Another monist, Baruch Spinoza defined "God" as a singular self-subsistent substance, and that matter and thought were the attributes of this thing that human beings could experience. Spinoza claimed that the third kind of knowledge, intuition, is the highest kind attainable (after the first and second kinds of knowledge, random experience and reason).
In Spinozism, the concept of a personal relationship with God comes from the position that we are all part of an infinite interdependent cosmic "organism". Spinoza used the analogy of waves in an endless ocean, and that what happens to one wave will affect other waves. Additionally, a core doctrine of Spinozism is that the universe is essentially deterministic. All that happens or will happen could not have unfolded in any other way.
For Spinoza, the universe was a manifestation of two attributes: Thought and Extension (i.e., the material aspect of reality). God has these two attributes, and infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world. The most common interpretation of Spinoza is that he did not mean to say that God and Nature are interchangeable terms, but rather that God's transcendence was attested by his infinitely many attributes, and that two attributes known by humans, namely Thought and Extension, signified God's immanence or constant and divine presence in the world. In this sense, it could be argued that Spinoza was a Panentheist (God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond it as well).
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