Goethe's Faust Lesson Plan

Throughout the play, Faust repeatedly shows his impiety and irreverence for the God of Christianity. What does he seem to be saying about his spiritual beliefs in this section?

Faust's professio fidei is really anything but. He alludes here to a vague and pantheistic belief which bears more of a resemblance to the doctrines of Baruch Spinoza, a Jewish philosopher who was excommunicated for his heterodox beliefs, and whose books were banned for a time in the United Provinces of the Netherlands where he lived.

Spinoza did not believe in either the Christian or the Jewish God, traditionally conceived. In Spinoza's rationalistic and naturalistic philosophy of religion, God...