By Gonny Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), often called the philosopher of Amsterdam, was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in the city’s bustling merchant quarters. His parents were Portuguese Jews who had fled the Inquisition and sought refuge in the relatively tolerant Dutch Republic. Spinoza thus grew up in a community that itself carried the scars of religious persecution and control.
From this background he developed ideas that were as bold as they were dangerous. He became known for his radical vision of God, nature, and humanity. His main work, the Ethics, was written in the style of geometry, with propositions, proofs, and corollaries, as if truth itself could be laid out with mathematical clarity.
In the world of the 17th century, religion was still the great authority, and to question it was to risk everything. Spinoza dared to say that God is not an old man on a throne, ready to punish, but the very Life that runs through everything. Deus sive Natura….God or Nature.
For this, he was excommunicated from his Jewish community under a ban so harsh that no one was allowed to speak to him again. Later, when he published his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, it was immediately banned by church authorities. He lived simply as a lens grinder, choosing freedom of thought over wealth or prestige.
Still, his words could not be silenced. Spinoza wrote that God is not outside us but the very essence of all. The Course would echo: God is not “out there,” He is our very Self. Spinoza said that body and mind are one, two ways of seeing the same reality. The Course goes a step further: the body is part of the dream, projected by the mind. In both, the mind is central.
Spinoza taught that freedom comes from understanding.
The Course smiles and says: freedom comes from…understanding… what forgiveness is 
.
Spinoza’s doorway was reason, ACIM’s doorway is the heart, yet both lead to the same peace.
And when Spinoza speaks of blessedness (beatitudo), the Course responds: yes, joy is our natural state when we remember that only Love is real.
Fast forward to today. Has the church really changed? Just recently Pope Leo declared that not going to Mass is a “mortal sin.” Mortal sin! The words alone still carry the same old chill. It is the language of fear, echoing across the centuries.
But both Spinoza and the Course point us elsewhere. They remind us that fear is not truth. God does not know sin, only Love. And so perhaps the only real “mortal sin” is forgetting who we truly are. And even that is not punished, it is simply a dream we can wake up from.
Maybe Spinoza is smiling right now, seeing that at last, we begin to get the joke.
With love and light,
G.