Spinoza

Spinoza is one of history's great philosophical masters and the author of The Ethics. He is not a character in the book, but he is crucially important to the book. Born in Amsterdam in 1632, Spinoza was raised a member of the Jewish community. He quickly rose to the top of his academic classes and was apparently being moved towards becoming a rabbi. But family matters prevent that. In 1656, his increasingly vocal theological views got him excommunication. Spinoza rejects that God of Judaism. For Spinoza, God is not separate from the world, nor did he create the world. In some sense he is the world. Further, God does everything necessarily and so does not have free will. Furthermore, he does not have passionate love for humanity.

He also held the views that the Jewish law no longer applied. Spinoza left the community, changed his name from Bento to Benedict...