Is the love of God as simple as the love of an animal? Or is it like the love of a child? Or is it like the love of an adult? "One who understands oneself and one's emotions clearly and distinctly loves God," Spinoza says, "and the more so the more one understands oneself and one's emotions." So if I understand my own love of an animal, my own love of a child, my own love of an adult clearly and distinctly, I love God, and the more I understand the loves of my life the more I love God.
— Spinoza , The Music of Time by John S. Dunne