The Metaphysical Transformation of Divine Infinity: From the Transcendent Infinite Being to the Plane of Immanence

Abstract

This article examines how divine infinity in Western metaphysics is re-specified through transformations in the concept of ground. Traditional metaphysics usually understands God as the first principle of the world. Yet God can function as ground not merely because He is the first cause, but because He is understood as a being that in some manner exceeds finite beings. We argue that the meaning of divine infinity depends on how God is understood as ground. To show this, the article focuses on three philosophers—Scotus, Spinoza, and Deleuze—and traces the changing forms of divine infinity across three decisive stages. First, in Scotus, God is still understood as an infinite being transcending finite creatures, yet through the univocity of being, God and finite beings enter a common conceptual field. Second, in Spinoza, God no longer appears primarily as an infinite being transcending finite beings, but is determined as absolutely infinite substance and infinite power; correspondingly, ground is no longer the first being external to nature, but becomes a productive cause immanent to nature. Finally, in Deleuze, ground is no longer borne by any substance, but is understood as the plane of immanence constituted by relations of difference and intensity; divine infinity accordingly no longer appears as a property of some ultimate being, but is transformed into the plane’s own self-sufficiency and lack of exteriority. On this basis, the article argues that modern ontology is not a simple break with the theological tradition, but rather effects within theological problems themselves a metaphysical transformation of divine infinity: as the structure of ground changes, the relations between God and world, and between the infinite and the finite, are continually rewritten.

1. Introduction

Recent studies have tried, through the theme of immanence, to connect Scotus, Spinoza, and Deleuze as three moments within a philosophy of immanence. The work of Nathan Widder and Daniel W. Smith is especially representative of this tendency. In dialogue with Hegelianism, Nathan Widder argues that Deleuze, through his reading of Spinoza, radicalizes two key concepts in Scotus that remained limited by theological considerations—univocal being and formal distinction—and thereby constructs an anti-Hegelian, expressive, and immanent absolute (Widder 2020, pp. 152–54). By contrast, Daniel W. Smith treats immanence as Deleuze’s response to Heidegger’s “ontological difference.” He argues that, for Deleuze, Heidegger revived ontology through this distinction and thereby gave univocity a new radiance, yet was unwilling or unable to push the difficulty of ontological difference to its necessary conclusion, namely that univocal being belongs only to difference (D. W. Smith 2001, p. 29). Deleuze, by staging a drama of thought composed of Scotus, Spinoza, and Deleuze, proposes instead a univocal ontology.

Although existing studies have explored this issue from theological and ontological perspectives respectively, a clear rupture remains between the two approaches. First, in theological research, scholars usually explain the relation between God and world by distinguishing types such as classical theism, pantheism, and panentheism. Yet such studies usually take God as the ultimate ground of beings and then examine the theological implications of the God–world relation, without first asking whether ground itself must be understood as a being. As Philip Tonner summarizes, within the Aristotelian-scholastic paradigm God is understood as “primary being,” and all other beings are referred to Him focally; the tradition therefore tends naturally to construe ground as some highest being (Tonner 2010, p. 22). Correspondingly, divine infinity is often understood merely as an attribute of this highest being, rather than as a structural concept capable of historical transformation.

Second, modern ontological research, especially after Heidegger’s formulation of the ontological difference, often begins directly from the question of Being and seldom traces its continuity with the theological tradition. Instead, they tend to emphasize ontology’s break with traditional theology. Thus, for example, Daniel W. Smith, in discussing univocal ontology, interprets Deleuze’s philosophy of difference as a Spinozism with God (substance) subtracted (D. W. Smith 2001, p. 37). Modern ontology has certainly altered the form of ground, but the relevant scholarship has often failed to show adequately that this alteration is at the same time a transformation in the very concept of divine infinity.

This article seeks to bridge that rupture. From the perspective of the history of philosophy, the modern discussion of ontology, as we shall argue, is not a simple departure from theological problems but continues along the line of the theological tradition. As God, as ground, is progressively internalized, ground ceases to be understood as some ultimate being and comes instead to be understood as a plane constituted by relations of intensity and difference, so that God is ultimately transformed into the plane of immanence. More importantly, different understandings of ground determine different understandings of divine infinity. Divine infinity is not an external property added to “God” as ground; rather, it is specified within the very structure in which God functions as ground. When ground is understood as the first being transcending finite beings, divine infinity appears as a transcendent infinity opposed to the finite. When ground is understood as a productive cause immanent to nature, divine infinity appears as the infinite power that unfolds through and pervades finite modes. And when ground is no longer understood as a being at all, but as a plane constituted by relations of difference and intensity, divine infinity no longer appears as the perfection of some infinite substance, but is transformed into a radically immanent planar structure.

To display the trajectory of this intellectual development, the article focuses on Scotus, Spinoza, and Deleuze. The first section discusses how Scotus, through the univocity of being, establishes a common conceptual plane between God and finite creatures while preserving the distinction between divine infinity and creaturely finitude. The second section examines how Spinoza reconceives divine infinity as infinite power and redefines God as immanent cause, and thereby develops a plane of immanent constitution within the theory of substance. The third section considers how Deleuze radicalizes this Spinozist plane by detaching immanence from substance and reconstituting it as a differential and intensive plane, in which ground no longer belongs to a being or substance but to relations of difference and intensity themselves. Through this inquiry, the article seeks to show that from Scotus to Spinoza to Deleuze what changes is not merely the form of ground, but the metaphysical meaning of divine infinity itself.

2. Scotus: God as the Transcendent Infinite Being

Why begin with Scotus? Because it is in Scotus that God as the ground of beings is for the first time placed within the horizon of “univocity,” thereby giving the question “how the infinite is related to the finite” a new metaphysical form. Scotus’s importance lies not only in his opening a conceptual pathway toward immanence, but also in the fact that he for the first time respecifies the way in which God is first ground through the relation between infinite and finite, univocity and difference.

For many scholastic thinkers, including Scotus, theology has God as its theme, whereas metaphysics has being qua being as its theme. Metaphysics must investigate the nature of being, and one crucial question within this investigation is: in what sense is being said of beings? Scholastic answers to this question may be divided into three types: (1) the doctrine of equivocity, according to which being is said of beings in many senses lacking a common measure; (2) the doctrine of univocity, according to which being is said in one and the same sense of all beings, whether God or creature; and (3) the doctrine of analogy, according to which being is neither equivocal nor univocal, but is said of beings in different senses ordered by a common measure. This metaphysical problem is closely tied to a theological one. From the standpoint of the tradition of divine names, it concerns the question in what sense we use the same words of God and creatures. From the perspective of the present article, it is at the same time a problem of divine infinity: if there is no shared conceptual pathway at all between God as infinite and creatures as finite, then divine infinity can only remain a wholly unthinkable name for transcendence; if, by contrast, God and creatures can share some common concept, then a thinkable relation between the infinite and the finite becomes possible.

The problem of theological language is the following challenge: if theological language, when speaking of God and creatures, lacks a concept that is clear and common to both, then knowledge of God becomes impossible, since all of our concepts derive from our experience of creatures (Vos 2006, p. 286). For example, if within our knowledge—knowledge that is always first of all knowledge of creatures—wisdom is merely an accidental quality, and if God’s wisdom as necessary wisdom is not in any respect common and univocal with creaturely wisdom, then we cannot know that God is wise. In short, Scotus proposes that, if there are no common concepts, knowledge of God is impossible, and such skepticism is untenable (Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 2, n. 25) (Duns Scotus 1960, p. 233, Prologus et Lectura I, Distinctiones 1–7).

To answer the problem of theological language, Scotus proposes that being is a univocal concept applying to both God and creatures. In other words, the unity of the conception of being guarantees that affirming it and denying it at once would be contradictory. This should first of all be understood as a claim about concepts and the use of words. As Giorgio Pini points out, when Scotus says that “being is a univocal concept,” he means first of all that, whether the object is God, a creature, a substance, or an accident, the intellect can think it under one and the same conception of being; accordingly, this is first of all a theory about the way we think and speak, not a direct claim that God and creatures share some common part in reality (Pini 2021, p. 204). For precisely this reason, Scotus is not abolishing the infinite distance between God and creatures; rather, he is explaining how, even though God as infinite and creatures as finite are irreducibly different at the level of reality, the intellect can still bring both under one and the same conception of being.

Being can be applied in exactly the same sense across different domains, especially to God and creatures. Scotus’s most famous argument for this claim turns on the distinction between a concept about which the intellect is certain and concepts about which it can still doubt (Duns Scotus 1993, p. 20, Philosophical Writings: A Selection):

• (Premise 1) If an intellect is certain of one concept but doubtful about others, then the concept of which it is certain is different from those about which it doubts.
• (Premise 2) But we can be certain that God is “a being” while still doubting whether God is finite or infinite.
• (Conclusion) Therefore, the conception of being is different from the conception of finite being or infinite being, and is thus univocal with respect to both.

Premise 1 is self-evident, and premise 2 is in fact true. As Thomas Williams summarizes, Scotus’s univocity does not abolish the ontological diversity between God and creatures; rather, while acknowledging this irreducible ontological diversity, it insists that there are still concepts whose extension includes both God and creatures (Williams 2005, p. 578). This point is especially important for the present article, because it means that, although divine infinity still presupposes the irreducible difference between God and creatures, this infinity is no longer a pure exteriority wholly cut off from the finite. It first enters, at the conceptual level, a common plane shared with finite beings.

Scotus also explains univocity from the methodological standpoint of theology. All theologians accept metaphysical concepts and, by denying creaturely imperfection, attribute perfection to God. (Duns Scotus 1993, pp. 24–25, Philosophical Writings: A Selection). This procedure presupposes some common concept applicable both to God and to creatures. Hence, even if theologians do not explicitly admit it, they in fact employ univocal concepts.

Moreover, communication, exchange of views, and debate all presuppose semantic univocity (Vos 2006, p. 287). Only on the basis of semantic, or conceptual, univocity can different theologians enter into genuine dispute. As Scotus writes, “every inquiry regarding God is based upon the supposition that the intellect has the same univocal concept which it obtained from creatures” (Duns Scotus 1993, p. 25, Philosophical Writings: A Selection). Without concepts common and univocal to both God and creatures, we would know nothing about God and could not meaningfully discuss the difference between God and creatures. But we do in fact know certain things about God—for example, that God exists and that God is supremely good—so there must be some common, univocal concepts. Scotus’s theory of univocity therefore first serves a theological–metaphysical task: to make the infinite still relatable to the finite in a way graspable by the intellect without abolishing divine infinity.

Yet the doctrine of univocity faces a serious challenge: if being is univocal, does that mean that God and creatures also share some commonality at the level of reality? And would this threaten God’s transcendence and simplicity?

Opponents of univocity argue, first, that real commonality can only be commonality in the sense of genus (Dumont 1992, p. 135), and second, that univocal being is therefore incompatible with God’s simplicity and transcendence. Regarding the first claim, the dominant view among late medieval metaphysicians was that every real and univocal concept must correspond to some real commonality, and that such real commonality can only be genus (Dumont 1992, p. 135). Since the highest genera are the ten categories, univocity too must stop at the level of the categories. Univocal being is therefore self-contradictory: beyond genus there is no real commonality, and univocity is confined within the categories. Since being transcends the categories, being cannot be univocal (Dumont 1992, p. 135). As for the second claim, if being is univocal, then by virtue of the first thesis such univocity must be generic univocity, and God would become a species under being. If the univocal conception of being is a real common concept, it must correspond to some reality distinct from infinity; infinite being, that is God, would then consist of a common reality (univocal being) plus a differentiating reality (infinity). This would introduce into God a relation of potentiality and actuality, genus and specific difference, thereby contradicting divine simplicity (SQO a. 21, q. 2) (de Gand et al. 2005, p. 47, Henry of Ghent’s ‘Summa’: The Questions on God’s Existence and Essence). Moreover, if God and creatures shared the same reality, namely the common reality corresponding to the univocal conception of being, then finite and infinite would function as specific differences, and God and creatures would no longer be wholly diverse, thus undermining God’s transcendence. In short, if one insists that real commonality can only be generic commonality, then univocity places God within the system of categories and destroys divine simplicity and transcendence.

To answer this challenge, Scotus must show that the univocal conception of being does not correspond to some common reality, and that finite and infinite are not specific differences. Scotus’s theory of univocity therefore continues to serve a theological–metaphysical task: to make the infinite relatable to the finite in a way graspable by the intellect without abolishing divine infinity.

Scotus’s response is to argue that finite being and infinite being are intrinsic modes (modus intrinsecus) of being (Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 2, n. 58) (Duns Scotus 1954, p. 48, Ordinatio), that being is not a genus, and that an intrinsic mode is not a specific difference (Dumont 1992, pp. 138–39). An intrinsic mode is a degree that delimits the range within which a given reality can be actualised. A particular reality cannot exist in actuality without such a degree. An intrinsic mode is not another reality added to a reality (Ord. I, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3, n. 108) (Duns Scotus 1956, p. 202, Ordinatio), but a different degree of the same reality. The distinction between a reality and its intrinsic mode is a modal distinction and does not correspond to different realities. Finite and infinite, as intrinsic modes, delimit the degree of being; they have no quid of their own, but only modify what is quidditative. In other words, they are qualitative concepts. Hence an intrinsic mode differs from a specific difference. This means that divine infinity is not a second substantial ingredient added onto “being”; it is an intrinsic determination of being itself. As Scotus states in the Quaestiones Quodlibetales, “intensive infinity expresses an intrinsic mode of that entity” and is “so intrinsic that if we abstract from all its properties or quasi-properties, we have still not excluded infinity, but it remains integrally included in that one single entity itself” (Quod. q. 5, a. 1, n. 10) (Duns Scotus 1975, p. 111, God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions). Intensive infinity is therefore not “a kind of attribute that accrues to it extrinsically” (ibid.). Precisely for this reason, divine infinity neither places God under some higher genus nor reduces the infinite and the finite to species-level differentiations on a common plane.

Although in reality a given reality and its intrinsic mode are inseparable, at the level of cognition we can think a reality by itself without thinking its mode, that is, its degree (Ord. I, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3, n. 138) (Duns Scotus 1956, p. 222, Ordinatio). Corresponding to these two ways of thinking, there are two concepts of a reality: a perfect concept and an imperfect concept. A perfect concept is formed by conceiving a reality together with its proper intrinsic mode (Ord. I, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3, n. 139) (Duns Scotus 1956, p. 222, Ordinatio); a concept formed in this way is also called the proper concept of that reality. Thus, although God is simple in reality, even our most adequate and simplest concept of God is not simply-simple, because it conceives God as infinite being rather than through an absolutely simple concept (Rep. I-A, d. 3, q. 1, n. 45) (Duns Scotus 2004, p. 197, The Examined Report of the Paris Lecture). An imperfect concept is formed by conceiving the reality while ignoring its intrinsic mode; a concept formed in this way is also called a common concept. Hence, in response to the first objection, “being” is a universal concept formed by thinking a reality imperfectly, and it does not correspond to any separate common reality; being therefore is not a genus. This distinction is crucial. Although the conception of being is a univocal real concept, it is merely the result of intellectual abstraction and is not real in the sense of duplicating reality point for point; it does not correspond to a “common reality” (Lect. I, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3, n. 129) (Duns Scotus 1966, p. 46, Lectura I, Distinctiones 8–45). In sum, the conception of being does not correspond to a common reality and is therefore not a genus; finite and infinite are intrinsic modes of being rather than specific differences of being; hence under univocity God is not genus plus differentia. In contemporary scholarship, Thomas Williams likewise stresses that Scotus’s univocity should not be misread as a “univocal ontology.” Univocity is first of all a semantic-conceptual thesis; from the fact that we possess a univocal concept applying both to God and creatures, it does not follow that the two share a common component in extramental reality. In other words, univocity does not automatically erase the irreducible ontological difference between God and creatures (Williams 2005, pp. 3–4). What Scotus accomplishes here, then, is not the reduction of divine infinity to a common entity shareable by finite beings, but the maintenance of that infinity as an absolute difference at the level of reality while at the same time granting it, at the conceptual level, a thinkable relation to the finite.

Yet one further question remains: what does it mean for being to be a “real concept”? How can it still be real without duplicating reality? Being is a real concept, but a real concept is not real in the sense that it copies reality point by point. Rather, the total construction of concepts displays reality. A fully analysed concept does not reflect reality by imitating it or corresponding to it one-to-one; instead, through abstraction and division it analyses confused terms into distinct ones, and then composes those distinct terms into a complex conceptual matrix through which the intentional object can “shine through” (LaZella 2019, p. 43).

A simply-simple concept is a concept that cannot be decomposed into anything prior or simpler. As Scotus puts it, “a simply-simple concept is one that is not reduced to a prior or simpler one, and is not resolved into many concepts; such is the concept of being” (Ille est conceptus simpliciter simplex qui non reducitur in priorem aut simpliciorem, nec omnino in plures conceptus resolvitur, sicut est conceptus entis) (Lect., d. 2, p. 1, q. 2, n. 24) (Duns Scotus 1960, p. 118, Prologus et Lectura I, Distinctiones 1–7). Such a concept is irreducibly simple: one part of it cannot be conceived while another remains unknown (Duns Scotus 1993, p. 6, Philosophical Writings: A Selection). Functionally, it is the most basic kind of concept: it is either purely determinable, corresponding to a purely quidditative concept, or purely determinative, corresponding to a purely qualitative concept.

A simple concept is first in the order of cognitive genesis: it is a concept of the lowest species (for example, out of our lived experience of colored objects there arise concepts such as “white,” “black,” and “red” as identifiable though still confused color concepts). Simple concepts usually arise from sensory experiences that strike the senses most strongly and most effectively capture our attention—for example, the tactile pain felt when a stone presses painfully against one’s foot (LaZella 2019, p. 43). Individuals stimulate the senses, and the concept of the species to which the individual that most strongly stimulates our senses belongs is impressed by the agent intellect upon the possible intellect, while the passive intellect grasps this concept in a single act of intellect. (Duns Scotus 1960, p. 250, Prologus et Lectura I, Distinctiones 1–7) (Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1–2, n. 68. See also Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 2, n. 71).

A given act of cognition is either confused cognition or distinct cognition; accordingly, simple concepts may be divided into simply-simple and non-simply-simple concepts. A simple concept need not be simply simple: it may still be confused, and can then be further analysed by abstraction into additional elements—for instance, the simple concept “white” can be analysed into its genus and specific difference.

Being is not the first real concept in the order of cognitive genesis. Rather, it is included in the concepts first impressed upon the possible intellect and is later abstracted from them. Scotus writes that “every concept that is imprinted in the possible intellect from the agent intellect and phantasm, or included in a concept imprinted by them, is real” (omnis conceptus qui imprimitur in intellectu possibili ab intellectu agente et phantasmate, vel qui includitur in conceptu qui imprimitur ab eis, est realis) (Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 126) (Duns Scotus 1960, p. 273, Prologus et Lectura I, Distinctiones 1–7). In this sense, being is a real concept: it is not a mere production of reason, but is abstracted from the first real concepts that arise from confused cognition of the lowest species. Although these first concepts—for example, “green” or “line”—do not yet distinctly include being, they already include being implicitly; through abstraction this implicit content is refined into the simply-simple concept of being.

The concept of being is first in the order of distinct cognition. As Scotus writes, “the first intelligible in an unqualified sense is what is simply most common. But nothing other than being is of this sort” (Questions on the Metaphysics IV, q. 1, 32) (Duns Scotus 1997, p. 260, Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle). From the confused cognition presented in the phantasm, we advance through abstraction to being as a simply-simple concept, thereby obtaining our first distinct cognition. Starting from being, and then adding differences through division, we can arrive at definitions and acquire other instances of distinct cognition. Hence being is a real concept not because it corresponds in extramental reality to a common reality, but because it constitutes the first distinct starting point from which the intellect can grasp all reality, including both the infinite and the finite.

At this point Scotus has completed a crucial argument: being is neither a merely rational concept nor a concept corresponding to a common reality, but the starting point from which the intellect distinctly understands all reality. In this sense, being is a real concept. And although being is a real concept, it does not correspond to a reality common to God and creatures, and therefore does not threaten God’s simplicity and transcendence.

God and creatures share a univocal conception of being, yet God as infinite being still transcends creatures as finite beings. As noted above, an intrinsic mode is a delimitation of the degree of being, dividing being into finite being and infinite being. This degree is also called transcendental magnitude, or intensity, and it determines a thing’s perfection. Transcendental magnitude is a quantitative determination that transcends the categories, applies to being itself, and answers the question of how great a thing is (Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 51) (Duns Scotus 1960, p. 244, Prologus et Lectura I, Distinctiones 1–7). Contemporary scholarship emphasizes that the notion of intensity here is not simply an extension of the “quantity of a quality” from natural philosophy. Jurgis Viningas notes that Scotus’s intensity has two senses, one intra-categorial and one transcategorial: in the first sense it denotes the degree of strength of a quality, while in the second it indicates the intrinsic degree of finitude and infinity, perfection and imperfection, in being itself. It is precisely in this transcategorial sense that the concept of intensity can be used to understand the difference between finite being and infinite being, and thus even to touch on the problem of individuation (Viningas 2025, pp. 1–2). From the perspective of this article, what matters especially is that divine infinity in Scotus is not some descriptor externally added to the first cause, but the intrinsic scale that determines the way God is ground. God is not first some neutral being to which the property “infinite” is then added (Quod., q. 5, a. 1, 5.10) (Duns Scotus 1975, p. 111, God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions); rather, He is precisely as infinite being radically distinguished from finite creatures, and thereby becomes their transcendent ground. Transcendental magnitude determines the differential grade of perfection (Rep. I-A, d. 19, p. 1, qq. 1–3, nn. 25–26) (Duns Scotus 2004, pp. 540–41, The Examined Report of the Paris Lecture), or intrinsic degree of being, of beings.

Transcendental magnitude is an intensive quantity. First, transcendental magnitude or intensity is not composed of homogeneous units. Intensity cannot be regarded as the sum of many smaller units, whether such units are homogeneous with the larger intensity (as many whitenesses making up white) or heterogeneous (as though an angel were made by adding wisdom, whiteness, and so on) (Quod., q. 5, a. 1, 5.10) (Duns Scotus 1975, p. 111, God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions). Second, a change in intensity necessarily implies a change in the nature of the thing itself; the thing does not remain unchanged as a substrate underlying quantitative variation. Thus, to say that being is divided into different intensities by transcendental magnitude is not to say that all beings are made of homogeneous units, so that a being with greater intensity simply contains more units than one with lesser intensity.

There is a proportional relation among different intensities of being: some are greater and some lesser. First, the ratio among intensities is not a mathematical proportion but a proportion of perfection (Quod., q. 5, a. 1, 5.10) (Duns Scotus 1975, p. 111, God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions). Since an intensity is not composed by adding many identical smaller parts, a greater intensity exceeds a lesser one not because the lesser can be treated as a part of the greater, as a large cube can be cut into many smaller cubes; rather, the greater intensity is greater because it possesses a superior perfection. Greater perfection is not constituted by the aggregation or addition of lesser perfections (Rep. I-A, d. 2, p. 1, qq. 1–3, n. 33) (Duns Scotus 2004, p. 124, The Examined Report of the Paris Lecture). Second, the greatness of perfection is to be understood in this sense: the greater contains the lesser eminently or virtually (Dpp., 3.18) (Duns Scotus 2024, p. 32, Treatise on the First Principle). The greater contains the lesser not in the sense that the lesser serves as a basic unit plus some extra units, but in the sense that the lesser is contained as part of the greater while still preserving its difference and without sharing an identical underlying basis with the greater. It is in this sense that Scotus can compare things wholly different in nature—for example, by saying that knowledge exceeds whiteness triply (Quod., q. 5, a. 1, 5.9) (Duns Scotus 1975, p. 110, God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions).

Through his account of intensity, Scotus defends God’s transcendence. First, intensive quantity does not presuppose homogeneous units. Infinite being and finite being therefore remain wholly heterogeneous. Second, the difference between God and creatures lies in the fact that God possesses infinite intensity whereas creatures possess finite intensity. The infinity of infinite intensity consists in this: God’s intensity exceeds every measure, “the infinite exceeds the finite in entity beyond any relative measure or proportion that could be assigned” (Quod., q. 5, a. 1, 5.9) (Duns Scotus 1975, p. 110, God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions). No greater intensity can contain infinite intensity eminently, whereas infinite intensity eminently contains all other intensities. By contrast, the intensity of any finite thing can always be surpassed. Infinite being and finite being are therefore wholly heterogeneous, and infinite being exceeds finite being. In this sense God still transcends creatures. Thus, in Scotus divine infinity is not cancelled by immanence; on the contrary, it remains the fundamental reason why God, as first ground, transcends finite beings. What changes is not transcendence itself, but the fact that this transcendence for the first time acquires, at the conceptual level, a common plane with the finite.

Accordingly, in Scotus God’s immanence consists only in conceptual immanence: under the imperfect grasp of the natural intellect, He shares with creatures a univocal conception of being; at the conceptual level God is partially immanent to creatures insofar as His intrinsic mode is ignored. But the composite concept “infinite being” still arises from the limitations of our worldly natural intellect. At the level of reality, infinity as intrinsic mode and God’s being are simple and one; hence God wholly transcends creatures as finite beings, and the two are different realities. In sum, God is immanent at the conceptual level but transcendent at the level of reality. Later Scotist syntheses confirm this point indirectly. Garrett R. Smith notes that, within the Scotist tradition, conceptual univocity and metaphysical analogy are not mutually exclusive: one may still recognize an analogical order on the basis of the real relation of attribution between God and creatures, while the intellect can nonetheless abstract from these distinct concepts a univocal common concept of being (G. R. Smith 2021, pp. 205–6).

For the purposes of this article, this means that in Scotus, divine infinity still first of all means transcendence over the finite; yet this transcendent infinity does not lie wholly outside the conceptual field of the finite, but acquires in univocity a thinkable relation to it. Divine infinity in Scotus does not mean quantitative endlessness, nor does it function merely as a negative marker of God’s incomprehensibility. It is the intrinsic mode by which being is determined as infinite being. Divine infinity does not sever God from the finite through absolute equivocity; rather, it specifies the difference by which God is distinguished from creatures within the common concept of being. Divine infinity therefore names a double structure: it makes God conceptually relatable to finite beings, while at the same time preserving God’s real transcendence as infinite first being. It is precisely in this sense that Scotus forms the point of departure for the later transformation. Scotus’s solution, however, leaves a question behind: if immanence can remain only at the conceptual level, does there not remain an unbridgeable gap between the ground of beings, namely God, and beings themselves? More pointedly, if divine infinity can still only appear as an infinite being transcending the finite, can it ever relate to nature in an immanent way? This is precisely the question Spinoza tries to answer.

3. Spinoza: God as Immanent Infinite Power

If Scotus determines God’s infinity as an infinite being that, at the level of conception, can be related to the finite, while at the level of reality nonetheless remaining absolutely transcendent to the finite, then Spinoza takes a decisive step further: he advances God’s infinity from “transcendent infinite being” to “immanent infinite power.” In Scotus’s theory, immanence still remains at the conceptual level: although God and creatures share the univocal conception of being, at the level of reality, God still, as infinite being, wholly transcends finite creatures. It is precisely at this point that Spinoza’s philosophy redefines the manner in which God is ground: God is no longer primarily the infinite being that stands outside finite beings, but rather the immanent cause of Nature itself; correspondingly, God’s infinity no longer manifests itself primarily as an external transcendence over the finite, but as the infinite production, unfolding, and inclusion of Nature.

God is, in essence, infinite power. To be able to exist is power; consequently, a necessarily existing being possesses an “absolutely infinite power to exist.” Moreover, God “is self-caused” (E1p34)1 (Spinoza 2002, p. 238). In other words, God’s essence is existence (a thesis with an important medieval precedent in Aquinas’s account of God as that whose essence is existence in De ente et essentia); God is a necessarily existing being. As Yitzhak Y. Melamed explains, Spinoza does not merely maintain that God’s essence “contains” existence, but rather advances a stronger divine essence–existence Identity Thesis: God’s essence is existence and nothing but existence. Thus, God’s existence is not a property added to essence; it is God’s essence itself (Melamed 2012, pp. 22–23). For the purposes of this article, this point is especially important, because it means that, in Spinoza, God’s infinity is no longer an “attribute” added to some antecedent subject, but God’s very mode of existence. Hence, God’s essence is infinite power: “God’s power is his very essence” (E1p34) (Spinoza 2002, p. 238). Here Alexandre Matheron’s formulation may be invoked to clarify the direction in which Spinoza’s argument proceeds: in Part I of the Ethics, Spinoza progressively links the possibility of existing, the power to exist, causal power, and reality/perfection. It is precisely in this sense that the very capacity to exist already means power, while God, as the absolutely infinite being, has an essence that at once signifies an absolute power of existence and an absolute power of production (Matheron et al. 2020, pp. 25–26). Accordingly, God’s infinity here signifies an absolute productive existence that cannot be divided into potentiality and actuality.

Infinite power is pure actuality and necessarily produces all things. Since God’s essence is infinite power, whatever is contained within God’s infinite power must necessarily be included in God’s essence. And since God’s essence involves existence, whatever is contained within infinite power must necessarily exist. Hence, God’s infinite power necessarily produces everything that lies within its power. In this sense, infinite power is pure actuality: there can be no situation in which the production of certain things falls within the scope of God’s power, yet God does not produce them. More precisely, this is the way in which all things are produced by God: infinite power necessarily expresses itself in all things.

First, all things are produced by infinite power. God’s essence is existence; therefore God possesses infinite reality. And since “The more reality or being a thing has, the more attributes it has” (E1p9) (Spinoza 2002, p. 221), God has infinitely many attributes. Hence, “the more reality the essence of the thing defined involves, the greater the number of its properties” (E1p16d). An infinite intellect can therefore infer infinitely many things from the definition of God, which contains infinitely many attributes; accordingly, everything that is an object of infinite intellect has God as its cause. Since God’s essence is infinite power, the foregoing is equivalent to saying that infinite power produces all things: it is “God’s power, whereby he and all things are and act” (E1p34) (Spinoza 2002, p. 238).

Second, if infinite power initiates the production of all things, it produces in a necessary manner. From the order of discovery, the definition of God is the sufficient reason for explaining all things, since the properties of all things can be necessarily inferred from the definition of God; correspondingly, from the order of being, infinite power necessarily produces all things. Whatever is contained within infinite power is included in God’s essence, and since God’s essence is existence, whatever is contained within infinite power must necessarily exist. If infinite power initiates the process of production, then it produces all things in accordance with its own inner necessity. Finally, infinite power must necessarily initiate the production of all things, because infinite power, as substance, has only itself as its cause.

In sum, all things “express God’s nature or essence in a definite and determinate way”; infinite power thus implies necessary production (demonstration of Proposition 36) (Spinoza 2002, p. 238). Infinite power is pure actuality, or necessity: whatever is within infinite power necessarily exists through the production of infinite power, or, in other words, infinite power necessarily expresses itself in all things. Hence, God’s infinity in Spinoza means that God is not an infinite being standing outside Nature who may choose whether or not to create; rather, God is that whose very essence necessarily unfolds as the infinite power of Nature.

The pure actuality of infinite power also excludes divine free will. As Michael Della Rocca argues, for Spinoza an appeal to primitive freedom or inexplicable agency merely halts explanation, whereas God, as the ultimate source of explanation, can contain no such irreducible arbitrariness. Thus, if the divine will were understood as a faculty capable, on equal grounds, of willing either this or that, it would conflict with Spinoza’s commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)2 (Della Rocca 2008, pp. 4–5). To say that God has free will is to say that God could refrain from doing what he does; divine power would then be divided into potentiality and actuality, since God could understand all things and yet not necessarily will to “bring about the existence of everything which in actuality he understands” (E1p17a) (Spinoza 2002, p. 228). But for Spinoza, God’s power is God’s very essence, and this power necessarily expresses itself in all things. Hence God’s infinity excludes arbitrariness: infinite power is not the mere capacity to produce all things, but necessary production in actuality.

Infinite power is the immanent cause of all things. First, God is substance, and substance is self-sufficient and primary both in the order of discovery and in the order of being. Therefore, natural things, as modes, all depend on substance both for their existence and for their being conceived. Second, substance is unique; hence any natural thing, as a mode, can depend only on God both for its existence and for its being conceived. Accordingly, all modes exist in God, and God is the immanent cause of all things. As for the meaning of “immanent cause” here, Melamed’s analysis is worth drawing on. On his account, Spinoza’s immanent cause is not a weakened form of ordinary efficient cause, but a distinctive type of causality that combines efficient causality with inherence; in such causality, the effect does not fall outside the cause, but inheres in the cause in the mode of being “in” it, so that the relation of inherence overlaps with the relation of cause and effect (Melamed and The Leibniz Society of North America 2006, pp. 43–46). This also means that the substance–mode relation should not be reduced to causal dependence alone. It involves inherence, causation, and conception at once: modes are in God as affections of substance, are caused by God through immanent rather than transitive causality, and are conceived through God.3 (Melamed 2013, pp. 91–96). In this context, Melamed’s interpretation of modes as God’s propria is especially helpful: modes follow necessarily from the divine essence without constituting that essence itself, and therefore they are not merely external effects of God, but necessary immanent consequences of divine essence (Melamed 2013, pp. 51–53). This is precisely where Spinoza’s innovation over medieval creator-creature framework becomes visible: finite things are no longer merely creatures externally dependent on God, but modes that follow from the divine essence as its necessary propria. Stephen Zylstra’s analysis allows this point to be specified further. Zylstra argues that, for Spinoza, God is not only the immanent cause of all things, but also their adequate cause; consequently, immanent causation cannot be understood as a form of concurrentism in which God and finite modes each contribute part of the causal efficacy. Rather, within the framework of E1p28d, God’s action in producing a given finite mode is not “supplemented” by another finite cause, but is identical with the action of that finite mode itself. Thus, the so-called immanent cause is not a structure of an external first cause plus a secondary cause, but the immanent unfolding of one and the same productive power in finite modes (Zylstra 2020, pp. 36–37). This means that the structure of ground in Spinoza has already undergone a fundamental transformation: God is no longer the highest being standing outside modes, but exists in modes as immanent cause. Precisely for this reason, God’s infinity no longer means an external juxtaposition with the finite, but rather the infinite power from which finite modes necessarily follow, in which they inhere, and through which they are conceived.

In sum, God’s essence is infinite power, and infinite power is pure actuality: it necessarily produces all things and is immanent in them. All things are the necessary results of the productive process of infinite power. What, then, is the essence of the results of infinite power? In other words, what is the essence of individual things as modes? Powers, or rather, conatus. As Karolina Hübner has pointed out, one of Spinoza’s fundamental metaphysical theses is that the essence of any actually existing thing is power, and that power here is not an externally added capacity, but causal power. She further argues that this doctrine of the “identity of power and essence” not only explains why the world necessarily follows from the divine essence, but also provides the basis for the doctrine of conatus (Hübner 2017, p. 2). Accordingly, if God is infinite power, then the essence of finite modes can no longer be understood as some independent entity opposed to God, but must instead be understood as a finite expression of one and the same productive power.

All things are, in essence, a plurality of powers. First, Spinoza defines essence as the necessary and sufficient condition for a thing’s existence and conceivability: “without which (the essence of a thing) the thing can neither be nor be conceived, and, vice versa, that which cannot be or be conceived without the thing” (E2d2) (Spinoza 2002, p. 244). Therefore, the essence of a thing is the cause of that thing, both in the sense of its existence and in the sense of its being conceived. Second, a thing’s essence sustains its existence. If we attend to a thing’s essence considered in itself, “we can find nothing in it which can destroy it” (E3p4) (Spinoza 2002, p. 282). This means that a thing’s essence does not negate its existence. Moreover, since a thing’s essence necessarily produces its effects (E1p36) (Spinoza 2002, p. 238), its essence must necessarily sustain its existence. In this sense, a thing’s essence is conatus, that is, the power “with which each thing endeavors to persist in its own being.” Finally, modes differ from one another, and conatus likewise differs from one mode to another. In sum, infinite power produces all things, and all things are, in essence, a plurality of distinct powers.

At this point, Spinoza has established the basic framework that “God is infinite power, and all things are powers.” But a crucial question now arises: are infinite power and finite powers two different kinds of power, or one and the same power? In other words, is the relation between God’s infinity and finite modes one of external separation, or one of different expressions of the same power? It is precisely here that the fundamental divergence between Spinoza and Scotus comes into view. This account of finite modes as distinct powers also has an epistemological dimension. Spinoza does not understand singular things by subordinating them to universals or mind-independent species-concepts. He criticizes confused entia rationis when modes of thinking are mistaken for things themselves: universal notions such as “man,” “horse,” or “dog” arise from the imagination when the mind abstracts from singular things without adequately grasping their real differences (Hübner 2016, pp. 64–67). Yet this does not mean that Spinoza rejects all general intelligibility. Hübner argues that, while particular things possess unique essences, finite minds can also construct more general, mind-dependent species-essences on the basis of real similarities among formally real particulars; such constructions may be adequate when formed through reason rather than imagination (Hübner 2016, pp. 58–60, 74–79). Youpa’s account of Spinoza’s moral realism confirms the same point from another angle: even where Spinoza uses models such as the model of human nature, this need not reduce his account to subjective fiction, since increases and decreases in power can function as objective properties grounded in the actual essence of a thing (Youpa 2019, pp. 53–54, 59–60). In this respect, Spinoza already anticipates one aspect of the Deleuzian critique of representation: knowledge should not begin from abstract identities imposed upon singular beings. What Deleuze will later radicalize is not a simple anti-realism, but the ontological aspect of this anti-representational tendency: difference and intensity themselves become the genetic principles of individuation.

Power is univocal with respect to finite beings and infinite being. First, all things express God’s nature or essence in a definite and determinate way (E1p25c) (Spinoza 2002, p. 232). This is because: (1) substance is unique, and apart from God there is nothing that exists through itself and is conceived through itself, and (2) by definition, modes are things that exist in another and are conceived through another. Modes, or all things, therefore exist through God and are conceived through God; in this sense, modes express God’s nature or essence in a definite and determinate way. Second, God’s essence is infinite power (E1p34) (Spinoza 2002, p. 238). Therefore, all things express God’s power in a definite and determinate way. Finally, God’s power is the cause of all things (E1p16) (Spinoza 2002, p. 227). For (1) the more reality the essence of a thing involves, the more properties the intellect can infer from its definition; (2) since God, as a necessarily existing being, possesses infinite reality, infinitely many things can be inferred from the definition of God; and (3) since the definition of God expresses God’s essence, and God’s essence is existence, the fact that infinitely many things can be inferred from the definition of God means that infinite power can correspondingly produce infinitely many things (E1p16) (Spinoza 2002, p. 227). Therefore, as expressions of infinite power, things that are powers must necessarily produce some effect. In this sense, powers, no less than infinite power, imply necessary production: power remains univocal with respect to the finite and the infinite, and finite power and infinite power are not different things. What is really advanced here is not merely the theory of univocity itself, but the mode of existence of God’s infinity: in Scotus, univocity is only conceptual, while God’s infinity still belongs to the transcendent first being; in Spinoza, univocity enters the level of reality, and therefore God’s infinity itself is determined as capable of unfolding itself actually in finite modes.

The univocity of power is real. Infinite power is the immanent cause of finite powers. The productive process of infinite power has two aspects. On the one hand, infinite power necessarily produces, and its essence contains infinitely many attributes; accordingly, infinite power unfolds into powers as its results. On the other hand, throughout this entire productive process, powers, as parts of infinite power, are contained within infinite power; they are not external to it. Both aspects of this production follow necessity. The term “express” in Part I, Proposition 36 signifies not only necessary unfolding, but also necessary inclusion. Immanent cause means that the cause unfolds into its effects and contains them within itself, so that the immanence of the cause means not only that the cause produces the effect, but also that the cause does not exist apart from its production of the effect. This definition is in fact corroborated by two contemporary interpretations. With respect to its aspect of “inclusion,” Melamed explicitly points out that Spinoza’s immanent cause differs from transitive cause precisely in that the effect does not fall outside the cause, but remains in it by way of inherence (Melamed and The Leibniz Society of North America 2006, p. 46). With respect to its aspect of “unfolding,” Garrett, by contrast, emphasises that the causal activity of finite modes is not an independent production detached from divine power, but the concrete expression of God’s power through singular things (Garrett 2002, p. 144). Hence, infinite power is not a reality different from finite powers; rather, the two are the unfolding and inclusion of one and the same power in its productive process. And since infinite power is the essence of substance, and substance is the only reality, the univocity of power is a real univocity. Accordingly, God’s infinity in Spinoza no longer appears as a transcendent pole outside finite beings, but as the very immanent reality by virtue of which finite beings are able to exist and act. This also explains why Spinoza’s ontology can already be understood as developing a plane of immanence, rather than merely as replacing a transcendent God with an immanent substance. Giovannoni’s interpretation is helpful in this regard. He describes Spinoza’s Ethics as presenting a “plane of immanent constitution,” that is, the self-constitution of the infinite within the theory of substance (Giovannoni 1999, p. 5). On this reading, substance is not a static highest being standing over modes, but the immanent productivity through which finite modes are constituted. Spinoza therefore already offers a strong plane of immanence: finite things are not produced outside God, but are generated within the self-unfolding of infinite power.

Compared with Scotus, Spinoza advances God’s immanence from the conceptual level to the level of reality. God is not only immanent to the grasp of reason at the conceptual level, but is also, at the level of reality, the productive power that runs through the whole of Nature, unfolding into Nature and containing Nature within itself. Spinoza does not simply transform God from something external into something immanent; rather, he redefines the meaning of God’s infinity: God is no longer the infinite being who transcends finite beings, but the absolutely infinite power immanent in Nature. In this sense, Spinoza advances divine immanence from conceptual immanence to immanence at the level of reality. In the secondary literature, this “immanence at the level of reality” can be expressed, on the one hand, through Della Rocca’s rationalist reading—according to which all reality flows with strict necessity from the nature of God (Della Rocca 2008, pp. 30–31), and, on the other hand, through Melamed’s interpretation of God as existence and immanent cause—according to which God is not a supreme being standing outside Nature, but the immanent unfolding of existence and causation themselves (Melamed 2012, pp. 77–78).

In Spinoza, divine infinity no longer means primarily the transcendence of an infinite being over finite beings, but the absolute actuality of infinite power. This power does not stand above the finite as an external perfection; it produces finite modes, includes them within itself, and expresses itself through them. Finite beings therefore are not merely creatures standing outside God, but determinate expressions of the same infinite power: they follow from God, inhere in God, and are conceived through God. In this sense, Spinoza transforms divine infinity from transcendent perfection into immanent productivity.

Yet Deleuze will raise a further challenge to Spinoza. This challenge should not be understood as the claim that Spinoza lacks immanence, nor as the claim that he simply remains within a representational metaphysics. As we have seen, Spinoza already develops a plane of immanent constitution and criticizes confused universals and entia rationis. The problem, for Deleuze, is rather that Spinoza’s immanence remains articulated through substance: modes follow from God, inhere in God, and are conceived through God. So long as divine infinity is still borne by substance, it has not yet been transformed into a purely differential and intensive plane. How, then, can immanence be rendered thoroughgoing? This is precisely the question Deleuze seeks to answer.

4. Deleuze: Infinity as the Plane of Immanence

If Spinoza had already advanced God’s infinity from infinite being transcending finite beings to infinite power immanent in Nature, then Deleuze carries out a still more radical reversal: he transforms infinity so that it is no longer borne by any substance, but becomes the plane of immanence constituted by relations of difference and intensity. As Daniel W. Smith has remarked, what Difference and Repetition inaugurates is not merely a revision of some metaphysical principle, but a genuine “Deleuzian Revolution”: whereas traditional metaphysics terminates in Soul, World, and God, Deleuze replaces these transcendent terminal points with “an immanent and differential plane of impersonal individuations and pre-individual singularities.” In this way, difference no longer remains subordinate to an already constituted identity, but becomes the productive principle of being itself (D. W. Smith 2020, pp. 34–35). From the standpoint of the present article, the real depth of this “revolution” lies in the fact that what it transforms is not merely the name of the first principle, but the very metaphysical mode in which “infinity” is borne.

This does not mean, however, that Deleuze’s criticism should be understood as the claim that Spinoza lacks immanence. As the preceding section has shown, Spinoza’s finite modes are not external products standing outside God: they follow necessarily from the divine essence as God’s propria, inhere in God, are caused by God through immanent causality, and are conceived through God. Spinoza already develops what Giovannoni calls a “plane of immanent constitution,” in which finite modes are constituted within the self-unfolding productivity of infinite substance. Deleuze’s dissatisfaction with Spinoza is therefore more precise: Spinoza’s immanence remains articulated through substance. Modes are immanent, but they remain modes of substance; finite powers express infinite power, but this power is still borne by substance.

As Thomas Nail points out, in his 1968 study of Spinoza, Deleuze still understood the relation of substance, attribute, and mode in terms of “substantial expression”, but by the time of Difference and Repetition, he turns to a more radical critique of this Spinozist framework (Nail 2008, pp. 202–5). In Spinoza’s theory, “substance appears independent of the modes” (Deleuze 1994, p. 40), whereas modes, as things that exist in substance and are conceived through substance, remain “dependent upon substance” (Deleuze 1994, p. 40). This dependence should not be understood as an external creator–creature dependence, but as the fact that immanence is still borne by substance: modes follow from substance, inhere in substance, and are conceived through substance. Identity therefore still retains a certain priority over difference. If one is to construct a metaphysics in which difference is the first principle, one must carry out a “more general categorical reversal” (Deleuze 1994, p. 40): substance must itself be said of the modes and only of the modes; being of becoming, identity of that which is different, and the one of the multiple. This reversal means that identity becomes only a secondary principle revolving around difference, while difference is no longer “being maintained under the domination of a concept in general already understood as identical” (Deleuze 1994, p. 41). Deleuze calls this reversal a “Copernican revolution” (Deleuze 1994, p. 40). The core of this revolution is to make difference replace identity as the first principle. Thus, the real divergence between Deleuze and Spinoza does not lie merely in whether the concept of “substance” is retained, but rather in this: in Spinoza, the plane of immanence remains the plane of infinite substance’s self-unfolding; in Deleuze, the plane itself is constituted by differential and intensive relations, so that substance, identity, and unity become secondary effects of difference rather than its ground.

The result of this reversal is eternal return. What returns is not the return of the same—for example, Ideas, substance, and so on—but the return of difference. Return is the being of becoming, or becoming-identical. In other words, return as identity is a secondary principle subordinate to difference; it is “identity as a secondary power, the identity of difference” (Deleuze 1994, p. 41). Becoming is the only being, and difference is the only identity. This identity subordinated to difference is what Deleuze calls “repetition.” Here, “infinity” no longer means the unbounded perfection of some highest being, but rather that becoming itself has no external ground, no ultimate end point, and no transcendent principle higher than difference. In other words, infinity is transformed into the self-sufficiency of becoming.

Difference is intensity. Deleuze develops difference as intensity through a repetition of Spinoza. In his view, according to the Ethics, Spinoza restored the scholastic tradition in which intrinsic modes are understood as degrees: each attribute has two forms of quantity—intensive quantity and extensive quantity. The former can be divided into different degrees of power, whereas the latter can be divided into different extensive parts. As noted above, the difference between intensive quantity and extensive quantity lies in the fact that intensive quantity is not composed of homogeneous units and is accompanied by a change in the essence of the thing. The essence of a mode is a part of an attribute, and here “part” must be understood in the sense of intensive quantity: “Modal essences are thus defined as degrees of power or intensity” (Deleuze 1990, p. 191). The difference between modes lies precisely in their intensity. What must be emphasised most here is not “intensity” as some empirical magnitude, but the transcendental function it assumes in Deleuze. As Marc Rölli summarises, Difference and Repetition explicitly determines “intensity–difference of intensity” as the sufficient reason of all phenomena; intensity is not an empirical difference between ready-made objects, but the condition of genesis according to which “the given is given as diverse.” Precisely for this reason, the field of intensity and the field of individuation are coextensive: every process of individuation takes intensity-relations as its immanent condition (Rölli 2009, pp. 48–50). This means that, in Deleuze, ground itself has already been reinterpreted as the field of intensive difference; correspondingly, infinity no longer belongs to some infinite being, but to the very fact that this field of difference has no outside.

A multiplicity of intensities constitutes the plane of immanence. Deleuze’s later reading of Spinoza does not simply cancel the criticism formulated in Difference and Repetition; rather, it brings out another dimension of Spinoza’s immanence. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze argues that Spinoza affirmed the univocity of being without fully completing it, because substance still retains a certain priority over modes. In Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, however, Deleuze approaches Spinoza from the standpoint of practical principles: bodies are defined by relations of motion and rest, speed and slowness, and by their capacities to affect and be affected. From this practical standpoint, what comes into view is “no longer the affirmation of a single substance,” but the deployment of a plane of immanence on “which all bodies, all minds, and all individuals are situated” (Deleuze 2007, p. 122). This later emphasis is compatible with, rather than a simple rejection of, the earlier criticism. It shows that Spinoza’s philosophy already contains a plane of immanence at the level of bodies, powers, and affects; yet from the standpoint of Difference and Repetition, this plane still remains tied to substance insofar as modes remain modes of substance. Thus, Deleuze’s task is not to deny Spinoza’s immanence, but to radicalize it: the plane must no longer be thought as the practical deployment of one substance, but as a differential and intensive field constituted by relations themselves.

What, then, is this “plane of immanence”? How does it take the place of substance? According to Miguel de Beistegui’s interpretation, the so-called plane of immanence is not a substantial ground already there, waiting to be discovered. Although it is always present as the presupposition and aim of philosophy, it is never something fully given, but must continually be instituted, drawn, or established. In this sense, concepts are not representations of some pregiven ground, but the instruments for constructing this plane (De Beistegui 2005, p. 83). Accordingly, the plane of immanence is not another name for divine substance, but a constructive field in which every transcendent ground has been cancelled. It has no ground higher than itself, nor does it point toward any end outside itself. It is precisely in this sense that Deleuzian “infinity” has become an infinity of pure planarity.

The plane of immanence is the plane of Nature; it is constituted by two dimensions: a differential dimension and an intensive dimension. These two dimensions correspond respectively to the existence and the essence of bodies. Spinoza defines bodies in two ways: through the kinetic proposition and the dynamic proposition (Deleuze 2007, p. 123). The kinetic proposition states that every body is composed of infinitely many particles, and that the relations of motion and rest, speed and slowness, among these particles determine the individuality of the body. This proposition means that a body is not defined by form or function, but by relations of speed and slowness among particles. Such relations are not relations between already given substances, for otherwise relations would presuppose substances, and the body, as substance, could not itself be defined by relations. On the contrary, these relations are differential relations tied to speed; they are neither substances nor relations between substances, but the constitutive conditions of substances. Differential relations belong to the domain of virtuality, and virtuality becomes actuality through a process of actualisation grounded in difference; in other words, virtuality constitutes the condition of genesis of all beings. The dynamic proposition states that a body is defined by its capacity to affect and be affected, that is, by affect. Deleuze takes Little Hans as an example: for the cart-horse, Little Hans draws up a table of affects including “to be proud, to have blinders, to go fast, to pull a heavy load, to collapse, to be whipped, to kick up a racket” (Deleuze 2007, p. 124), among others. These two propositions mean that everything in Nature is defined on the basis of its kinetic arrangement and affective arrangement. Deleuze respectively calls these the longitude and latitude of things, and “the longitudes and latitudes together constitute Nature, the plane of immanence or consistency” (Deleuze 2007, p. 128). The plane of immanence is thus a constantly changing plane constituted by affective arrangements and kinetic arrangements; it is always “constantly being altered, composed and recomposed, by individuals and collectivities” (Deleuze 2007, p. 128). On this plane, forms and subjects no longer exist; there are only relations constituted by the speeds of particles, and anonymous, individuated powers. These two dimensions can be further clarified with the aid of Rölli’s formulation. On his account, what Deleuze calls transcendental conditions are not forms that abstractly precede experience, but the genetic conditions of a developing experience, and within this genetic process, spatio-temporal dynamisms are precisely the way in which structures are actualised. Accordingly, neither differential relations nor intensive relations should be regarded as empirical relations between ready-made objects, but rather as the conditions under which the given is first given as diverse (Rölli 2009, pp. 48–49). From the standpoint of the present article, this means that Deleuze not only abolishes substance, but also abolishes any understanding of infinity as some static perfect being. Infinity now appears as the endless generation of relations, the distribution of intensities, and the very process of individuation on the plane itself.

At this point, we can discern Deleuze’s final conclusion: the plane of immanence is not simply Spinozist substance under another name. Spinoza already develops a powerful plane of immanent constitution, in which finite modes follow from divine essence, inhere in God, and are conceived through God. Yet this plane remains articulated through substance: modes are immanent, but they are still modes of substance; finite powers express infinite power, but this power is still borne by substance. Deleuze’s plane of immanence, by contrast, is no longer the self-unfolding of infinite substance. It is a plane constituted by kinetic arrangements, affective arrangements, intensities, and differential relations themselves.

What Deleuze accomplishes here is therefore not simply the replacement of “God” with “Nature,” nor the simple abolition of Spinoza’s immanence. It is the de-substantialization of immanence and the transformation of divine infinity into a non-theological form of infinity. In Scotus, divine infinity still belongs to the transcendent first being; in Spinoza, it becomes the infinite productive power of substance; in Deleuze, it is no longer borne by any being or substance whatsoever. Infinity is transformed into the self-sufficiency and non-exteriority of the plane itself. It no longer means a perfection standing above finite beings, nor an infinite power of substance; it names the fact that the plane requires no transcendent or substantial ground beyond itself in order to generate finite beings. In this sense, Deleuzian “Nature” is not God under another name, nor substance renamed as a plane. It is the field of immanent genesis in which relations of difference and intensity constitute the conditions under which beings are individuated. What disappears here is precisely the theological character of infinity: infinity no longer signifies the perfection, transcendence, or substantial plenitude of God, but the non-theological structure of immanent production itself.

The consequence of this final transformation is that finite beings must be understood in a new way. If infinity no longer belongs to a transcendent first being or to an infinite substance, but to the self-sufficiency and non-exteriority of the plane of immanent genesis, then finite beings are no longer to be interpreted as deficient effects measured by their distance from divine perfection. Nor are they merely modes whose meaning is tied to an underlying substance. Rather, they are individuations produced within an absolutely immanent process: they arise from differential relations, intensive distributions, kinetic arrangements, and affective capacities on the plane itself. Their finitude is therefore not primarily privation, but determination; not separation from infinity, but a concrete actualization of an immanent field that has no outside.

This new status of finite beings also has ethical and political implications, although the present article can only indicate them briefly. If finite beings are individuations of an immanent field, then their value cannot be determined by appeal to a transcendent Good, divine purpose, or external measure. They must instead be evaluated according to the relations they compose, the powers they increase or diminish, and the forms of life they make possible. This is the ethical implication of the metaphysical transformation traced in this article: once infinity is no longer a transcendent ground standing above finite beings, evaluation itself must become immanent. Smith’s distinction between morality and ethics confirms this point: morality judges actions by relating them to transcendent or universal values, whereas ethics evaluates what we do, say, and think according to the immanent mode of existence that they imply (D. W. Smith 2011, pp. 66–67). The same implication can be extended, more cautiously, to political arrangements: collective forms should be understood not as embodiments of a transcendent order or higher unity, but as compositions of relations that expand or restrict the capacities of finite modes.

5. Conclusions

This article has centered on the question of how divine infinity is related to finite beings. Through an examination of Scotus, Spinoza, and Deleuze, it has sought to show that the meaning of divine infinity is not a fixed theological attribute, but a metaphysical concept continually redefined in accordance with transformations in the concept of ground. In other words, the sense in which God is infinite changes with the sense in which God functions as ground.

In Scotus, divine infinity still primarily signifies transcendence over finite creatures. As infinite being, God still maintains an irreducible ontological difference from finite beings; yet at the same time, through the univocity of being, Scotus brings the infinite and the finite into the horizon of one and the same conception of being at the conceptual level. In this way, divine infinity is no longer merely a purely transcendent designation wholly cut off from finite beings, but acquires a thinkable relation to the finite without thereby cancelling divine transcendence. Scotus’s contribution lies precisely here: for the first time, while preserving God’s infinity, he establishes a common plane at the conceptual level between the infinite and the finite.

In Spinoza, this structure undergoes a decisive turn. God no longer appears primarily as the infinite being who transcends finite beings, but is determined instead as absolutely infinite substance and infinite power. Since God’s essence is infinite power, divine infinity no longer manifests itself as external transcendence over the finite, but as the production, unfolding, and inclusion of Nature. Finite modes are not external products standing outside God: they follow from the divine essence, inhere in God, and are conceived through God. In this sense, Spinoza transforms divine infinity from transcendent perfection into immanent productivity. He thereby develops a plane of immanent constitution.

Yet for Deleuze, this immanence remains articulated through substance, and infinity still retains a substantial bearer. Deleuze radicalizes this structure by detaching immanence from substance and by shifting ground to relations of difference and intensity themselves. In his thought, difference becomes the genetic principle of being, intensity becomes the sufficient reason of phenomena, and the plane of immanence is constituted by differential and intensive relations rather than by an infinite substance. Deleuze does not simply abolish the theological problem; rather, he pushes divine infinity to an extreme form that is de-substantialised and de-theologized.

The consequence is that finite beings must also be understood differently: they are no longer deficient effects measured by their distance from divine perfection, nor merely modes whose meaning is secured by an underlying substance, but individuations produced within an absolutely immanent field of differential relations, intensive distributions, kinetic arrangements, and affective capacities. This also implies that finite beings should be evaluated immanently.

The trajectory reconstructed here moves from transcendent infinite being, to immanent infinite power, and finally to the non-substantial self-sufficiency of the plane of immanent genesis. In this sense, modern ontology, at least in the trajectory examined in this article, does not simply abandon the philosophical–theological problems from which it emerges. Rather, it transforms them from within: the relations between God and the world, the infinite and the finite, ground and that which is grounded are rewritten as the bearer of infinity shifts from God as first being, to substance as infinite power, and finally to the plane of immanence itself.