 Spinoza’s conception of adequate knowledge reveals an unrivaled optimism in the cognitive powers of the human being. Not even Descartes believed that we could know all of Nature and its innermost secrets with the degree of depth and certainty that Spinoza thought possible. Most remarkably, because Spinoza thought that the adequate knowledge of any object, and of Nature as a whole, involves a knowledge of God’s essence and of how things relate to God and its attributes, he also had no scruples about claiming that we can, at least in principle, know God perfectly and adequately. “The knowledge of God’s eternal and infinite essence that each idea involves is adequate and perfect” (IIp46). “The human Mind has an adequate knowledge of God’s eternal and infinite essence” (IIp47). No other philosopher in history has been willing to make this claim. But, then again, no other philosopher so forthrightly identified God with Nature.