Spinoza, God, and a Single Substance

Having laid out what he means by “substance” and provided evidence for the existence of God, Spinoza makes what is perhaps his most unique and surprising claim: that there is and can be only one substance and that substance is God. Nothing else exists.

Since God possesses all attributes, and substances can never share in attributes, it therefore follows that no substance can share in the attributes of God, which means there can be no other substance but God. Therefore, everything found in creation, material and immaterial, is part of the same substance – God.

It is worth noting that Spinoza’s claims have been met with a number of criticisms. And there are many points which Spinoza largely ignores in his writing, for the sake of his argument.

For instance, he does not provide a thorough account of morality and sin, yet if everything is part of God, that would require sin to either not exist, or to be one of God’s attributes – an idea which would be rather problematic to many Christians – and would seem to simply contradict the fundamental nature of who God is and what sin is.

This concludes our short series on Spinoza’s view of Substance.