Joseph Pallattil
Our journey in search of treasurers in philosophy has reached up to the modern period, where we find a Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza’s philosophy is pantheistic. Pantheism is the belief that reality is identical with divinity, or that all-things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god. All is God and God is all. In this pantheistic view we can identify God with nature. His famous and most commonly used dictum regarding the pantheistic understanding of the reality is Deus sive Natura, which can be translated as ‘God or Nature.’ Nature is raised to the rank of God. It follows from God’s inner nature. In this theory of identification of God with nature, nature is no longer seen as a power that is distinct from God. Neither it is subordinate to God. But Nature is presented as a power that is one and the same with divine power.
According to Spinoza, there are two dimensions of nature. It is termed as Natura Naturans, Natura Naturata. Natura Naturans is nature in the active sense. Natura Naturata is nature in the passive sense. We can understand the entire reality both as active and passive sense. Natura Naturans in the active sense literally means Nature nurturing. Natura Naturata in the passive sense means Nature nurtured. For Spinoza, Natura Naturans refers to the self-causing activity of nature, while Natura Naturata refers to nature considered as a passive product.
In these two sides of nature, first one is the active, productive aspect of the universe. That means, God and his attributes, from which all else follows. What Spinoza calls Natura naturans, ‘nurturing Nature’ is, strictly speaking, identical with God. The other aspect of the universe is that which is produced and sustained by the active aspect. He says, “From God’s supreme power, or infinite nature, infinitely many things in infinitely many modes, that is, all things, have necessarily flowed, or always follow, by the same necessity and in the same way as from the nature of a triangle it follows, from eternity and to eternity, that its three angles are equal to two right angles”. The entire system, Natura naturata, follows immanently from the divine nature, Natura naturans.
Natura Naturans refers to the self-efficacy of the entire reality. It denotes that the God is the nature. The absolute reality is immanent in the nature. This God- Nature identification leads us to understand the nature in a greater perspective. There is sacredness in the universe, therefore approach the nature responsibly. Natura Naturata refers that the nature is created, controlled by the God. There is a guiding principle behind the entire reality.
