Musings on Spinoza and God, Part 2: Spinoza's God, Anthropomorphism, and Process Theology

In my last post we confronted Spinoza's view of God, his Deus sive Natura (God, or Nature) formulation. Recall, Spinoza believed that God was not a transcendent being over and above nature. Rather, God IS Nature. As Spinoza claims: "Whatever is, is God."

What Spinoza does is de-anthropomorphize God. God isn't a person nor does God have a personality. God doesn't have likes or dislikes. God does not love or hate. God does not judge us. As Spinoza claims in his Ethics:

Strictly speaking, God loves no one and hates no one.

Thus, if we understand God properly, we don't seek a "relationship" with him. We don't try to avoid his wrath or curry his favor. Again, as quoted in the last post, Spinoza says:

He who loves God cannot strive that God should love him in return.

As noted, Spinoza de-anthropomorphizes God. Matthew Stewart suggests that Spinoza does this not for metaphysical or theological reasons but for moral and political reasons. That is, Spinoza wanted to displace the theocrats of his day, those who were using God or speaking for God for sociopolitical reasons. These people were using notions of God's "personality" as a means of social control.

This tendency is still with us. All sorts of things are prohibited because someone knows that God is "offended" by a particular activity. Further, notions of "heaven" and "hell" are held over people, using God's emotions (e.g., "God is angry") to shape the behavior of people. For example, I'm sure you've seen this God Speak's billboard:






Which is really just a delightful sentiment. Simply charming. Well, here's a billboard that is very Spinoza-esqe which nicely captures his project in response to theocrats:







The point being that I appreciate the goals of Spinoza's project. If, strictly speaking, God hates no one or loves no one, then we could avoid these irritating billboards. So, I appreciate the attempt.

However, Spinoza's God borders on no God at all (there's a long-standing scholarly debate if Spinoza's God implies atheism or not). As Heidegger said of Spinoza's God: "man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god."

But might we not accomplish part of Spinoza's goal by moving in the opposite direction? That is, rather that de-anthropmorphize God might we not make him more anthropomorphic?

If we make this move we adopt process theological notions, where God is viewed as less coercive and more relational. Where God doesn't command as much as be a companion. And where God is less identified with power and more with empowerment.

What I'm suggesting is that Spinoza's project of disentangling God from power might be accomplished by moving in the opposite direction of his project. Rather than de-antropomorthpizing we are more anthropomorphic, where God learns, regrets, makes "mistakes," and grows alongside his creation. Suffering with creation and rejoicing with creation. And all along, God works alongside and within creation to fulfill his ultimate purposes. (On a side note, I don't think the Incarnation makes any deep sense if God did not fundamentally learn something from the experience.)

Because it seems to me that the God of most Christian churches is a tweener. Too Greek and too Hebrew. Too transcendent to be of any real comfort. Of course, many try to make the tweener God work. He loves us, dearly, but he's also a pretty harsh judge who will, apparently, send MOST of humanity to hell. The tweener God is supposed to be both lovable and relational while at the same time being a demanding Cosmic Judge. In my Sunday School class people call this a "mystery" and they like to quote C.S.Lewis ("Aslan is not a tame lion."). But the word "mystery" is often theospeak for "I'm embracing a long-cherished but muddled idea." So, although some people seem to make this tweener God work, I've never been able to.

So in the end I'm a Spinozist in intent, but going in the opposite direction. Given the problems with the tweener God some movement is called for. Spinoza goes one way and I go the other.

But I think we end up in the same place.