Deus sive Natura

The book, when it is published, is called Ethics, and it contains a phrase that has been causing trouble for three hundred and fifty years.

The phrase is Deus sive Natura.

It's three words.

It means God or nature, and the or is doing the load-bearing work.

Albert Einstein, asked once whether he believed in God, said he believed in Spinoza’s God, the one who shows up in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in the personal affairs of human beings.

That formulation has stuck.

People who would never use the word in conversation will sometimes, late at night, in the right kind of silence, say something remarkably close to Deus sive Natura.

Either way, the move is the same.