God is nature

Japanese: 神即自然 - かみそくしぜん

…He regarded substance as its own cause, thoroughly revolutionized the Aristotelian concept of substance that began with Descartes, and called the one substance consisting of infinitely many attributes God. He developed a pantheistic system of "God is nature" by stating that all things are modes, or transformations of God, that God is the intrinsic cause of all things, and that all things are determined by divine necessity, and he took the position of mind-body parallelism, going beyond Descartes' dualism, by viewing thought and extension as two attributes of God, that is, two expressions of the essence of the same substance. Thus, he taught that when one fully recognizes the necessary connection between one's individual essence and God, finite human beings share in the infinity of God, the human mind reaches perfect activity and realizes freedom, and the highest good is established there. …

From Pantheism

...Throughout the early modern period, pantheism was criticized as atheism disguised by Christian orthodoxy, and the view that Spinoza was an evil atheist was dominant. In 1785, a debate began between FH Jacobi and M. Mendelssohn about whether GE Lessing was a Spinozist or not. This debate, which was also linked to the evaluation of Kant's philosophy, attracted great interest from German intellectuals, and also involved Herder, Goethe, and Kant, developing into a major debate over the reevaluation of Spinoza's idea that "God is nature." In the process, Spinoza's reputation was rehabilitated, and Goethe and Herder formed pantheistic ideas under his influence. This is called the Pantheism Controversy. ...

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "God is nature" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

Japanese:

…彼は実体を自己原因としてとらえ，デカルトにはじまるアリストテレス的実体概念の革命を徹底し，無限に多くの属性から成る唯一の実体を神と呼んだ。いっさいの事物は様態すなわち神の変状であり，神はいっさいの事物の内在的原因であり，いっさいの事物は神の必然性によって決定されているとして，〈神即自然〉の汎神論的体系を展開し，思惟と延長を神の二つの属性，すなわち同一実体の本質の二つの表現と見て，心身平行論の立場をとり，デカルトの二元論をのりこえた。こうして彼は，自己の個体本質と神との必然的連関を十全に認識するとき，有限な人間は神の無限にあずかり，人間精神は完全な能動に達して自由を実現し，そこに最高善が成立すると説いた。…

【汎神論】より

…近世をつうじて，汎神論はキリスト教の正統から変装した無神論として非難され，スピノザを極悪の無神論者と見る見解が支配的であった。　1785年，F.H.ヤコビとM.メンデルスゾーンとの間でG.E.レッシングがスピノザ主義者であったか否かについて論争がはじまり，カント哲学の評価ともからんでドイツの知識人の非常な関心をひき，ヘルダー，ゲーテ，カントをもまきこみ，〈神即自然〉というスピノザ思想の再評価をめぐる大論争に発展し，その過程でスピノザの名誉回復がおこなわれ，ゲーテやヘルダーは彼の影響のもとに汎神論的思想を形成した。これを汎神論論争という。…

※「神即自然」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について | 情報

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