ABSTRACT
In the winter of 1644, Spinoza, who just a year prior had published his book on Cartesian philosophy, receives a letter concerning philosophical matters from a man unknown to him by the name of Willem van Blijenbergh. Blijenbergh brings up a new an ancient theological paradox: given that God is the source of not only the existence of all things, but also the manner of the action of all that exists, either there is no evil in the Souls motion or will, or else God himself does that evil immediately. Blijenbergh, who requested that Spinoza see him as a lover of truth on the one hand, and a Christian philosopher on the other, is perceived by Spinoza to be the hybridization of two things: a dissembling philosopher and a dissembling theologian. While as a philosopher he should have preferred the general to the particular, and as a theologian the divine to the human.
