Whatever we understand by the third kind of knowledge delights us, and this delight is accompanied b… — Baruch Spinoza

Whatever we understand by the third kind of knowledge delights us, and this delight is accompanied by the idea of God as cause; therefore, the intellectual love of God necessarily arises from this knowledge.

By Baruch Spinoza, from Ethics

Key Arguments

From the third kind arises the highest acquiescence, i.e., pleasure, accompanied by the idea of the mind (self) and thus of God as cause.
By Def. of the Emotions vi., pleasure accompanied by the idea of God as cause is love of God understood not imaginatively but as eternal—intellectual love.

Source Quotes

XXXII. Whatsoever we understand by the third kind of knowledge, we take delight in, and our delight is accompanied by the idea of God as cause. Proof.—From this kind of knowledge arises the highest possible mental acquiescence, that is (Def of the Emotions, xxv.), pleasure, and this acquiescence is accompanied by the idea of the mind itself (V. xxvii.), and consequently (V. xxx.) the idea also of God as cause.

Proof.—From this kind of knowledge arises the highest possible mental acquiescence, that is (Def of the Emotions, xxv.), pleasure, and this acquiescence is accompanied by the idea of the mind itself (V. xxvii.), and consequently (V. xxx.) the idea also of God as cause. Q.E.D. Corollary.—From the third kind of knowledge necessarily arises the intellectual love of God. From this kind of knowledge arises pleasure accompanied by the idea of God as cause, that is (Def. of the Emotions, vi.), the love of God; not in so far as we imagine him as present (V. xxix.), but in so far as we understand him to be eternal; this is what I call the intellectual love of God.

Q.E.D. Corollary.—From the third kind of knowledge necessarily arises the intellectual love of God. From this kind of knowledge arises pleasure accompanied by the idea of God as cause, that is (Def. of the Emotions, vi.), the love of God; not in so far as we imagine him as present (V. xxix.), but in so far as we understand him to be eternal; this is what I call the intellectual love of God. PROP.

Key Concepts

Whatsoever we understand by the third kind of knowledge, we take delight in, and our delight is accompanied by the idea of God as cause.
From the third kind of knowledge necessarily arises the intellectual love of God.
not in so far as we imagine him as present (V. xxix.), but in so far as we understand him to be eternal; this is what I call the intellectual love of God.

Context

Part V, Prop. XXXII with proof and Corollary: derivation of amor Dei intellectualis from scientia intuitiva.