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Selections from
The Theodicy
G. W. LEIBNITZ
From
Gottfried W. Leibnitz, The Philosophical Works of Leibnitz, trans.
George M. Duncan, pp. 194-197, 202-204. Published, 1890, by Tuttle,
Morehouse & Taylor. In the public domain.
Abridgment of the Argument Reduced to Syllogistic Form
Some intelligent persons have desired that this supplement should be
made [to the Theodicy], and I have the more readily yielded to their
wishes as in this way I have an opportunity to again remove certain
difficulties and to make some observations which were not
sufficiently emphasized in the work itself.
I. Objection. Whoever does not choose the best
is lacking in power, or in knowledge, or in goodness.
God did not choose the best in creating this world.
Therefore God has been lacking in power, or in knowledge, or in
goodness.
Answer. I deny the minor, that is, the second
premise of this syllogism: and our opponent proves it by this.
Prosyllogism
. Whoever makes things in which there is
evil, which could have been made without any evil, or the making of
which could have been omitted, does not choose the best.
God has made a world in which there is evil; a world, I say,
which could have been made without any evil, or the making of which
could have been omitted altogether.
Therefore God has not chosen the best.
Answer. I grant the minor of this prosyllogism;
for it must be confessed that there is evil in the world which God
has made, and that it was possible to make a world without evil, or
even not to create a world at all, for its creation depended on the
free will of God; but I deny the major, that is, the first of the
two premises of the prosyllogism, and I might content myself with
simply demanding its proof; but in order to make the matter clearer,
I have wished to justify this denial by showing that the best plan
is not always that which seeks to avoid evil, since it may happen that
the evil be accompanied by a greater good. For example, a
general of the army will prefer a great victory with a slight wound
to a condition without wound and without victory. We have proved
this more fully in the large work by making it clear, by instances
taken from mathematics and elsewhere, that an imperfection in the
part may be required for a greater perfection in the whole. In this
I have followed the opinion of St. Augustine, who has said a hundred
times, that God permitted evil in order to bring about good, that
is, a greater good; and that of Thomas Aquinas' (in libr. II sent.
dist. 32, qu. I, art. 1), that the permitting of evil tends to the
good of the universe. I have shown that the ancients called Adam's
fall felix culpa, a happy sin, because it had been
retrieved with immense advantage by the incarnation of the Son of
God, who has given to the universe something nobler than anything
that ever would have been among creatures except for this. And in
order to a clear understanding, I have added, following many good
authors, that it was in accordance with order and the general good
that God gave to certain creatures the opportunity of exercising
their liberty, even when he foresaw that they would turn to evil,
but which he could so well rectify; because it was not right that,
in order to hinder sin, God should always act in an extraordinary
manner.
To overthrow this objection, therefore, it is sufficient to show
that a world with evil might be better than a
world without evil; but I have gone even farther in the work, and
have even proved that this universe must be in reality better than
every other possible universe.
II. Objection. If there is more evil than good
in intelligent creatures, then there is more evil than good in the
whole work of God.
Now, there is more evil than good in intelligent creatures.
Therefore there is more evil than good in the whole work of God.
Answer. I deny the major and the minor of this
conditional syllogism. As to the major, I do not admit it at all,
because this pretended deduction from a part to the whole, from
intelligent creatures to all creatures, supposes tacitly and without
proof that creatures destitute of reason cannot enter into
comparison nor into account with those which possess it. But why may
it not be that the surplus of good in the non-intelligent creatures
which fill the world, compensates for, and even incomparably
surpasses, the surplus of evil in the rational creatures? It is true
that the value of the latter is greater; but, in compensation, the
other are beyond comparison the more numerous, and it may be that
the proportion of number and of quantity surpasses that of value and
of quality.
As to the minor, that is no more to be admitted; that is, it is
not at all to be admitted that there is more evil than good in the
intelligent creatures. There is no need even of granting that there
is more evil than good in the human race, because it is possible,
and in fact very probable, that the glory and the perfection of
the blessed are incomparably greater than the misery and the
imperfection of the damned, and that here the excellence of the
total good in the smaller number exceeds the total evil in the
greater number. The blessed approach the Divinity, by means of
the Divine Mediator, as near as may suit these creatures, and make
such progress in good as is impossible for the damned to make in
evil, approach as nearly as they may to the nature of demons. God is
infinite, and the devil is limited; good may and does advance ad
infinitum, while evil has its bounds. It is therefore possible,
and is credible, that in the comparison of the blessed and the
damned, the contrary of that which I have said might happen in the
comparison of intelligent and non-intelligent creatures, takes
place; namely, it is possible that in the comparison of the happy
and the unhappy, the proportion of degree exceeds that of number,
and that in the comparison of intelligent and non-intelligent
creatures, the proportion of number is greater than that of value. I
have the right to suppose that a thing is possible so long as its
impossibility is not proved; and indeed that which I have here
advanced is more than a supposition.
But in the second place, if I should admit that there is more
evil than good in the human race, I have still good grounds for not
admitting that there is more evil than good in all intelligent
creatures. For there is an inconceivable number of genii, and
perhaps of other rational creatures. And an opponent could not prove
that in all the City of God, composed as well of genii as of
rational animals without number and of an infinity of kinds, evil
exceeds good. And although in order to answer an objection, there is
no need of proving that a thing is, when its mere possibility
suffices; yet, in this work, I have not omitted to show that it is a
consequence of the supreme perfection of the Sovereign of the
universe, that the kingdom of God be the most perfect of all
possible states or governments, and that consequently the little
evil there is, is required for the consummation of the immense good
which is there found. . . .
VIII. Objection. He who cannot fail to choose
the best, is not free. God cannot fail to choose the best.
Hence, God is not free.
Answer. I deny the major of this argument; it is
rather true liberty and the most perfect, to be able to use one's
free will for the best, and to always exercise this power without
ever being turned from it either by external force or by internal
passions, the first of which causes slavery of the body, the second,
slavery of the soul. There is nothing less servile than to be always
led toward the good, and always by one's own inclination, without
any constraint and without any displeasure. And to object therefore
that God had need of external things, is only a sophism. He created
them freely; but having proposed to himself an end, which is to
exercise his goodness, wisdom determined him to choose those means
best fitted to attain this end. To call this a need is to
take that term in an unusual sense which frees it from all
imperfection, just as when we speak of the wrath of God.
Seneca has somewhere said that God commanded but once but that he
obeys always, because he obeys the laws which he willed to prescribe
to himself; semel jussit semper paret. But he had better
have said that God always commands and that he is always obeyed; for
in willing, he always follows the inclination of his own nature, and
all other things always follow his will. And as this will is always
the same, it cannot be said that he obeys only that will which he
formerly had. Nevertheless, although his will is always infallible
and always tends toward the best, the evil, or the lesser good,
which he rejects, does not cease to be possible in itself; otherwise
the necessity of the good would be geometrical (so to speak), or
metaphysical and altogether absolute; the contingency of things
would be destroyed, and there would be no choice. But this sort of
necessity, which does not destroy the possibility of the contrary,
has this name only by analogy; it becomes effective, not by the pure
essence of things, but by that which is outside of them, above
them,--namely, by the will of God. This necessity is called moral,
because, to the sage, necessity and what ought to be are
equivalent things; and when it always has its effect, as it really
has in the perfect sage, that is, in God, it may be said that it is
a happy necessity. The nearer creatures approach to it, the nearer
they approach to perfect happiness. Also this kind of necessity is
not that which we try to avoid and' which destroys morality, rewards
and praise. For that which it brings, does not happen whatever we
may do or will, but because we will it well. And a will to which it
is natural to choose well, merits praise so much the more; also it
carries its reward with it, which is sovereign happiness. And as
this constitution of the divine nature gives entire satisfaction to
him who possesses it, it is also the best and the most desirable for
the creatures who are all dependent on God. If the will of God did
not have for a rule the principle of the best, it would either tend
toward evil, which would be the worst; or it would be in some way
indifferent to good and to evil, and would be guided by chance: but
a will which would allow itself always to act by chance, would not
be worth more for the government of the universe than the fortuitous
concourse of atoms, without there being any divinity therein. And
even if God should abandon himself to chance only in some cases and
in a certain way (as he would do, if he did not always work towards
the best and if he were capable of preferring a lesser good to a
greater, that is, an evil to a good, since that which prevents a
greater good is an evil), he would be imperfect, as well as the
object of his choice; he would not merit entire confidence; he would
act without reason in such a case, and the government of the
universe would be like certain games, equally divided between reason
and chance. All this proves that this objection which is made
against the choice of the best, perverts the notions of the free and
of the necessary, and represents to us even the best as evil; to do
which is either malicious or ridiculous.
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So, with Leibniz, the moral evil that humans do in some way is
part of the good or is necessary for the good and so is not quite
evil in an absolute sense but only evil in a relative sense as
humans cannot understand how it would be good as it is necessitated
by the "good" and contributes to the "good". Somehow from the
perspective of the all good and perfect deity the moral evil is part
of the beautiful and good creation that is the "best of all possible
worlds".
Well, there are many who prefer to think of evil as an independent
being or separate existence or force. The stories in the myths
of many of the world religions present it as such and it is
difficult for those from the cultures having those religions to
think of evil as something other than an agent or thing in itself.
Nevertheless the approach taken by Leibniz and others to the Problem
of Evil handles it by dissolving the evil and reconfigures the
problem as a human creation -not the actions that would be commonly
called "evil" but the idea of "evil " itself. In this
view, the ideas of both "good " and "evil" are human creations and
they appear generate a conflict in the idea of the all perfect and
all good deity with the existence of moral evil. When the
nature of the deity and its creation are properly understood that
conflict dissolves.
After Leibniz some other philosophers and religious commentators
have gone further. For some of them it is an indisputable fact
that humans create the idea of the deity after their own
characteristics and then further project into the idea of the deity
all of the qualities considered as being positive or good and make
them into perfections. One of many results is the problem of
the inconsistency of the properties of the deity (all good and all
powerful and all knowing) with the existence of moral evil. Now in
order to resolve or dissolve the conflict one would need to realize
that the creation of the concepts of "good" and "evil" by humans
does not necessitate the actual existence of paired entity or forces
as the stories would have it. Instead when considering the
resultant inconsistencies in the projections and stories the
resolution of some of them would be to simply hold that there could
be such an all perfect deity at the same time as there is moral evil
because the moral evil is not really the opposition to the good as a
force or entity but is instead a direction away from the "good",
however the "good" would be configured or conceived.
In the story book way of explanation it would be that humans
cannot understand how the moral evil as part of the grand totality
is really part of the "good" and contributes to it. Such
inclusions into the "good" and contributions to the "good" are held
to be beyond human comprehension and understood only by the deity
that has the infinite and complete perspective, viewpoints and
capacity to understand. So some hold that moral evil is not
evil when understood from the perspective of the deity which is a
perspective that is not possible for humans. This position
places the issue into the realm of mystery and beyond the realm of
reason . This is not acceptable to philosophical inquiry.
People, including philosophers, want to understand.
Where to turn next ?
There are those who do not accept that evil is not a thing
itself. They cannot accept that evil is not to be thought of a evil
but as another form of the good. If the deity cannot be all perfect
and moral evil exist at the same time and if the idea of evil is not to be
removed by transforming it into a form of the good then what else is to be
done to solve this Problem of Evil? There are an increasing number
of people who are looking once again at the very idea of the deity and
think that perhaps the idea is the source of the problem. They would
make adjustments in that idea. In the next section Process Theology
and Process Philosophy will be examined.