Spinoza's definition of free in I.D7 reads "a thing is called free which exists from the necessity of its nature alone, and is determined to act by itself alone." God acts from its divine nature and, since there is no power greater than God, is essentially free.
The issue of causa libera or "free cause" is profound. It ties together I.D1 and I.D7 while focusing on the various types of causes. I have not seen a "free cause" approached by prior thinkers. As covered in I.P16 on the Aristotle's four causes, a "cause" is best translated as an explanatory factor. So, it appears that Spinoza is saying that free is the explanatory factor as much as "four legs and a top" is an explanatory factor of a table - that is, it is essential.
Spinoza opens the nature of God as fully free, but in a sense that we would typically characterize as deterministic. Our personal notions of freedom rest on cognitive experiences of choice. For example, I can choose 2+2=4 or 2+2=5. But God is perfection is 2+2=4 and unable to be 2+2=5. God's perfection is free from constraints and choices. Freedom here is truly expressive.
To paraphrase my high school teacher, absolute power expresses absolutely. In this difference is a key to his thought. Spinoza views the universe as an unfolding of power that optimizes a fullness and saturation of expression. There are no gaps or limitations that facilitate choice.
The scale of power implied here is magnificent and logical. Earlier he has argued that if power is limited, it must be limited by something. What is that something? If there is no answer, then unlimited power exists. Unlimited power is freedom to express itself as is with the same unfolding as the nature of a triangle whose three angles sum to two right angles. An absolutely powerful triangle cannot express itself without three angles and cannot express itself without those three angles summing to two right angles. Spinoza is articulating that absolute power does not include the power to deny its essence. For this reason, modes do not deny substance but express the capacity of substance. This is unlike attributes which express the essence of substance.
Although there are parts of Spinoza's Latin that use masculine gender for God, on a go-forward basis I am using the neuter gender. Spinoza is consistently opposed to our tendency to anthropomorphize God. In this section, he highlights the problem again. Here we see that our cognitive experiences are a reflection of our limited power and yet we attribute that to God. We tend to affirm that God understands all things and yet only creates a subset of these things. But Spinoza is arguing that God's knowing is God's being and vice versa. The implication is that whatever does not exist does not exist due to imperfections of the definition (as in a triangle with only two angles). Those who argue with Spinoza raise a valid point - if God's knowing is doing, then if God knows all, hasn't all been done? Spinoza's position seems to be based in the reasoning of a line and points raised earlier - between any two points on a line lie infinite points. The line is analogous to the invariability of eternity while the capacity of the variability of the points on the line is analogous to a time-based and logical variability of God's expressive knowing and doing.
His arguments and examples are clear, but do raise a challenge embedded in the word effluxisse or "flowed out." There is a sense of motion and expression in Spinoza's system. The argument here about the connection between God's knowing and being raises the issue if God's knowing is a "flowing out" in the same way as God's being. Since that appears to be the case, it may appear to deny God's perfection in the sense of some incompleteness. However, absolute infinity may be the critical connection here - only in a complete set, i.e. finite, would a concept of completeness and doneness be applicable.
The focus here is on aeternam Dei essentiam or "the eternal essence of God." The example of the constellation in the form of a dog compared to the actual barking dog is useful in terms of its highly limited commonality. But the following example of a man causing the existence of another man raises as many issues as it solves. Spinoza's key point is that man cannot create the essence of another man because essences are eternal truths. The eternal essence of God is the only causal factor and it is free cause in the sense that Spinoza has defined.
Deus ex solis suae naturae legibus et a nemine coactus agit.
Translated as,
God acts from only the laws of its own nature and is compelled by no one.
Demonstratio: Ex sola divinæ naturæ necessitate vel (quod idem est) ex solis ejusdem naturæ legibus infinita absolute sequi modo propositione 16 ostendimus et propositione 15 demonstravimus nihil sine Deo esse nec concipi posse sed omnia in Deo esse; quare nihil extra ipsum esse potest a quo ad agendum determinetur vel cogatur atque adeo Deus ex solis suæ naturæ legibus et a nemine coactus agit. Q.E.D.
Translated as,
Solely from the necessity of its own divine nature or (what is the same) from only the laws of the same [divine] nature, we have shown just now that infinite things follow absolutely in proposition 16 and we have demonstrated in proposition 15 that nothing exists nor is able to be conceived outside God but everything is in God. This is why nothing is able to exist outside of God itself by which God might be determined or compelled to act. And to this degree, God acts from only the laws of its own nature and is compelled by no one.
Corollarium I: Hinc sequitur I nullam dari causam quæ Deum extrinsece vel intrinsece præter ipsius naturæ perfectionem incitet ad agendum.
Translated as,
From this it follows, first, that no cause is to be given which may arouse God to action, either extrinsically or intrinsically except for the perfection of its own nature.
Corollarium II: Sequitur II solum Deum esse causam liberam. Deus enim solus ex sola suæ naturæ necessitate existit (per propositionem 11 et corollarium I propositionis 14) et ex sola suæ naturæ necessitate agit (per propositionem præcedentem). Adeoque (per definitionem 7) solus est causa libera. Q.E.D.
Translated as,
It follows, second, that God alone is free cause. For God alone exists from only the necessity of its own nature (by P11 and P14C1) and acts from only the necessity of its own nature (by P16). To this extent (by I.D7) God alone is free cause.
Scholium: Alii putant Deum esse causam liberam propterea quod potest ut putant efficere ut ea quae ex ejus natura sequi diximus hoc est quae in ejus potestate sunt, non fiant sive ut ab ipso non producantur. Sed hoc idem est ac si dicerent quod Deus potest efficere ut ex natura trianguli non sequatur ejus tres angulos aequales esse duobus rectis sive ut ex data causa non sequatur effectus, quod est absurdum.
Translated as,
Some think that God is free cause for the following reason. They think that God is able to effect things which do not happen or are not produced by God - things which we have said follow from its nature, that is which are in its power. But this is the same as if they were to say because God is able to make it so that it does not follow from the nature of a triangle that three angles are equal to two right angles or that from a given cause an effect does not follow, which is absurd.
Porro infra absque ope huius propositionis ostendam ad Dei naturam neque intellectum neque voluntatem pertinere. Scio equidem plures esse qui putant se posse demonstrare ad Dei naturam summum intellectum et liberam voluntatem pertinere; nihil enim perfectius cognoscere sese aiunt quod Deo tribuere possunt quam id quod in nobis summa est perfectio. Porro tametsi Deum actu summe intelligentem concipiant, non tamen credunt eum posse omnia quae actu intelligit, efficere existant nam se eo modo Dei potentiam destruere putant. Si omnia inquiunt quae in ejus intellectu sunt, creavisset, nihil tum amplius creare potuisset, quod credunt Dei omnipotentiae repugnare ideoque maluerunt Deum ad omnia indifferentem statuere nec aliud creantem praeter id quod absoluta quadam voluntate decrevit creare.
Translated as,
Further on below, I will show without the need of this proposition that neither intellect nor will pertain to the nature of God. Certainly, I know that there are many more who think that they can demonstrate that the height of intellect and free will pertain to the nature of God. Indeed, they say that they reason that nothing more perfect could be attributed to God than what is the height of perfection in ourselves. Again, although they may conceive God's understanding to be at the highest level, nevertheless they do not believe that it can do everything at the level of its own understanding. For they think to prove that all this is so means that in such a way they would demolish the power of God. If, they argue, everything which exists in its [God's] intellect, it [God] had already created, then it [God] could have created nothing more. This they believe the omnipotence of God to be incompatible with and for that reason they have preferred to hold that God is indifferent to everything and creates nothing except that which it decides to create by a certain absolute will.
Verum ego me satis clare ostendisse puto (vide propositionem 16) a summa Dei potentia sive infinita natura infinita infinitis modis hoc est omnia necessario effluxisse vel semper eadem necessitate sequi eodem modo ac ex natura trianguli ab aeterno et in aeternum sequitur ejus tres angulos aequari duobus rectis. Quare Dei omnipotentia actu ab aeterno fuit et in aeternum in eadem actualitate manebit. Et hoc modo Dei omnipotentia longe meo quidem judicio perfectior statuitur. Imo adversarii Dei omnipotentiam (liceat aperte loqui) negare videntur. Coguntur enim fateri Deum infinita creabilia intelligere quae tamen nunquam creare poterit. Nam alias si scilicet omnia quae intelligit crearet, suam juxta ipsos exhauriret omnipotentiam et se imperfectum redderet. Ut igitur Deum perfectum statuant, eo rediguntur ut simul statuere debeant ipsum non posse omnia efficere ad quae ejus potentia se extendit, quo absurdius aut Dei omnipotentiae magis repugnans non video quid fingi possit.
Translated as,
Indeed I think that I have shown clearly enough (see P16) that everything necessarily has flowed from or, by the same necessity, follows from the height of God's power, whether as infinite nature or infinite things by infinite modes in the same way as from eternity and to eternity it follows from the nature of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles. For this reason, the omnipotence of God has been at this level from eternity and will remain at the same actuality for eternity. And in this way the omnipotence of God, in my opinion at any rate, is established far more perfectly. To the contrary, my adversaries seem to deny the omnipotence of God (allow [me] to speak openly) because they are forced to admit that God understands infinite creations which, nevertheless, God will never be able to create. For otherwise if [God] created everything which it understands, according to them, [God] would exhaust its omnipotence and render itself imperfect. So, as they establish that God is perfect, by this they are reduced so that at the same time they must establish that [God] is not able to effect all things to which [God's] power extends. I do not see what could be formed to be more absurd or contrary to the omnipotence of God.
Porro ut de intellectu et voluntate quos Deo communiter tribuimus, hic etiam aliquid dicam, si ad aeternam Dei essentiam intellectus scilicet voluntas pertinent, aliud sane per utrumque hoc attributum intelligendum est quam quod vulgo solent homines. Nam intellectus et voluntas qui Dei essentiam constituerent, a nosto intellectu et voluntate toto caelo differre deberent nec in ulla re praeterquam in nomine convenire possent; non aliter scilicet quam inter se conveniunt canis, signum caeleste et canis, animal latrans. Quod sic demonstrabo. Si intellectus ad divinam naturam pertinet, non poterit uti noster intellectus posterior (ut plerisque placet) vel simul natura esse cum rebus intellectis quandoquidem Deus omnibus rebus prior est causalitate (per corollarium I propositionis 16) sed contra veritas et formalis rerum essentia ideo talis est quia talis in Dei intellectu existit objective. Quare Dei intellectus quatenus Dei essentiam constituere concipitur, est revera causa rerum tam earum essentiae quam earum existentiae, quod ab iis videtur etiam fuisse animadversum qui Dei intellectum, voluntatem et potentiam unum et idem esse asseruerunt. Cum itaque Dei intellectus sit unica rerum causa videlicet (ut ostendimus) tam earum essentiae quam earum existentiae, debet ipse necessario ab iisdem differre tam ratione essentiae quam ratione existentiae. Nam causatum differt a sua causa praecise in eo quod a causa habet. Exempli gratia homo est cause existentiae, non vero essentiae alterius hominis; est enim haec aeterna veritas et ideo secundum essentiam prorsus convenire possunt; in existendo autem differre debent et propterea si unius existentia pereat; non ideo alterius peribit sed si unius essentia destrui posset et fieri falsa, destrueretur etiam alterius essentia. Quapropter res quae et essentiae et existentiae alicujus effectus est causa, a tali effectu differre debet tam ratione essentiae quam ratione existentiae. Atqui Dei intellectus est et essentiae et existentiae nostri intellectus causa; ergo Dei intellectus quatenus divinam naturam essentiam constituere concipitur, a nostro intellectu tam ratione essentiae quam ratione existentiae differt nec in ulla re praeterquam in nomine cum eo convenire potest, ut volebamus. Circa voluntatem eodem modo proceditur, ut facile unusquisque videre potest.
Translated as,
Next we have commonly attributed things to God concerning the intellect and the will. Here I will even say something - if the intellect, namely the will, pertain to the eternal essence of God, something more sensible must be understood about each attribute than which men are generally accustomed. For the intellect and the will which constitute the essence of God, must be diametrically different than our intellect and will and cannot have anything in common except for the name. In same way does a dog as a heavenly constellation and a dog as a barking animal have anything in common. This I will demonstrate. If intellect pertains to divine nature, then it cannot function with things understood, as our intellect [does], posterior to (as pleases the majority) and at the same time in nature when indeed God is prior to all things by causality (by P16C1) but instead, truth, and thus the formal essence of things, is of such kind because such exists objectively within the intellect of God. For this reason, the intellect of God, insofar as it is conceived to constitute the essence of God, is in reality the cause of things as of their essence and of their existence. This seems to have been observed by those who have asserted that the intellect, will and power of God are one and the same. Since in this way the intellect of God is the one and only cause of all things (as we have shown) namely as of the essence of things and of their existence, it itself necessarily differs from those same things as the reason for its essence and as the reason for its existience. For what is caused differs from its own cause in that which it [effect] has from from a cause. For example, a man is the cause of the existence of, but not in truth the essence of another man. For this essence is an eternal truth and for that reason they can entirely agree following their essence. In existence, however, they must be different and for this reason, if the existence of one perishes, then the other will not perish. But if the essence of one is able to be destroyed and become false, it would also destroy the essence of the other. So a thing which is the cause of some effect of both the essence and the existence must be different from such effect both as the reason for the essence as well as the reason for existence. Further the intellect of God is the cause of the essence and the existence of our intellect. So the intellect of God, insofar as it is conceived to constitute the essence of divine nature, differs from our intellect both by reason of essence and by reason of existence and in no thing can it be in common with it except in name, as we intended. Concerning the will, it would be deduced in the same way, as everyone is easily able to see.
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