Renown rationalist G. W. Leibniz (in)famously answered the problem of evil by insisting that our world is the best of all possible worlds. I’ve just finished my book on Leibniz’s “optimism” for Cambridge University Press. As shocking as his claim is, my book argues that Leibniz’s reasoning is virtually impossible for classical theists to avoid.
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Chapter 5
Leibniz’s Theodicy Redux
One has no need of infinite knowledge in order to see that the foreknowledge and providence of God allow freedom to our actions, since God has foreseen those actions in his ideas, just as they are, that is, free.
— Leibniz (G 6:331)
We began this journey through Leibniz with a look at how his theodicy unfolds. Every contingency — every being, truth, and event — must stand upon something necessary, and that something is God. The sufficient reason for our world and its happenings is that God exists and wills the best. But what of evil? For God, being Good, cannot will evil, and yet, evil exists.
Here, we discovered the web of incompossibility and concomitance woven throughout our world. Many things we would wish away are entangled with things we would rather keep, and many goods we would simultaneously embrace are incompatible with one another. And so it is for God. Though he (antecedently) wills every good and repels every evil, even God must choose. He must determine (consequently) what to will and what to forego, what to prevent and what to permit. A sea of such choices accompanies every possible world as well as the divine assessment of which world is best.
However, a shadow loomed over this theodicy. For it appeared to rob God and creatures of freedom. If God necessarily does the best, then in what sense is he free? And if every event cascades from this decree, in what sense are creatures free? Such worries remove the teeth of the free will defense. For its point is that evil is our doing, not God’s. But if every event — every choice — springs from a necessity in God, then the rebuttal is false. God is the author of evil. And all Leibniz’s talk of concomitance and incompossibility, antecedent and consequent will is empty. For such distinctions are meant to show that God permits things he does not will. But every deed is his choosing.
All such objections hang from a common thread: Leibniz denies libertarian freedom in God and creatures. Yet, we saw that this thread frays when considering Leibniz’s Christian antecedents and scholastic counterparts. Both God and creatures act by free spontaneity, a libertarian power of contradiction, contrariety, and specification. And so, the worries that follow from Leibniz’s supposed determinism are unfounded.
But this opens a new question. What does Leibniz’s theodicy look like when read in a libertarian way? In what follows, we’ll take a fresh look at key features of Leibniz’s theodicy, sketching its contours in the light of the above picture of Leibnizian freedom. We will not rehash the basics of how the divine attributes unfold into the series of the best, or the nature of incompossibility and concomitance, or the distinction between God’s antecedent and consequent will. For these, readers can look back on chapter 1. Here, we will look specifically at those aspects of Leibniz’s theodicy to which freedom is most relevant.
Realism and the Boundaries of Omnipotence
Let’s begin by returning to Hume’s summary of Epicurus: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”1 The premise on which nearly all classical Christian theodicies focus concerns omnipotence. The argument suggests too easily that God can prevent evil. The very point of the free will defense is to say God cannot create free creatures and guarantee they always do good. For, as Augustine argued, a will is by nature self-determining. God can no more create a will void of self-determination than he can create a square void of four sides.
The claim may be surprising for those unfamiliar with classical realism and its relationship to omnipotence. To see the point, let’s consider Anselm's ontological argument. For the argument offers a window into classical Christian modal logic — reasoning about whether things are impossible, possible, necessary, or contingent.
Anselm begins by defining God as “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.”2 He then says the concept of God must exist either in the mind only or in the mind and in reality.3 This premise likely sounds odd to the modern ear. But within medieval thought, the modal categories of impossible, possible but not necessary, and possible and necessary presume a form of realism (echoing either Plato or Aristotle) which determines modalities based on the relationship between logical possibility (the thing in the mind) and existence (the thing in reality).
To illustrate, the modal assessment of a “thing” begins with an assessment of the terms posited. Specifically, do the pairings of subject and predicate produce a contradiction? Human, for example, places before the mind a rational animal.4 No formal contradiction appears in this term. Nor does any arise when adding bipedal, two-armed, ten-fingered, and so on. We thus have a logical possibility. The next question is whether this possible thing exists in the mind only or in the mind and reality. A look in the mirror demonstrates one instance of human joined with existence. So this possible being exists in both mind and reality.
As for whether human is contingent or necessary, the answer concerns yet another pairing: Does the negation of “exists” yield a contradiction? I mentioned in chapter 1 that this question is the basis for the ontological argument: As a necessary being, existence is part of the idea of God, so to negate existence of God yields a contradiction. But nothing in the definition of human seems to entail existence, and if we grant that there was a time when humans did not exist, then there was a time when exists was correctly negated of human. At that time, human existed in the mind only. From all of this it follows that human is a possible but not necessary (i.e., contingent) being.5
Now, contrast the above example with the combination not-four-sided square. Such a term places before the mind a contradiction, since four-sided is an essential property of square. The term not-four-sided square thus fails to rise to the level of a logical possibility. As such, the “thing” posited is impossible, existing neither in the mind nor in reality. In other words, before we can assess whether something exists contingently or necessarily, we must first posit a thing. Incoherent word combinations fail this basic test. Such contradictions exist in neither the mind nor in reality because “they” are meaningless utterances. And as such, “they” are modally impossible. This is why Aquinas says, “Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God.”6 Not even God can supply existence to such semantics, for “they” are no thing at all.
With the majority of classical Christian thought, Leibniz is a realist.7 Like other realists, he believes in necessary truths “which are in the understanding of God, independently of his will” (G 6:114), and such necessary truths set the boundaries of omnipotence. The point is pervasive throughout his theodicy. The impossibility of contradiction, even for God, underwrites his insistence that God knows and upholds our choosing as it is — as free. It underwrites the concept of incompossibility and concomitance, which presume logical exclusions and entailments that not even God can violate. And such logical limits are essential to the antecedent-consequent will distinction, which presumes such inviolable logical limits. So, when considering evil, what is possible for God?
Let’s begin with metaphysical evil. Leibniz distinguishes metaphysical from moral evil. The former is ontological finitude and imperfection, whereas moral evil is sin (G 6:115).8 On the one hand, no evil is necessary, since nothing exists necessarily but God. Granting, however, that God choose to make creatures, metaphysical evil is unavoidable. Creatures are inherently limited, since not even God can create a second God.9 And this “original imperfection” of creatures is what makes sin possible (G 6:115). Recall that moral indifference — the capacity for good or evil — is a product of the creature being in process, not yet formed in perfection. Such imperfection is alien to God and transcended by the Saints. But, for creatures this side of beatitude, perfection is a process that opens the door to moral failure.
The concept has ample precedent in early Christian metaphysics. A creature, by definition, comes to be. Such becoming is a mutation or transition from potentially something to actually something. Such pliability is the creaturely road to proper formation. But this same capacity for change opens the door to change for the worse.10 Leibniz knows this full well. He points out that Plato located evil in matter, but Christianity sought it in the nature of creatureliness as such (G 6:114).
The point sheds light on the metaphysical side of the free will defense. The boundaries of omnipotence include this: Not even God can produce creatures that are immune to corruption. For creatures are inherently changeable and thus can change for worse. And here, metaphysical evil converges with moral evil. Rational beings must participate in their own formation, freely turning toward goodness, but this self-determination carries the prospect of the opposite turn — toward evil.
Predetermination, Freedom, and Possible Worlds
What, then, is the relationship between providence and moral evil? To answer this, we must look at Leibniz’s understanding of predetermination. We have seen time and again that Leibniz traces the existence and actions of contingent beings to God. And as discussed in the previous chapter, this leads Leibniz to predetermination — “contingent things, and especially free substances, depend in their choice and operation on the divine will and predetermination” (C 22). As also discussed, Leibniz envisions two types of predetermination, one in the divine mind and a second in reality, which we call creation (C 23-4). We’ll explore these two more fully in this section. But first, let’s look at what it means that God predetermines the actions of a creature.
Predetermination and divine concourse are closely connected. To understand the concept, we need to look at the scholastic distinction between two different types of causation, per se causality and per accidens causality.11 Per accidens causality refers to the types of causes that happen at a point in time, produce an effect, and the effect persists independent of the cause. For example, my parents choose to procreate, which brings me into existence. If they die after my birth, I persist. Per se causality, by contrast, is ongoing, the effect being coterminous with the cause. For example, my coffee cup is suspended (effect) atop the table (cause). If the table collapses, the cup topples.
The relevance to the God-world relationship is that many today tend to think of the world as autonomous. Even if created by God, the causation is imagined to be per accidens. God chose to make the world, but it now persists on its own. The more classical picture, however, sees creation as ongoing — per se. Creatures are innately contingent, and this does not change at their making. God must supply us with existence now no less than at our origin. And such is the concept of divine concourse. God “runs alongside the world” — the literal meaning of concursus — supplying it with existence. Such is Leibniz’s view of creation: “the creature depends continually upon divine operation, and that it depends upon that no less after the time of its beginning than when it first begins. This dependence implies that it would not continue to exist if God did not continue to act” (G 6:344).
Predetermination acknowledges the same about creaturely action. Spontaneity was described in chapter 4 as an inner potential to act in various ways. But, as Aristotle’s unmoved Mover argument points out, existing things can serve as causes; potential things cannot. This potential for action cannot move itself into being; God must. And such movement is predetermination: God supplies movement to the creature, so that it can act in accord with its nature.
Now, Leibniz insists ad nauseam that God’s predetermination does not make him the cause of evil. Free creatures are self-determining. How Leibniz strikes this balance is by saying God is the efficient cause of creaturely action, while the creature is the deficient cause of sin (C 22). The metaphysics here are standard in Christian theology. Evil is thought of as inherently privative.12 Sight, for example, is an ontological good, while blindness is a negation of this good. And the same is true of moral evil. Moral evil is only possible because of limitations in creatures (metaphysical evil), and should the creature go morally wrong, such vice reflects a defect in the creature — in his reason, or will, or passions. So, Leibniz suggests, “God is the cause of all perfections, and consequently of all realities, when they are regarded as purely positive. But limitations and privations result from the original imperfection of creatures which restricts their receptivity” (G 6:383).
Leibniz illustrates the point using the analogy of a boat, which is heavy laden, and thus moves sluggishly along a river.
The current is the cause of the boat’s movement, but not its retardation; God is the cause of perfection in the nature and the actions of the creature, but the limitation of the receptivity of the creature is the cause of the defects there are in its actions… [O]ne may say that the current … is the cause of the boat’s speed without being the cause of the limits to this speed. And God is no more the cause of sin than the river’s current is the cause of the retardation of the boat. (G 6:120-1)
In other words, God supplies all that is necessary for the creaturely to freely act in accord with goodness. But the creature’s innate limitations make resistance possible. Should a creature sin, the cause is not a deficit in what God supplies but a defect in the creature’s reception. As Leibniz explains, “this decree is limited to what there is of perfection in this evil act; it is the very notion of the creature, in so far as it involves limitation (which is the one thing that it does not have from God) that drags the act towards badness” (C 24).
This type of metaphor (i.e., the sluggish boat) is rather standard amongst post-Reformation scholastics. To choose one example, Johannes Maccovius uses the illustration of a man pushing a horse with a broken leg. If we ask why the horse is moving, the answer is the man is pushing it. If we ask why it is limping, the answer is the defect in its leg.13 So, in the same way, God supplies creatures with existence and movement, but he does so in concert with their nature, which is self-determining. The creature’s existence and movement can be traced to God, but if the creature chooses evil, such evil is traceable to the creatures’ own defective use of choice.
Predetermination is thus inherently accommodating. In willing the existence of free creatures, God also wills that they determine their own movements. So, to use the words of Voetius, “the predetermination turns the will sweetly and nevertheless strongly to that very end, to which it — certainly being moved and premoved by God — would have turned itself.”14 Or as Leibniz puts it, “God understands perfectly the notion of this free individual substance, considered as possible, and from this very notion he foresees what its choice will be, and therefore he decides to accommodate to it his predetermination in time” (C 22-3).
Such is the permissive will of God. Though God wills that the creature choose goodness, supplying the creature with guides in the natural law and in his commands, he also wills that the creature act in accord with its nature. In willing the latter, God permits that the creature move contrary to his desires if this is what it chooses: “God co-operates morally in moral evil, that is, in sin without being the originator of the sin, and even without being accessory thereto. He does this by permitting it justly” (G 6:162-3). Predetermination, then, is that act by which God supplies all that is required for contingent beings to exist and to act, even when doing so means the creature moves contrary to God’s desires.
With this picture of predetermination in hand, we can consider the two types of predetermination Leibniz describes. As mentioned, the first type predetermines creatures but only as possible beings in the divine mind. This predetermination is the basis for God’s conditional knowledge, what would be if he granted these beings existence.
Now, we should here highlight one of Leibniz’s key metaphysical commitments. Notice that in the above discussion of modalities, “existence” was deemed a property, one that could be added to or subtracted from contingent beings — and which cannot be added to contradictions or removed from a necessary being. Hence, contingent beings exist first in the mind and then in reality, if paired with existence. The point is central to Leibniz’s concept of possible worlds.
Leibniz speaks of the divine mind as the “realm of the possibles” (G 6:132). His talk of a first act of predetermination points to something far more robust than God just imagining scenarios. God essentially creates beings inside of himself. Such beings are precisely like real creatures in all regards but one: They lack the property of existence. But they are identical with real beings in every other regard, including the capacity for self-determination. God creates a possible world within himself, populated with possible beings. Within the realm of the possibles, God supplies concourse and predetermination, just as he does in the real world. The possible beings act by self-determination, and God is provident over their world, operating in the best possible manner at every moment, just as he does in the real world. That world unfolds into a complete history, and the “sequence” is what Leibniz calls a possible world. This, Leibniz suggests, God does over and over again, producing an infinity of such worlds.
In this first act of predetermination, we find the first examples of divine freedom, discussed in the previous chapter. God need not generate any creatures, possible or real. So the start to the process is itself an act of free spontaneity. And as also discussed in the previous chapter, the production of worlds and the process of comparative assessment is a dynamic process. Again, using “instances of nature” (IN) to describe the process, at IN1, God produces a world in the realm of the possibles, supplying predetermination and concourse, while providentially guiding it in the best manner. This first possible world (PW1) God could create in accord with his nature, since it is, at IN1, the best possible world. But he is free to produce another, which he does at IN2. This second sequence, PW2, he compares with PW1 to determine which is best, and once again, it falls to divine spontaneity to create (or not create) the best or to produce more worlds. And on the process goes, continued or terminated at the will of God.
Should God choose at any point to create a world, then knowing which possible world is best, he engages in a second act of predetermination. And this act, we call creation. Here, God adds to the best possible world an additional property — existence. At this, the possible world “bursts forth” from God (G 6:115-6).15
This second act of predetermination is identical to the first, except that it takes place outside of God (C 24).16 The relationship between God and creatures is precisely the same as in the realm of the possibles: God supplies concourse and predetermination; in his consequent will, he permits the creature to act in accord with its nature, even when contrary to goodness; he providentially guides the world in the best possible manner, minimizing evil and maximizing good as far as possible in the complex web of incompossibility and concomitance. And what unfolds in space and time is a perfect mirror of the best as beheld in the realm of the possibles.
With this bursting forth, PEH comes into play. We already saw that Leibniz argues that PEH is no hindrance to freedom because it is based on foreknowledge. We now see precisely what that means. Our world has already played out within God, where “the foreknowledge and providence of God allow freedom to our actions, since God has foreseen those actions in his ideas, just as they are, that is, free” (G 6:331). The monads that compose the real world are programmed to perfectly mirror what God has infallibly foreseen in the realm of the possibles. Far from hindering free choice, PEH, like predetermination generally, aims at accommoding creaturely freedom — the deeds God infallibly knows we will choose.17
Before closing this section, a word should be said about the Newtonian charge that PEH is deistic, denying divine intervention in our world.18 Leibniz’s answer is rather traditional. Within the realm of the possibles (the divine foreknowledge), God has already heard creaturely prayers, determined whether and how to answer, and made choices about when to perform miracles or intervene in our world.
Such a reply is common in early Christian writers, who presume that God operates by eternal decrees based on foreknowledge, not by ad hoc decisions in time.19 The world need not be planned void of miracles so that God might intervene. God is personal, relational, and interactive in both the realm of the possibles and in the mirror of reality. All of this is included in his second act of predetermination when creating the best possible world.
Is a World without Sin Possible?