Matter, Life, Deity

Though Spinoza does not directly address the topic, his attribution of Extension to Deity seems to entail that Matter is essentially not inert, a thesis at odds with that of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, among many, as well as with the imagery of Genesis 2.  The significance of the disagreement with the latter is that is preempts the ensuing drama that has dominated Western culture for millennia.  For, without the antithesis of Life and Matter, the distinctive characteristic of the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil', i. e. that it is potentially death-causing, dissolves, as does, therefore, the subsequent Fall-Redemption arc.  Instead, as Spinoza shows, Knowledge of Good and of Evil is conducive to Life, and, hence, is not at all a divergence from the ideas of a Deity the essence of which is its vitality.