Considering Steven Gambardella's, "Spinoza, God, and You"

 

I read Steven Gambardella’s interesting article Spinoza, God, and You and found it very engaging. I made a few comments and figured it was enough. But thinking on it all day, I still want to write about a key element that I feel keeps getting left out of such discussions about God and consciousness.

Spinoza, God, and You

Steven Gambardella - Oct 14, 2025

Gambardella's article begins with:

(SG)  The morning is a symphony of small things — the rumble of the kettle, the diminuendo of a passing car, a shard of sunlight across the worktop. Outside the breeze catches a dewy web, the spider tremors. An odd thought occurs — what if none of these things are really separate?

What if the kettle and the car, the spider and the heart beating in your chest aren’t items laid out on the counter of the world, but kinks in a single fabric? Spinoza the most ambitious claim a philosopher can make — there is only one thing. And that one thing is everything.

Wow, talk about getting smacked across the face. Good morning, wake up and smell the coffee!

But, but, I believe in Evolution! I understand a good deal about the astounding pageant that has brought us to this point in history. The one-ness of my existence with the All out there - it is a reality, once appreciated, it can't be escaped.  So give me a moment to clear my head before continuing with what promises to be a fascinating article.

First, to clarify - I am an individual evolved biological animal (an Earthling), with some 600 million years of successfully evolving generations under my belt. One thing that means, is that I appreciate that my biological body has layers of insights and agendas well beyond my awareness.  {It sets up an odd sort of partnership situation between my mind and my body.  Difficult to convey, but oh so real.}

My thoughts & mind ( the "conscious" part of me) are an internal reflection of my biological body (the physical part of me) dealing with the rush of physical reality coming at me, interior and exterior.  (Physical science, [as opposed to philosophy/theology], supports this supposition. For details see, Solms, Damasio, Sapolsky, Sloan-Wilson, etc),

I'm not unique, one of billions. 

Yet my mind and my life's journey is unique. 

And it is mine, same as it ever was. 

And that's about all I can know with certainty, 

based on a life time of absorbing the developing scientific evidence and understanding.  It's fractals all the way down.

Okay now that I have that out of my system, on to the rest of Gambardella’s story . . .

(¶10)  (SG)  “Here we meet Spinoza’s definition of God: “By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite.” (Ethics 1.6)

Not a bearded man in the sky, nor a hidden engineer — “absolutely infinite” means nothing stands outside or alongside God. God is — surely — all powerful, all knowing, so therefore must be all present.

If there were a second thing, God would not be all. Spinoza argues that outside God “no substance can be or be conceived” — that is, there cannot be two ultimate stuffs. There is only one — and “whatever exists is in God, and nothing can exist or be conceived without God.”

In Spinoza’s phrase, Deus sive Natura — “God or Nature” — are not two names for two things but two names for one. You can say “Nature” if “God” gets stuck in your throat, or say “God” if “Nature” feels thin. (Or, the Universe)”  

That works for me.  God permeating everything and beyond our understanding.  With us humans as the most spectacular, if oh so flawed and destructive, manifestation of Time and Earth's evolutionary drive.

"I Am, Therefore I Think" - A scientific reality. What does it mean? (a dialogue)

 

I received the following constructive response to some of my thoughts and have decided to share this latest effort to clarify my Earth Centrist perspective. 

Hi, Peter,

Many theists believe in evolution, viewing it as god’s means of creating humans, so evolution is a bit of a red herring in this debate.  We do have the concept of god in our minds, but that tells us nothing about whether there is a god or not.  We have the concepts of trees and unicorns; the former exist, the latter don’t.  We need further argumentation to make a case for or against god’s existence.

Regards,

Thank you for responding and engaging with my ideas.  

Your note invites some clarification.

This isn’t about lip service to evolution.

This is about our relationship with the thoughts we possess.

This is about taking Descartes' (pre-scientific) reduction of what we can known about the human condition, which he boiled down to: "I Think, Therefore I Am” - to a modern scientifically informed reduction of our actual human condition: "I Am, Therefore I Think."

We are evolved biological sensing creatures, product of a half billion years of Earth’s evolution - what that tells us is that our mind is produced by our body/brain interacting with the world.  (Solms, Damasio, Sapolsky, etc.)

This brings us to a realization that it isn't a question of whether Gods are real or not. 

It is about appreciating that God's are the product of our own human thoughts.

Meta-physical figments within our minds - outside the realm of physical world.

You write: "We do have the concept of god in our minds" - but that is exactly what begs the question: "How does an assumption of God become a Being of God?"