God does not Willfully direct the Course of Nature

To make his case that God does not willfully direct the course of nature, he first explains why people think that God acts with a purpose. First, he notes that individual humans do not act freely, but are under the illusion that they do We are ignorant of the true causes of things, but only aware of our own desire to pursue what is useful us. Thus, we think we are free and that all our actions are guided by what is useful to us. Given this tendency to see human behavior as willful and purposeful, we continue by imposing willful purposes on events outside of us. We conclude that God willfully guides external events for our benefit (since we cannot guide it ourselves). Religious superstitions arose as humans found their own ways of worshipping God. Problems of consistency also arose as people insisted that everything in nature is done by God for a purpose. Since natural disasters conflict with the view that God acts with a purpose, we then say that God's judgment transcends human understanding. For Spinoza, mathematics offers a standard of truth which refutes the view that God acts with a purpose.

Spinoza next argues that God does not act from a purpose. He first argues that the concept of a perfect final goal is flawed. For Spinoza, the most perfect of God's acts are those closest to him. Succeeding events further down the chain are more imperfect. Thus if a given chain of events culminated in sunny weather, for example, that would be less perfect than the initial events in the chain. Belief in final causes compromizes God's perfection since it implies that he desires something which he lacks. For Spinoza, the theologian's contention that God willfully directs all natural events amounts to a reduction to ignorance. That is, all natural events trace back to God's will, and we are all ignorant of God's will. Theologians insist on this path of ignorance since it preserves their authority

Finally, Spinoza maintains that belief in God's willful guidance of nature gives rise to an erroneous notion of value judgments, such as goodness, order, and beauty. These values are presumed to be objective abstract notions imposed on nature by God for our benefit. For example, objective foundation of goodness is that which is conducive to the worship of God. However, Spinoza contends that all of these value judgments in fact arise out of our own human construction and human preferences. For example, things are well-ordered when they require little imagination and are easily remembered. He sees that this is also the case with beauty, fragrance, and harmony. The variety of controversies we have on these topics arise from our differing human constructions. Why is it, we may ask, that God created us in such a way that values are based on human construction, rather than reason? Spinoza's answer is that God figure out an alternative way and had the material to do it.

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