Aither is a double-blind peer review, Open Access online academic journal. It is indexed at ERIH+ and Scopus. It is published by the Faculty of Arts of the Palacký University in Olomouc in cooperation with the Philosophical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. It comes out twice a year. Every second issue is international and contains foreign-language articles (mainly in English, but also in German and French). The journal is registered under the number ISSN 1803-7860.

Aither 30/2023 (International issue no. 11):4-25 | DOI: 10.5507/aither.2023.006

Spinoza: The God-Intoxicated "Atheist"

Daniel Spiro
Freelance scholar
Bethesda, Maryland

This paper contributes to the discourse about how to characterize one of the most misunderstood and diversely interpreted religious philosophers, Baruch Spinoza. I begin by focusing on the widely different ways that Spinoza’s teaching about God has been characterized, finding the root in these divergencies in the unique way that he defined words. The paper then examines the arguments for treating Spinoza first as an atheist, then as a pantheist, and lastly as a panentheist, arguing that the third of these terms is clearly the most faithful if his texts are to be taken at face value. Finally, the paper presents Spinoza as a bridge builder between secularism and religion, one whose iconoclasm is easily matched by his ability to inspire a deep religiosity.

Received: April 1, 2023; Revised: April 1, 2023; Accepted: July 10, 2023; Published: February 16, 2024  Show citation

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Spiro, D. (2023). Spinoza: The God-Intoxicated "Atheist". Aither, 15(30), 4-25. doi: 10.5507/aither.2023.006
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