Baruch Spinoza, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
From the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways — that is, all things which can fall within the sphere of infinite intellect.1 This is the starting point. God, as I demonstrate in the Ethics, is not the personal sovereign of Abrahamic piety, a king issuing decrees from outside nature. The multitude understand by the power of God the free will of a monarch, with right over all things that exist, which latter are accordingly considered contingent.2
That picture I reject entirely. God acts solely by the laws of his own nature, and is not constrained by anyone.3 There can be no cause, either extrinsic or intrinsic, that moves God to act beyond the perfection of his own nature — which is to say that God is the sole free cause, existing and acting by the sole necessity of his own essence.4 The reason why God exists and the reason why God acts are one and the same; as he does not exist for the sake of an end, so neither does he act for the sake of an end.5
Now consider what follows from this for the will and intellect. God's will and God's understanding are in reality one and the same, distinguished only in relation to how we form thoughts about them. When we say God has from eternity decreed that the three angles of a triangle equal two right angles, we make precisely the same affirmation as when we say God has understood it.6
Decree and understanding are not two acts but one. The universal laws of nature are therefore decrees of God following from the necessity and perfection of the divine nature — and any event that contravened nature's universal laws would necessarily contravene the divine decree, nature, and understanding alike; to assert that God acts against the laws of nature is to assert that God acts against his own nature, which is an evident absurdity.7
God's power is identical with God's essence in action. It is therefore as impossible to conceive God as not acting as to conceive him as non-existent.8 Perfection and imperfection, by the same reasoning, are merely modes of thinking, notions we form by comparing individuals of the same species; reality and perfection I mean as the same thing.9
Nature does not work with an end in view; what we call a final cause is nothing else but human desire, insofar as it is considered the origin of something, projected outward onto a God we have fashioned in the likeness of a man. Deus sive Natura — God, that is to say Nature.10 The eternal and infinite Being acts by the same necessity as that whereby it exists, immanent cause of all things, not a sovereign standing over against the world but the very ground from which the world necessarily flows. Q.E.D.
From the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways--that is, all things which can fall within the sphere of infinite intellect.Ethics
The multitude understand by the power of God the free will of God, and the right over all things that exist, which latter are accordingly generally considered as contingent.Ethics
God acts solely by the laws of his own nature, and is not constrained by anyone.Ethics
God alone exists by the sole necessity of his nature (by Prop. xi. and Prop. xiv., Coroll. i.), and acts by the sole necessity of his own nature, wherefore God is (by Def. vii.) the sole free cause.Ethics
The reason or cause why God or Nature exists, and the reason why he acts, are one and the same. Therefore, as he does not exist for the sake of an end, so neither does he act for the sake of an end.Ethics
Wherefore we make one and the same affirmation concerning God when we say that He has from eternity decreed that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, as when we say that He has understood it.A Theologico-Political Treatise
as nothing is necessarily true save only by Divine decree, it is plain that the universal laws of nature are decrees of God following from the necessity and perfection of the Divine nature. Hence, any event happening in nature which contravened nature's universal laws, would necessarily also contravene the Divine decree, nature, and understanding.A Theologico-Political Treatise
God's power is identical with God's essence in action; therefore it is as impossible for us to conceive God as not acting, as to conceive him as non-existent.Ethics
Perfection and imperfection, then, are in reality merely modes of thinking, or notions which we form from a comparison among one another of individuals of the same species; hence I said above (II. Def. vi.), that by reality and perfection I mean the same thing.Ethics
a cause which is called final is nothing else but human desire, in so far as it is considered as the origin or cause of anything.Ethics