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In 1656, a young Amsterdam merchant was excommunicated by his Portuguese-Jewish community in the harshest terms it had ever used. Baruch Spinoza was accused of unspecified 鈥渉orrifying heresies,鈥� but the precise reasons for his expulsion remain a mystery. When he published his Theological-Political Treatise in 1670, which was condemned as 鈥渢he most atheistic book ever written,鈥� he began to reveal to the world what his heresies may have been. Yet ever since the eighteenth century, most readers and scholars have assumed that Spinoza was a pantheist鈥攅ven a 鈥淕od-intoxicated man,鈥� as the poet Novalis put it. After all, how could a person whose books are suffused with talk of God be an atheist? In Spinoza, Atheist, Steven Nadler, one of the world鈥檚 leading authorities on the philosopher, aims to settle the question and show that that鈥檚 exactly what he was.

Nadler makes a powerful case that there is no real divinity for Spinoza. God is Nature, and isn鈥檛 an object of worshipful awe or religious reverence but can only be understood through philosophy and science. There is nothing supernatural鈥攏o mystery, ineffability, or sublimity. Spinoza does speak of 鈥渂lessedness鈥� and 鈥渟alvation,鈥� but these, too, are to be understood in natural and rational terms, as the peace of mind and happiness that come from understanding ourselves and the world.

Whether Spinoza believed in God is a fascinating and enduring controversy. Spinoza, Atheist promises to transform our understanding of his views and to make clear just how radical a thinker he was and remains.