Abstract

In order to further clarify the meaning of Spinoza’s teachings, I will demonstrate in the following article that, according to the author of the Ethics, God is life, that the conatus, the internal dynamism of all singular things, are the manifestations of the life of God in different degrees, in the infinity of his modes relating to the infinity of his attributes, that virtue, the most perfect form of the conatus in man, is the “true life,” participation in the life of God, accompanied by an adequate consciousness of itself, and finally, that the supreme virtue of the soul which is designated by the theologians’ word “salvation,” the fully joyous consciousness of things, oneself and God, which is accompanied by the idea of God, is the supreme attainment of life tied to the most perfect possible knowledge of the infinite essence of God in its direct relation with the singular essences of things.