Spinoza on God - Ashgate Studies in the History of Philosophical Theology

In the course of the last fifty years studies on Spinoza's God have been principally concentrated on an analysis of the strictly metaphysical aspects of the concept of divinity and have been fragmentary and sporadic in their analysis of Spinoza's work. Filling a gap in the historical and critical investigation of the question of God in Spinoza, this book takes explores parts of Spinoza's works hitherto neglected in this context - works such as the Theological-Political Treatise and the Epistolae - and reconsiders the entire evolution of his works and the philosophical and historical ways in which the question of God is presented. All the fundamental notions of substance, attributes, modes, power, cause, identity and the geometrical structure of Spinoza's work are examined. Philosophers, historians, philosophers of religion, historians of scientific thought and all interested in the figure of Spinoza will find this book an invaluable examination of the process of definition and transformation of the historical and metaphysical concept of God in Spinoza's thought within the context of his intellectual history.