Dialectical Spiritualism: Benedict Spinoza

BY: SUN STAFF - 8.2 2017

Conversations wtih HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, excerpted from  Dialectical Spiritualism: A Vedic View of Western Philosophy.

V – RATIONALISM 
Benedict Spinoza (1632 - 1677)

Hayagriva dasa: Spinoza asserts that God cannot be a remote cause of the creation. He sees the creation flowing from God just as conclusions flow from principles in mathematics. God is free to create, but He is the immanent cause; the creation is but an extension.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, because He creates through His energy. As stated in Bhagavad-gita:

bhumir apo'nalo vayuh 
kham mano buddhir eva ca 
ahahkara itiyaih me 
bhinna prakrtir astadha

"Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, and false ego — altogether these eight comprise My separated material energies." (Bg. 7.4) The material world is composed of these eight material elements, and because it is made out of God's energy, it is called the creation of God. More directly, however, it is His energies that create the material universe. The ingredients come from Him, and prakrti, nature, creates. God is both the remote and immanent cause of the creation because the elements are God's energies.

Syamasundara dasa: Spinoza sees God as the universal principle that binds together all the relationships in the material world.

Srila Prabhupada: If God is nothing but a principle, He has no personal activity. Is it that Spinoza is an impersonalist?

Syamasundara dasa: He states that God is the sum total of everything.

Srila Prabhupada: Certainly God is everything, but why shouldn't we utilize discrimination? By saying that God is a principle like light, we imply that God is like a material thing. According to him, what is man's position in relationship with God?

Syamasundara dasa: He states that the infinite universe is like a machine, yet all things are conditioned to exist in a particular way, and this is necessitated by the divine nature.

Srila Prabhupada: Everything may be like a machine, but a machine is devised by a person. So according to him, who is God? Is God the machine, or the person who devises the machine?

Syamasundara dasa: For him, God is the absolute universal principle behind everything. God is a thinking thing.

Srila Prabhupada: If He is thinking, He must be the creator of that machine.

Syamasundara dasa: Yes, he says that God is the creator, but we cannot know anything beyond the fact that God is that thinking and extended thing. Because we are aware of mind and matter, God must be thinking, and God must have extension. He claims that man cannot know more than that about God. Extension means that God takes up space.

Srila Prabhupada: If God is everything, He must exist in space. That is understood. But it must also be understood that if God is thinking, He is a person. How can He simply be a principle? How can we say that God is nothing but a principle and yet is thinking? The sun is working according to certain principles. It has to be at a certain place at a certain time. There is no question of thinking. If I say that the sun, which is a principle, is thinking, I am contradicting myself. If God is reason, God is a person, not a principle. Has Spinoza not explained what that principle is?

Syamasundara dasa: He says that everything is God, and that God is everything.

Srila Prabhupada: That is logical, but what is his conception of God? Is He a person or not? According to the Vedic version, the person is the origin, and the impersonal aspect is secondary. God is a person, and His influence or His supremacy is in everything.

isavasyam idaih sarvarh 
yat kinca jagatyam jagat 
tena tyaktena bhunjltha 
ma grdhah kasya svid dhanam

"Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong." (Isopanisad 1) Everything is made of God's energy, and therefore indirectly every- thing is God. Yet at the same time, everything is not God. That is Caitanya Mahaprabhu's philosophy of acintya-bhedabheda-tattva: everything is simultaneously one with and different from God. Everything is God, but at the same time, we are not worshipping this table. We are worshipping the personal God. Although everything is God, we cannot necessarily conceive of God in everything.