ABSTRACT
Benedict de Spinoza was undeniably a significant and pivotal figure not only during his own lifetime but also during the Enlightenment. His impact on contemporary thinking was enormous, not least because he shattered most of the religious certainties that had held sway hitherto. The origins of this change of attitude towards religion, a change which is inseparable from the growth of the Enlightenment, lie in the challenge to Aristotelianism, and the concomitant rise of Cartesianism, which led to a spread of mechanical philosophy. Fundamental to an understanding of the religious aspects of his thought is the fact that Spinoza denigrates revealed religion as inferior, since it is not based on nature or reason, but on unsubstantiated supernatural events, which can only be accepted by faith. Spinoza's view of the universe was to foreshadow eighteenth-century materialism. Whether explicitly argued or not, the implication of materialism was that religion and God were unnecessary for morality, since everything was determined by matter alone.
