ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Spinoza's understanding of causality, which stands at the center of his understanding of existence. He does not limit himself to allotting a special causal logic to existence in its entirety. Examining the causal relation between the substance and the modes brings up the contradiction as its principal finding. The recurrence of the contradiction as the principal finding in the study of the issue of causality in the ethics allows for an initial discussion of the status of contradiction in his philosophy. The ethics contains both the claim according to which cause and effect are equal to one another, as well as the claim according to which cause and effect exclude one another, regarding their order of magnitude. Spinoza shakes the foundations of Western culture through the application of his axiom of causality to God. He asserts that in the framework of true knowledge there is no difference between the human intellect and God's intellect.
