Amor intellectualis Dei

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Amor intellectualis Dei or Amor intellectualis erga Deum ( Latin for "intellectual love of God " or " love of God ") is a term used by the Dutch philosopher Baruch de Spinoza , which describes the spiritual experience of a union not only between man and God, but also between rational and affective components of knowing. The third genre of knowledge (after “ opinion ” and “ reason ”), from which the “amor Dei intellectualis” arises, is what Spinoza calls “intuitive knowledge” (scientia intuitiva). It fascinated Goethe and German idealism .

"Benedictus de Spinoza" (work of art by Rudolf Roth )

Concept history

According to Wolfgang Röd , the idea of ​​love that arises from knowledge was found long before Spinoza, probably for the first time in Plato , whose doctrine of philosophical eros in the symposium contained the idea that those who are guided by love of the beautiful in themselves can see the truth itself in spiritual vision touched. The platonic love is the engine of the finite to the Eternal, and nearer the moral devotion That in this for the purpose of its essence-and food supplement. Spinoza's doctrine of affect is based on the principle of self-preservation and the desire for the finite.

When Ebreo emphasized that God also loves creatures, he expressed a view that Spinoza firmly rejected: “If man, like all finite beings, is a manifestation of God in God, he is not different from God and therefore cannot from God be loved". Spinoza explains that the spirit amor intellectualis Dei is only part of God's infinite love for himself; and he only draws the inferences from his basic metaphysical assumptions when he finally asserts the identity of both. Knowledge as the most powerful affect, namely as the affect of reason itself, insofar as it is not suffering but doing, is amor intellectualis: love of reason. How he understood the relationship between intellect and love can already be seen in the short treatise , where intellect is the “brother” of love. Spinoza understood the insight that all beings belong to the unity of nature as a union with this as the absolutely infinite substance :

“As long as we do not have such a clear idea of ​​God that unites us with him in such a way that it does not allow us to love anything outside of him, we cannot say that we are truly united with God, that is, directly from to depend on him. "

We know God "only through himself". For Spinoza, “clear knowledge” is “that which arises not through rational conviction, but through feeling and enjoying things themselves.” Love is “a union through which the lover and the beloved become one and the same thing or make a whole together ". Spinoza reports, “that once we begin to recognize God”, “then we must be united with him even closer than with our body and, as it were, detached from this body”. For him, “our happiness” consists in union with God and in love for God lies “our salvation”, “our happiness” and our “freedom”.

reception

In Faust Goethe took up the Spinozist idea of ​​"amor Dei intellectualis":

Wild instincts have now fallen asleep
With every impetuous activity;
Human
love is stirring, God's love is stirring now.

These verses paint the picture of the wise man who apparently ascetically obeys only the strongest affect, in which knowing love for God and self-liberation are one and the same. The contemplation of the original phenomena is a form of worship for Goethe, and so there is indeed an amor Dei intellectualis for him as well as for Spinoza , only this corresponds to the changed meaning of the Scientia intuitiva in Goethe and is consequently mediated by the intellectual view of the original phenomena. In this view, and not, as with Spinoza, in a logical, partly immediate, partly from the immediate by deduction, the Scientia intuitiva consists for Goethe.

In the tradition of Spinoza's “scientia intuitiva”, Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Schelling and Hölderlin also use the term “intellectual view”. In a recording of Spinoza's amor Dei intellectualis , Fichte specifies the idea of ​​alternating love to the effect that man's being moved by love of God is in truth nothing other than God's own self-love, in whose reference to himself and in whose self-realization man participates.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Plato, Symposion 212a. Quoted from Wolfgang Röd: Benedictus de Spinoza. An introduction. Stuttgart 2002, p. 112
  2. ↑ Heinrich von Stein: Seven books on the history of Platonism. Investigations into the system of Plato and its relation to later theology and philosophy. 3rd part: Relationship between Platonism and the philosophy of Christian times. Göttingen 1875, p. 245.
  3. ^ Wolfgang Röd: Benedictus de Spinoza. An introduction. Stuttgart 2002, p. 112f
  4. ↑ Spinoza: Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata V, prop. 35-36.
  5. ↑ Spinoza: Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata V, prop. 36 corr.
  6. ↑ Gertrud Jung: "Spinoza's theory of affect, its interweaving with the system and its connection with tradition", in: Kant-Studien 32, Berlin 1927, pp. 85–150, here 109.
  7. ↑ Reiner Wiehl, "Nietzsche's Anti-Platonism and Spinoza", in: Violetta Waibel (Ed.): Spinoza - Affektenlehre und amor Dei intellectualis, p. 348.
  8. ↑ Spinoza: Short treatise on God, man and his happiness. In: Wolfgang Bartuschat (ed.): Complete works. Volume 1, Hamburg 1991, p. 27.
  9. ^ Wolfgang Röd: Benedictus de Spinoza. An introduction. Stuttgart 2002, p. 111.
  10. ↑ Spinoza: Short treatise on God, man and his happiness. In: Wolfgang Bartuschat (ed.): Complete works. Volume 1, Hamburg 1991, p. 33.
  11. ↑ Spinoza: Short treatise on God, man and his happiness. In: Wolfgang Bartuschat (ed.): Complete works. Volume 1, Hamburg 1991, p. 56.
  12. ↑ Spinoza: Short treatise on God, man and his happiness. In: Wolfgang Bartuschat (ed.): Complete works. Volume 1, Hamburg 1991, p. 64.
  13. ↑ Quoted from Gerda Lier: The Immortality Problem: Basic assumptions and requirements, Göttingen 2010, p. 19f.
  14. ↑ Martin Bollacher , The young Goethe and Spinoza. Studies on the history of Spinozism in the epoch of storms and urges, Tubingen 1969, 80.
  15. ↑ Kurt Hübner: Faith and Thinking. Dimensions of Reality, Tübingen 2004, p. 419f.
  16. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Schings: “On Spinoza's Reception in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship Years.” In: Yearbook of the Wiener Goethe-Verein 89/90/91 (1985/86/87), pp. 37-88, here 84.
  17. ↑ Edith Düsing, “Moral Striving and Religious Association. Investigations into Fichte's later philosophy of religion ”, in: Jaeschke, Walter (ed.): The dispute about the divine things (1799-1812). With texts by Goethe, Hegel, Jacobi, Novalis, Schelling, Schlegel and others and commentary. Hamburg 1999, 98-128, here 125.