Where to learn about Spinoza's concept of god?

Question

I read long ago that Einstein liked Spinoza's "god." I'm curious to know more about this. Can anyone suggest a good place to begin?

OK. It sounds like I'll have to read some Spinoza to really get a partial grip here ...

What would you recommend to begin with? I am starting from zero.

Answer 1

This is actually some what of a joke by Einstein. This is because for Spinoza, God is not primary, the laws of nature are. Unfortunately, there is really no source that I know of which can help you understand what you seek. This is because Spinoza is widely held as a philosopher who placed God in the role of primacy. Most sources you may explore will send you down a path thusly.

I'm sorry that what I just explained is contradictory, but the only way to understand Spinoza is to perceive his philosophy in its totality, and then to think about it for a few years. As you do, the shear beauty of what he accomplished wells up inside you until a vision of the cosmos swirls around in your mind. The vision is magnificent despite the fact that Spinoza taught us that beauty has nothing to do with it, only the basic laws of nature apply.

This is what Einstein was referring to. It's the unfettering of science which allowed his ideas to flourish by Spinoza demonstrating that God is irrelevant.

The shear magnitude of Spinoza's effort is awe inspiring. A universal theory of all things in the entire universe, including the universe itself, is called ontology. Spinoza was the ontologist "par excellance!"

He marginalized God so that science could prosper, but most don't even realize the profound benefit we all experience because of it. NEWTON to PASTUER to EINSTEIN to WATSON and CRICK, etc...

Spinoza's treatment of God is so elegant and deferential...nary a whisper of complaint is waged by e'en the most impassioned believers today. Why would they complain? When only those few amoung us, such as Einstein, can even perceive it.

ADDITION:
Answers 2 & 3 are good. They are giving you more food for thought. Yes, Spnoza was a Pantheist...but don't let yourself be bogged down by terminology. With Spinoza, you must take one small step, then another....then another... to eventually see his influence in its profound totality as it led up to Einstein's statement.

You see, most people have not even heard of Spinoza, but everyone knows who Einstein is. The point I'm trying to make is that Einstein was paying homage to Spinoza. He was giving him "props" for creating a climate in which Einstein could maneuver.

ADDITION 2:
I just noticed that the asker has a T/C badge in Physics. This question is one that will, therefore, continue to lurk in the shadows of that which intrigues you (physics).

ADDITION 3:
http://www.amazon.com/Spinoza-90-Minutes-Philosophers/dp/1566632153

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
"Longtime readers of Paul Strathern's 90 Minutes books--pamphlets, really--know the drill: Strathern provides a minibiography of one of the world's great philosophers and an overview of his intellectual contributions, interspersed with Strathern's sometimes witty, sometimes merely sarcastic, comments about his subject's life and surroundings. His book on Spinoza, whose philosophy he considers "one of the finest ever produced," is no exception. Spinoza was an outcast in 17th-century Holland; as a Jew, he faced opposition from the Christians, and as a radical thinker who attacked not only the scientific but theological authority of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), he was shunned--excommunicated, even--by the Jewish community. Left to his own devices, he crafted a pantheistic philosophy based on the premise that God and the universe are one and the same, so that to harm others is ultimately to harm oneself. As Strathern writes, it has "a compelling beauty unequaled in the history of philosophy." (Although, in order to get to that level of brilliance, Spinoza had to write his share of clunkers, including one book that Strathern describes as "reducing Descartes' delightful and lucid style to a rubble of almost impenetrable mathematics.")"

ADDITION 4:
Spinoza can be difficult to understand because he took such a dry systematic approach to his writings. Here's the basic key you need to be thinking actively about when you read anything of or about Spinoza:

If God is an anthropomorphic being, then He can be perceived as all powerfull. Spinoza cleverly smuggles in the antithetical image of god as being one with all things in the universe. This seemingly benign view of god (once it takes hold) actually represents the end of the perception that god has power to move and shape the world and the events around us. This is because god is blown into billions and billions of powerless peices so that pantheism can be realized.

Spinoza was not the only pantheistic philosopher. But, he made the best, most compelling case for this theory. He also came along just as Sir Isaac Newton's ideas needed a fertile philosophical backdrop to help them take root. Basically, he's the reason why the westernized religions will not even attempt to challenge the primacy of physics and science over god.

Answer 2

From what I understand spinoza had a Pantheist concept of god. In a sense that everything IS god. God is the functioning universe and we are part of it. And any research into pantheism would further explain it.

Answer 3

Spinoza suggested that God exists. He neither loves nor hates us, has no more interest in us than any other thing, and that we exist because it's one of many possibilities, by virtue of God's omnipotence and omniscience; because we can exist, we do exist.

This is basically what Spinoza said without the passion the other answerer has for the subject. I admire that.