essence” (p.115). Spinoza states God is a substance, an independent existence from us. God is apriori, meaning he is the cause of everything and we are a mode of God because we are dependent of him. Spinoza also states “one substance cannot be produced by another substance” (p.117). In nature no two substances with the same attributes can exist. Dependent things cannot be treated as a substance. Dependent things are just modes of the same substance. God is an immediate cause, in which he is immediately in everything we see. Since God determines everything, he takes out free will. God determines all our free will of thinking and our free process of nature. This is due to the fact that he determines everything. Spinoza calls him an “efficient cause, not only of the existence of things but also their essence”(p.129). He is a direct cause of everything and he is in immediate contact with us. All things have a reason and everything is because of everything else. God is this reason and this is why God is an efficient cause. As a philosopher Spinoza states God is an independent entity in which he is an eternal truth. Due to this you cannot conceive God as anything else but true. Leibniz was a monad who treats God as a category, something that is perfect. Leibniz says, “God is an absolutely perfect being”(p.81). God is perfect in every way meaning that he contains no impossibility and has no limits. God is the architect of this world and he has chosen the best possibilities for the world to exist. It is under Gods orders that we are the way we exist. Leibniz states, “ God has chosen the most perfect, that is to say the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypotheses and the richest in phenomena….”(p.84). This is saying that what we perceive is based on simple subjects. Simple substances are going to be the monad. This is God’s intention. God m...
