E1p33 asserts that “Things could not have been produced by God in any other way or in any other order than is the case.” This proposition marks a radical departure with both philosophical and theological convention. Spinoza is not only making a philosophical claim of determinism; he’s showing it logiclay through his claim of ontological monism—reclaiming reality under the domain of vitality.

Spinoza builds this argument: from E1p16 (all things follow from God’s nature), through E1p29 (nothing in nature is contingent), to E1p32 (God’s will cannot be different for nature). The force of E1p33 emerges through the logical progression between these propositions. God’s nature expresses itself necessarily and completely—not as a transcendent actor/controller choosing between possibilities, but as the dynamic, immanent cause whose power actualizes in all modes simultaneously.

Building from these foundations, Spinoza’s demonstration for E1p33 shows that the possibility of alternate states of reality is contradictory to his God or Nature. As God’s nature is fixed and necessary (as established in earlier propositions), the things produced by God must also be fixed and necessary. Things produced by God follow from God’s nature with the same necessity as mathematical truths, like how all triangles have three sides. There is no room for contingency or alternative possibilities.

When we examine E1p33 through this lens, we understand Spinoza to be establishing a new metaphysical landscape. The Christian understanding of God as a willful creator who chooses between possible worlds evaporates. Instead, we have substance expressing itself through its essence (natural being), producing the various modes according to their own natures and capacities.

The necessity Spinoza articulates isn’t a limitation but the very affirmation of power. It’s not that God “cannot” do otherwise; rather, the concept of “otherwise” is nonsensical within the field of substance expressing itself through infinite attributes and modes. In other words, for our reality, we have no other option but to follow the laws that command God or nature, there is no diversion from the canon of reality. Each moment in theory can be predicted or replicated if we had perfect knowledge of the laws of nature and conditions at the time we wanted to predict/replicate.

For Spinoza, God or Nature reflects a unified being—substance, attributes, and modes are not hierarchically distinct kinds of being but different expressions of the same being. There is no transcendent God separate from creation, but only immanent substance expressing itself in infinite ways.

Descartes would object fundamentally to Spinoza’s deterministic view in E1p33 on both theological and metaphysical grounds. For Descartes, God possesses perfect freedom and is the creator of eternal truths themselves. As he writes in his letter to Mersenne (15 April 1630): “The mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on Him entirely no less than the rest of His creatures.”

Descartes would argue that Spinoza’s E1p33 fundamentally misunderstands the nature of divine power by subjecting God to a necessity that precedes or constrains divine will. In the Under the Cartesian framework, God’s omnipotence means that even logical and mathematical truths are contingent upon divine decree. The necessity Spinoza attributes to Nature is, for Descartes, merely the stability God voluntarily grants to creation.

This objection however seems ephemeral as Spinoza and Descartes are operating on opposite definitions of God, Descartes Christian God (who is an actor) and Spinoza monism. The argument should be not if determinism is right but whose God is correct. Descartes’ infamous cartesian circle shows the flaws of his theology, being that his explanation of God is textbook circular reading; while Spinoza demonstrates his theology without logical leaps.

Spinoza’s response would follow in kinda not by retreating from necessity but by radicalizing it. The key lies in understanding that necessity doesn’t eliminate difference but produces it through the essential natures of things and their causal relationships.

In E1p17s, Spinoza redefines freedom not as choice but as action determined by one’s own nature. What matters isn’t whether God could have created differently, but how each thing expresses its own essence according to its nature. Freedom isn’t opposed to necessity but emerges through it as increased capacity to act from one’s own nature.

E1p33s2 reveals that divine power isn’t about unrealised possibilities but about complete actualisation. “God’s omnipotence has been actual from eternity and will remain in the same actuality to eternity.” This actuality isn’t static but dynamic—expressing God’s infinite nature through infinite modes.

However, Spinoza’s necessitarianism does seem to break moral philosophy. If human actions are as necessary as mathematical truths, how can we perform moral assessment? As necessity is rational, we can always explain an agent’s action; it destroys the notion of voluntary action, making everything in essence involuntary and absolving all agents for criticism.

Contrary to the concern raised, Spinoza’s E1p33 doesn’t abolish morality but transforms it, and morphs itself into an absolute ethics. In E1p33s2, Spinoza distinguishes between two types of necessity: external compulsion and internal nature. True freedom doesn’t mean acting without necessity, but acting from one’s own nature rather than external determination. In a sense the ethical conception of the cynics.

Book II of the Ethics develops this through Spinoza’s theory of knowledge. In E2p49s, he explains that understanding the necessary causes of our actions doesn’t eliminate ethical judgment but refines it. When we understand the necessity of things, we replace inadequate emotional reactions (passive effects) with adequate understanding. Moral progress for Spinoza isn’t about escaping necessity but recognizing it. In E2p44, he shows that reason grasps things “under a certain species of eternity.” This adequate knowledge transforms our relationship to necessity—not by eliminating it, but by aligning ourselves with it intelligently.

The ethical imperative in Spinoza’s system becomes increasing our power of action through understanding. In E2p49s, he argues that understanding the causes of harmful behaviors doesn’t justify them but helps us address them effectively. Far from moral nihilism, this represents a more profound engagement with ethical life.

Spinoza demands that “it shows us, that we should await and endure fortune’s smiles or frowns with an equal mind, seeing that all things follow from the eternal decree of God by the same necessity, as it follows from the essence of a triangle, that the three angles are equal to two right angles” E2p49s3, show the marriage of ethics and monism, a theoretical inducement of an aura of empathy.

In Summation, Spinoza’s necessitarianism in E1p33 represents not just a deterministic worldview but a comprehensive reimagining of reality, God, and ethics. By establishing that all things follow from divine nature with mathematical necessity, Spinoza transforms our understanding of freedom and morality. Far from undermining ethics, this necessity becomes the foundation for a more profound ethical life—one based on adequate understanding rather than moral judgment premised on illusory free will.

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René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. 3, trans. John Cottingham et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)

Spinoza, B. (1996). Ethics (E. Curley, Trans.). Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1677)