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 6
The Inevitability of Leibniz
“What’s optimism?" asked Cacambo. "I’m afraid to say,” said Candide, “that it’s a mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly.”
— Voltaire1
Although Leibniz is often maligned for his “optimism,” we’ve seen that the theory of the best is not his invention. The view was common amongst ancient advocates of providence, pagan and Christian alike. And when looked at in the light of his antecedents, Leibniz is hardly novel. Candidly, when properly understood, the elements of his case are so uncontroversial in classical Christianity that it’s difficult to find grounds for objection.
All of creation is contingent and exists at the will of God. God is Good, so he wills goodness. God is perfect, so his willing is without defect. He does not, therefore, will just any good but the best. And because God is omniscient, he knows what is best. As for evil, God does not and cannot will it. But having chosen to create free creatures, God chooses to permit free choice, even when it violates his will. Such permission, however, reflects God’s Goodness. The object of his will is never evil but the minimizing of evil and the optimizing of good.
Such commitments are basic to classical Christian theism. Leibniz certainly appends idiosyncrasies to the theory. We’ve seen that his possible worlds are innovative. The monadology, though traditional in its presumption of foreknowledge and divine decree, is a novel theory of substance and causation. Yet, Leibniz’s theory of the best hardly requires these. The theory requires only that omniscience and omnibenevolence tell us that God does the best and is not the author of evil. Whether God does so by possible worlds, or by middle knowledge, or without any hypothetical knowledge is immaterial.
So is there any real alternative to Leibniz? Surely one can reject his monadology, or take issue with the specifics of predetermination, or disapprove of his theory of possible worlds. But this is not a rebuttal of the theory, only a squabble with its details. One could reject all of these and still arrive at the best based on the classical divine attributes. So, again, is there any real alternative to Leibniz for the Christian theist? To answer this question, let’s begin by looking at more recent theodicies, or defenses, to see if any evade Leibniz’s view.2
Leibniz and the Contemporary Task of Theodicy
Neither the problem of evil nor its refutations have slowed in contemporary philosophy.3 So, in our search for alternatives to Leibniz, let’s consider three contemporary defenses: Eleonore Stump, Alvin Plantinga, and John Hick. Stump represents a traditional defense, which looks back to Christian tradition for aid. Plantinga offers a contemporary spin on the free will defense. And Hick represents a proper attempt at theodicy. I begin with Stump.
In Stump’s essay on providence and evil, she builds on a previous essay that establishes three claims she takes to be basic to the Christian narrative: (1) man fell into sin by free choice and passed corruption to his progeny; (2) natural evil occurs because of the Fall; (3) depending on a man’s condition at death, he goes to Heaven or Hell.4 Her discussion of providence and evil builds on this case.5
Stump succinctly summarizes a number of claims foundational to the Augustinian tradition, such as the goodness of being and the identification of God with Goodness, following from divine simplicity.6 In addition, she establishes Aquinas’ rather traditional view of the relationship between divine sovereignty and creaturely freedom: God faces limitations in his dealing with creatures but only because he chose to make them free and interact with them according to certain rules.
Finally, Stump argues that God’s dealings with creatures reflect his Goodness, which means willing the creature’s proper end, or telos. The ultimate telos of free creatures is union with God. Hence, God aims at reuniting us with himself. For simplicity’s sake, she identifies both the plan and its execution as “providence.”7
Now, Stump acknowledges a problem. If God’s will aims at directing men back to God, then it seems that men are capable of frustrating the will of God. For not all turn to him.8 She addresses the difficulty by distinguishing God’s antecedent will from his consequent will, John of Damascus’ distinction that echoes in Aquinas. As explained in previous chapters, the antecedent will considers the subject in isolation and wills it according to its goodness.9 So, God antecedently wills that all men are saved.10 Yet, the consequent will considers the complex web in which the good appears, and God may consequently permit something he does not will antecedently. Her example is Jonah. Jonah contravenes God’s antecedent will, but not his consequent will. For, although God desires Jonah’s obedience (antecedently), God permits Jonah’s sin (consequently).11
Does such permission indict God’s Goodness? Here, Stump appeals to medieval ethics. According to Aquinas, to let good ends justify evil means is immoral.12 No one is justified in doing evil because they can compensate with a good outcome. Permitting evil is upright only when evil attaches to all available choices and the lesser evil is the best and only means of preventing the greater evil. Why? Because in such conditions, preventing evil is the aim of the will, not the evil permitted.13 So, the permissive will of God must be understood in this way, lest we attribute immorality to God.
For this reason, Stump disapproves of the suggestion that God’s permissive will is “mysterious.”14 The antecedent-consequent-will distinction requires that evil is only permitted to prevent a greater evil. What that greater evil is may be a “mystery,” but why God permits the evil is not.15
A more innovative defense appears in Plantinga. Plantinga is the most well-known advocate of the free will defense in recent years. He sets his defense against J. L. Mackie, who suggests that God and evil are incompossible. Because evil exists, God does not. The free will defense is meant to show that God and evil are compossible if God creates free beings.16 A key objection to this defense, however, is the logical possibility that free creatures never sin. If God can create a sinless world with free beings, then the incompossibility remains.17
We discussed Plantinga’s reply in chapter 5. His rebuttal posits transworld depravity — a sinless world with free beings may not be available to God. Plantinga’s case distinguishes logically possible worlds from actualizable worlds and further distinguishes creating from actualizing.18 God can create things unilaterally. But to actualize a state of affairs in which a free creature freely does something requires that the creature cooperate.19 In this light, there are many logically possible worlds that God cannot actualize. For possible worlds where free beings freely choose specific things require that both God and creatures choose that world.
This conclusion opens the door to transworld depravity: Though a sinless world with free creatures is logically possible, it may not be actualizable. For such a world requires, not only that God will it, but that creatures will it as well.20 Therefore, Mackie’s case fails. It’s entirely possible that, though God wills a sinless world, he cannot actualize it, and therefore permits a world with evil instead.
Another influential defense in recent years is John Hick’s. Hick develops what he calls an Irenaean soul-building theodicy. While Hick is an advocate of the free will defense, he believes this defense alone is insufficient. Two further things are needed: (a) a reason why free creatures sin and (b) a cosmic purpose that justifies the permitting of evil.
Hick’s theodicy rejects the “Augustinian” view of the Fall in favor of an “Irenaean” view — the former referring to Augustine of Hippo, the latter to Irenaeus of Lyon. The distinction, as Hick sees it, is this. The Augustinian view is that man was created idyllic and then fell, plummeting the cosmos into evil, pain, and suffering. The Irenaean view is that man was created infantile, immature, unformed. Man strayed from God, bringing evils upon himself, but all of this is part of his spiritual formation.21 As Hick explains it, “The Irenaean approach … hinges upon the creation of humankind through the evolutionary process as an immature creature, living in a challenging and therefore person-making world.”22
Hick’s soul-building theodicy is that God places infantile man in a world that is conducive to struggle. God also creates “epistemic distance” between himself and mankind, so that man may freely choose to love or reject God. Adam and his progeny sin, which brings pain and suffering, but the road is purposive. The struggle is part of the “soul building” process by which man learns from his errors, freely turns back to God, and grows into spiritual maturity.23
One final point of note. Hick is a religious pluralist and a universalist. So, he presumes the process ultimately succeeds (in the next life) in bringing all of humanity back to God.24
This vision is meant to supply the missing elements of the free will defense. Free will alone does not explain why creatures sin, especially if they begin in an idyllic state. But if man is created infantile, then sin is a product of immaturity. As for why make such a world, soul building offers an answer. God desires creatures to freely love him. So he supplies the necessary conditions for them to wander, learning by experience the folly of sin. In the culmination of all things, humanity will freely love God because we have tasted the bitter alternative. But such an end is only possible by allowing prodigality and the transient road of evil.25
With these three representative defenses before us, do we have a viable alternative to Leibniz? Let’s begin with Stump. I trust the parallels between Stump’s Aquinas and Leibniz are obvious. We find in Leibniz the very same points: The Christian narrative; the realist limits on the will of God that are the basis for the free will defense; the antecedent-consequent-will distinction; even the rejection of a utilitarian interpretation of God’s permissive will.
The irony is that Stump understands all of this to somehow disprove Leibniz’s theory.26 Why? She misreads Leibniz as a utilitarian, presuming his God looks to a good outcome to justify committing or permitting evil. Her use of medieval ethics is meant to remedy this error. But as we’ve seen, there’s nothing to remedy. Leibniz agrees. Everything Stump draws from Aquinas is already integral to Leibniz’s theodicy.
As for Plantinga, his defense has two major elements. The first is that God cannot unilaterally actualize states of affairs in which free creatures are involved; creatures must participate. The second is the possibility of transworld depravity. The first element opens the door to the second. And it may be that our world is worth making, despite the concomitance of evil.
All of these points appear in Leibniz. Plantinga tries to distance himself by his theory of actualizable worlds. But the attempt is based on the false assumption that Leibniz believes all logically possible worlds are available to God. But Leibniz’s metaphysics denies this. Ironically, Leibniz’s theory may be more restrictive than Plantinga’s on actualizable worlds, given what we saw in the previous chapter. True, Leibniz is less keen on transworld depravity than Plantinga, but Leibniz is open to it, and his metaphysics permits the defense.
What of Hick’s theodicy? Hick maligns Leibniz, presuming a reading similar to Stump’s.27 But Hick’s theodicy is perfectly compatible with Leibniz. His view boils down to this. God’s goal in creation is building souls, and the transient evils of our world are justified because they are the best means of achieving this end. Leibniz could agree.
Note that Leibniz doesn’t claim to know why our world is best. His defense is not an account of why God made the world, or why he permitted this or that evil, or what greater evil was prevented by God’s consequent will. He points this out to Bayle:
… [B]ut I do not undertake to give [a complete explanation]; nor am I bound to do so…. It is sufficient for me to point out that there is nothing to prevent the connection of a certain individual evil with what is the best on the whole. This incomplete explanation, leaving something to be discovered in the life to come, is sufficient for answering the objections, though not for a comprehension of the matter. (G 6:189)
Leibniz’s theodicy offers only a case, arising from PSR and the a priori understanding of God, for the theory of the best. Whatever end(s) God has in mind, our world is the best means. And from the Goodness of God, Leibniz deduces the necessary conditions for the permitting of evil. Beyond this, Leibniz offers only speculation, not dogma, about how certain evils might be viewed.28 The point is critical when evaluating Hicks’ “alternative.”
Leibniz and Hick differ theologically — no question. But Leibniz could affirm Hick’s view. Perhaps the end for which God created the world is to build souls, and ours is the best possible world for doing so. God permits transient evils because they attach by concomitance to our world and their prevention is incompossible with soul building. Such is a viable Leibnizian hypothesis. The difference between Leibniz and Hick is that Hick is dogmatic about why God created the world while Leibniz is agnostic.
These results apply to most contemporary defenses. If the defender assumes a broadly traditional view of God, his common staples are the free will defense, the related claim that God cannot ensure that free creatures do good, some version of incompossibility and concomitance, and some version of the permissive will of God that approaches the antecedent-consequent-will distinction. This is precisely what we find in Stump and Plantinga. To this is sometimes added a hypothesis on God’s aims, meant to justify the permitting of evil. This we find in Hick. The former approach rarely adds much, if anything, to Leibniz. The latter can typically be framed as a Leibnizian hypothesis: God’s aim is thus, and our world is the best means to it. In either case, such defenses are hardly an alternative to Leibniz.
Choosing Other than the Best
Putting aside alternative defenses, a number of philosophers have taken aim at the theory of the best in recent years. The goal is to undermine the theory and make way for alternative bases for divine choice.29 One strategy is to say that the very idea of a best world is implausible. Why? Robert Merrihew Adams argues that there is no limit to the number of possible worlds, so there can be no optimal world.30 In this light, divine choice must be based on something else. But what?