Zachary Gartenberg

In the first section of this chapter, I offer an overview of a selected list of Scholastic debates intersecting Spinoza's Cogitata Metaphysica. I highlight how Spinoza consciously intervenes in them, showing a certain awareness of the intricacies of Scholastic discourse. In this first section, I emphasize Spinoza’s interest in three specific problems: the issue of the division of being into “real being” and “being of reason”; the eternity of God and its distinction from duration; and, finally, God’s omnipresence. My aim is to show how Spinoza (at least in the CM) does not completely stray away from the path of the Scholastics. In the second section, I focus on one specific problem, very close to Spinoza’s heart: the issue of the distinction between God’s intellect and God’s will, which is intimately tied to the question of the intentionality of God’s creation. Spinoza’s answer to this problem, as I shall prove, is already fully formed in the CM and remains substantially unchanged in the Ethics, thus emphasizing the continuity between this early work and Spinoza’s more mature system.