Perceiving God Through Empathy

"Both insofar as the mind has clear and distinct, and insofar as it has confused ideas, it strives, for an indefinite duration, to persevere in its being and it is conscious of this striving it has."

                                                                             -Ethics, Spinoza, pp. 76

While not entirely linear, this idea pushes the importance of knowledge to bring about empathy. Spinoza explains that to the extent we understand the world the better we are, or become. Or, the more you understand the more you'll act from your own essence -- act, rather that be acted upon.