T. Hobbes and B. Spinoza on the Relationship between the Natural, the Supernatural and the Unnatural

Abstract

The paper brings light to the conceptual foundations of the following discrepancies between the ideological positions of Hobbes and Spinoza. Rejecting the existence of the unnatural, Hobbes recognized the reality of the supernatural as the alleged result of a violation by the biblical god of what is happening according to the laws that he gave to nature created by him. Spinoza, identifying God with nature, recognized only the eternal natural, i.e. uncreated, and, practically identifying the supernatural and the unnatural, denied their existence. The recognition by Hobbes of the supernatural actually reveals his increased attention to the essential specifics of man, which are manifested in his creative activity, which creates from natural material that, which nature itself does not create. Hobbes gives this specific human ability to God. Spinoza, however, proceeds from the fact that nature itself realizes all its possibilities. He regards man as a part of nature and, accordingly, does not evaluate anything created by man as something superior to what exists in nature.