Spinoza’s explanation of the properties and nature of God strongly insinuates on the His existence and supremacy. Everything is dependent on Him because He is the cause of their existence. Men, however, have taken their belief in the existence of God and his will as a sanctuary of their ignorance. He highlights three points that explain prejudices made by humans which act as an obstacle to the reception of other logical ideas. Men believe that things in nature, just like themselves, are acting with an end in view and God created everything for the sake of man and in order for man to worship Him. He derives his point from here by seeking reason as to why most people are victims of this prejudice and also why they are so naturally disposed to accept it. Secondly, he demonstrates the falsity of this prejudice, and he finally shows how the prejudice is a source of misconception about what is considered right or wrong and good or bad.
In nature, everything seems to have been put in place to the advantage of men; considering plants, animals and other geographical features which are the source of our basic needs such as food and the beautiful view is for us to enjoy. Moreover, our physique is impressive in that every part of our body serves a specific purpose and we would not be able to carry out some tasks without them. Everything existing in nature was found in existence and was not made. People could not believe in self-creation hence concluded that there was someone else in control of nature who was endowed with human freedom and who always attended to their needs. Thus every individual came up with a method of worshipping God with the notion that they would be loved the most and the whole nature would be directed to serve their insatiable greed. At this point, men were driven by a desire to get more and more resources from nature hence the broad ways of worshipping that individuals came up with was driven by the desire to be the most favored.
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Humans subjected themselves to servitude when they started holding on to certain misconceptions. Disasters such as storms, diseases, earthquakes including many others were believed to occur because the gods were angry at men for the wrongs they had done or a fault in the course of their worship. They remained ignorant and would not receive another version even when it was explained that natural disasters struck both the godly and the ungodly. When looking at the human body, they would quickly conclude that it is divine art rather than mechanical art. To them, everything is a mystery or otherwise they would have endless questions about the causes of everything. Thus, they continued to swim in the sea of ignorance which limited their thinking since dispelling ignorance would include the disappearance of awe which is the basic support of their argument.
Men always prefer order to confusion as though the former were something in nature aside from what we imagine. Those who believe that things were made on their behalf hold on to their imagination, and due to ignorance, they consider these imaginations as important attributes. Our human brains are diverse hence we think differently from each other. Everyone’s judgment is basically a function of the disposition of their brain, and thus we easily mistake reality with imagination. Our reasoning is mainly an entity of imagination rather than an entity of reason. We find ourselves in bondage as we lack control our emotions.
Nonetheless, it can be concluded that humans can free themselves from the bondage they have subjected themselves to if they were to reason logically; start using knowledge rather than their own preconceptions. It is our way of thinking that determines what we call perfect or imperfect, good or bad.
References
Spinoza, B. Ethics: Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and Selected Letters.
