According to Spinoza, we humans recognize two of God's qualities or manifestations. Spinoza called these qualities God's attributes, and these two attributes are identical with Descartes's 'thought' and 'extension.' God--or nature--manifests itself either as thought or as extension. It may well be that God has infinitely more attributes than 'thought' and 'extension,' but these are the only two that are known to man."
"Fair enough, but what a complicated way of saying it."
"Yes, one almost needs a hammer and chisel to get through Spinoza's language. The reward is that in the end you dig out a thought as crystal clear as a diamond."
"I can hardly wait!"
"Everything in nature, then, is either thought or extension. The various phenomena we come across in everyday life, such as a flower or a poem by Wordsworth, are different modes of the attribute of thought or extension. A 'mode' is the particular manner which Substance, God, or nature assumes. A flower is a mode of the attribute of extension, and a poem about the same flower is a mode of the attribute of thought. But both are basically the expression of Substance, God, or nature."
"You could have fooled me!"
"But it's not as complicated as he makes it sound. Beneath his stringent formulation lies a wonderful realization that is actually so simple that everyday language cannot accommodate it."
"I think I prefer everyday language, if it's all the same to you."
"Right. Then I'd better begin with you yourself. When you get a pain in your stomach, what is it that has a pain?"
"Like you just said. It's me."
"Fair enough. And when you later recollect that you once had a pain in your stomach, what is it that thinks?"
"That's me, too."
"So you are a single person that has a stomachache one minute and is in a thoughtful mood the next. Spinoza maintained that all material things and things that happen around us are an expression of God or nature. So it follows that all thoughts that we think are also God's or nature's thoughts. For everything is One. There is only one God, one nature, or one Substance."
"But listen, when I think something, I'm the one who's doing the thinking. When I move, I'm doing the moving. Why do you have to mix God into it?"
"I like your involvement. But who are you? You are Sophie Amundsen, but you are also the expression of something infinitely bigger. You can, if you wish, say that you are thinking or that you are moving, but could you not also say that it is nature that is thinking your thoughts, or that it is nature that is moving through you? It's really just a question of which lenses you choose to look through."
"Are you saying I cannot decide for myself?"
"Yes and no. You may have the right to move your thumb any way you choose. But your thumb can only move according to its nature. It cannot jump off your hand and dance about the room. In the same way you also have your place in the structure of existence, my dear. You are Sophie, but you are also a finger of God's body."
"So God decides everything I do?"
"Or nature, or the laws of nature. Spinoza believed that God--or the laws of nature--is the inner cause of everything that happens. He is not an outer cause, since God speaks through the laws of nature and only through them."
"I'm not sure I can see the difference."
"God is not a puppeteer who pulls all the strings, controlling everything that happens. A real puppet master controls the puppets from outside and is therefore the 'outer cause' of the puppet's movements. But that is not the way God controls the world. God controls the world through natural laws. So God--or nature--is the 'inner cause' of everything that happens. This means that everything in the material world happens through necessity. Spinoza had a determinist view of the material, or natural, world."
"I think you said something like that before."
"You're probably thinking of the Stoics. They also claimed that everything happens out of necessity. That was why it was important to meet every situation with 'stoicism.' Man should not get carried away by his feelings. Briefly, that was also Spinoza's ethics."
"I see what you mean, but I still don't like the idea that I don't decide for myself."
"Okay, let's go back in time to the Stone Age boy who lived thirty thousand years ago. When he grew up, he cast spears after wild animals, loved a woman who became the mother of his children, and quite certainly worshipped the tribal gods. Do you really think he decided all that for himself?"