known (120, 306).
Related concepts: uitgebreidheid, proportie.
Forms with 'lichaam*' (body) occur 128 times in KV, concentrated after 049, 306 and 420. 'Lichaam' is used for extension and for the human body. The soul operates in conjunction with the body in cognitive processes (421sqq, 325sqq.).
Related concepts: eindig; onvolmaakt, noodzaak.
'Bepalen' is used as a technical term for causal determination: what determines cannot be determined (onbepaald; cf.023sqq, 143sqq.). In 'voorbepalen' (096sqq.) this Spinozist doctrine is used to interpret the Calvinist doctrine of the will. In non technical sense 'bepaald' is used for specific (109sqq.) and definition (172). As translations of (in)finit* (on)bepaald and (on)eindig occur in the same syntagmas.
'Genieten' and 'verenigen' frequently occur in each others context. Fruition therefore can be judged the theological experience of the third kind of knowledge.