Will, Knowledge, Theology

Descartes distinguishes Will and Knowledge on the grounds that the former can be indiscriminately motivated by both Knowledge and False Belief.  Spinoza's response is that in the latter case, Will is deficient in some respect, so is not identical to Will that is fully Rational.  But there is a wider context to this conflict.  Descartes is pre-committed to some fundamental principles, including the thesis that humans are the source of Evil in a world created by his deity.  Accordingly, he must conclude that Will is motivated by falsehoods, and, hence, is not coextensive with Knowledge.  In contrast, according to Spinoza's Pantheism, divine Will and Knowledge are one and the same, both in general, and, specifically in a Mode of God/ Nature, from which it follows that Will in full never diverges from Truth.  Accordingly, Error is 'Evil' only insofar as it is harmful to a Mode.  So, in this example of a signal Philosophic debate, the differences are extrinsic, in which case, an evaluation of the two positions based on a comparison of them taken at face value is inadequate.