Natura naturata & natura naturans [View all]

[tama]

First some background from Wikipedia:

"Albert Einstein named Spinoza as the philosopher who exerted the most influence on his world view (Weltanschauung). Spinoza equated God (infinite substance) with Nature, consistent with Einstein's belief in an impersonal deity. In 1929, Einstein was asked in a telegram by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein whether he believed in God. Einstein responded by telegram: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#Spinoza_in_literature

"It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated God with the material universe. However, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg he states that: "as to the view of certain people that I identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken".[29] For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world. According to German philosopher Karl Jaspers, when Spinoza wrote "Deus sive Natura" (God or Nature) Spinoza meant God was Natura naturans not Natura naturata, and Jaspers believed that Spinoza, in his philosophical system, did not mean to say that God and Nature are interchangeable terms, but rather that God's transcendence was attested by his infinitely many attributes, and that two attributes known by humans, namely Thought and Extension, signified God's immanence.[30] Even God under the attributes of thought and extension cannot be identified strictly with our world. That world is of course "divisible"; it has parts. But Spinoza insists that "no attribute of a substance can be truly conceived from which it follows that the substance can be divided" (Which means that one cannot conceive an attribute in a way that leads to division of substance), and that "a substance which is absolutely infinite is indivisible" (Ethics, Part I, Propositions 12 and 13).[31] Following this logic, our world should be considered as a mode under two attributes of thought and extension. Therefore the pantheist formula "One and All" would apply to Spinoza only if the "One" preserves its transcendence and the "All" were not interpreted as the totality of finite things.[30]"

Martial Guéroult suggested the term "Panentheism", rather than "Pantheism" to describe Spinoza’s view of the relation between God and the world. The world is not God, but it is, in a strong sense, "in" God. Not only do finite things have God as their cause; they cannot be conceived without God.[31] In other words, the world is a subset of God."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#Panentheist.2C_pantheist.2C_or_atheist.3F

"Natura naturans is a Latin term coined during the Middle Ages, meaning "Nature naturing", or more loosely, "nature doing what nature does". The Latin, naturans, is the present participle of natura, indicated by the suffix "-ans" which is akin to the English suffix "-ing." naturata, is the past participle. These terms are most commonly associated with the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. For Spinoza, natura naturans refers to the self-causing activity of nature, while natura naturata refers to nature considered as a passive product of an infinite causal chain. Samuel Taylor Coleridge defined it as "Nature in the active sense" as opposed to natura naturata. The distinction is expressed in Spinoza's Ethics as follows:

"By Natura naturans we must understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, or such attributes of substance as express an eternal and infinite essence, that is … God, insofar as he is considered as a free cause. But by Natura naturata I understand whatever follows from the necessity of God's nature, or from God's attributes, that is, all the modes of God's attributes insofar as they are considered as things which are in God, and can neither be nor be conceived without God.[1]""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natura_naturans

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The distinction natura naturans and natura naturata sound analogous to distinction of quantum superposition of all possible worlds ("naturans&quot and decoherred (/classical) measurable world(s) ("naturata&quot . Dynamis/potentia vs. actualized existance.

Word "God" is of course not absolutely necessary in this context, but useful if Spinoza's and Einstein's philosophies are seen as possible common philosophical ground between theists and atheists.

I've heard that Einstein was haunted by the question "Is universe a benevolent place?" My question is, what is the place for the idea/experience/practice that "God is love/compassion" in relation to Spinozan panentheistic God/Superposition/Holomovement?