For those who follow Theological Letters (thanks to all of you), you know that I have been posting a four-part series on the history of predestination. Three of four parts are posted (part 1, part 2, and part 3), but unfortunately, I need to take a brief detour into another topic before posting part 4.
I’m presently in Greece on set of a television series on which I am writer and co-Executive Producer — a time-consuming venture in its own right. But I’m also up against a literary deadline. I have a forthcoming book on Leibniz with Routledge. Longtime followers of Theological Letters may remember me posting about this back when I was first writing the volume (here). Well, my revised and finish manuscript is due at the end of April, and I have yet to make my promised revisions. (Hopefully, no one from Routledge subscribes to my substack!) So I need to turn whatever non-television writing time I have toward that book.
Toward that end, I will welcome all of you, dear subscribers, into my writing world. You can hold me accountable. I commit that as I finish a chapter, I will post it here for all of you to read. In the coming weeks, you can anticipate an Introduction and six chapters on the classical theism, problem of evil, and Leibniz’s theodicy.
I encourage even those who are uninterested in Leibniz to read the volume. For the book is much more for classical theists, philosophers of religion, and folks interested in the problem of evil generally than it is for Leibniz scholars specifically. And like my Theological Letters, my goal is to strike a tone that is accessible, despite the difficult material.
So, with that, we begin with my Introduction to Leibniz, Classical Theism, and the Problem of Evil: Why Classical Theism Must Affirm That Our World Is the Best of All Possible Worlds.
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Introduction
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And Spite of Pride, in erring Reason’s Spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.
— Alexandar Pope1
On November 1, 1755, faithful Christians of Lisbon gathered for mass on All Saints Day. Sounds of morning worship filled the sanctuary. Then, a new sound arose beneath the chorus — the rumble of an earthquake. The very walls that echoed with worship of God moments earlier collapsed, killing the faithful inside. The whole of Lisbon was razed to the ground. And on the heels of the horrific event followed a tsunami, fires, and civil unrest. Thousands died. News of untold devastation spread across Europe, raising in the minds of many a common question: Why would God allow such evil?
In the wake of the devastation, French poet and philosopher, Voltaire, began work on a satirical story, Candide.2 The would-be classic relentlessly mocked the “optimism” of famed rationalist G. W. Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz had (in)famously argued in his Theodicy that our world is the best of all possible worlds, a “best” that includes the innumerable unspeakable evils that God permits.3 Voltaire highlights the apparent absurdity of the theory with the story of Pangloss, a teacher of metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology, who is charged with the education of a young man named Candide. As Pangloss and Candide explore the world together, the two are beaten, tortured, maimed, starved, and burned. But through it all, Pangloss parrots the brilliant Leibniz: It is all for the best.
Voltaire’s cynical take on Leibniz’s theory is far from an outlier. Most who encounter his defense of God, or “theodicy,”4 find it absurd on the face of it. How could a world full of theft, rape, murder, war, disease, tyranny, and daily atrocity possibly be the best of all worlds? Surely, the prevention of even one evil would make our world better, and such prevention must be within reach of an omnipotent God. None of this is to say that God is without his defenders, of course. The defenders of God in the face of evil are many.5 But the defenders of Leibniz are few.
Despite the unpalatability, if not apparent absurdity, of Leibniz’s optimism, I do not believe his conclusion is so easily dismissed. Quite the contrary, I think his theodicy may prove to be inevitable for adherents to classical theism — and even for many not-so-classical theists. I will make this case in the pages to follow by laying bare Leibniz’s reasoning, showing its precedent in both his pagan and Christian thought, and revisiting his claims in the light of such influences, offering a novel rereading of his thought that, in my humble opinion, corrects ubiquitous misunderstandings of his philosophy generally and notorious theodicy specifically.
In chapters 1 and 2, I set the stage for my revisitation of Leibniz. I, first, show how his rather startling theory follows from his commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason and its pairing with the classical theism of Latin Christianity.6 The former compels Leibniz to trace every contingency to God, and the latter leads him to conclude that God always does the best. Hence, the reason our world exists is because it is the best of all possible worlds. Putting aside the difficulty of swallowing such a pill, which is no small challenge, the theory raises a worry: If every proceeds from divine design and is meticulously selected because of its place in an optimal cosmic blueprint, then perhaps all that happens in our world is absolutely necessary. After establishing the bases for Leibniz’s theory of the best, I lay bare the reasons why his philosophy generally and his theodicy specifically are so often thought to threaten not only creaturely freedom but divine freedom as well, stripping from God, and by extension from his creatures, the power of contrary choice.
With the theory and its problems before us, I set my hand to work at a fresh rereading of Leibniz. In chapter 3, I begin with some important but largely ignored context for Leibniz’s optimism, namely, the philosophical and theological antecedents of his theory. I show that there is ample precedent for the theory of the best amongst ancient and medieval advocates of divine providence, both pagan and Christian alike, stretching from Plato into figures like John of Damascus. Hence, scandalous though Leibniz’s “optimism” may be, the theory of the best is far from his invention. And in these writers, we also find the very problems for divine and human freedom that emerge for Leibniz. So, while the problems of freedom are real for the proponents of the best, neither the theory nor its problems should be laid at Leibniz’s feet. And likewise, when considering what precisely Leibniz is and is not claiming, we should give due attention to his predecessors on the road to optimism.
In chapter 4, I examine the near-universal assumption that Leibniz is a determinist, an assumption that factors heavily into how his theodicy is read by modern scholars. Once again, I begin with neglected context, and in doing so, I offer reasons to think this standard assumption is false. In particular, I show that the modern case is based largely on Leibniz’s rejection of “freedom of equipoise.” Yet, ample precedent exists in Leibniz’s theological influences for rejecting equipoise while defending libertarian freedom — the latter being rooted in the “spontaneity” of the will, which Leibniz advocates, not equipoise, which he rejects. The point is especially noteworthy when considering that this tradition includes figures who are arguably amongst the main influences on Leibniz’s thought.7 With this in mind, I highlight the many ways Leibniz echoes such influences, how his seemingly deterministic claims can be coherently read in harmony with this libertarian tradition, and how such a reading resolves otherwise unresolvable tensions in Leibniz’s thought. As we will see, such a rereading radically transforms Leibniz’s claims about divine and creaturely freedom, answering the worries about determinism outlined in chapter 2 and making his claims about God, freedom, and evil far more palatable to proponents of libertarian free choice.
With these revised lenses in hand, I take a fresh look at Leibniz’s theodicy in chapter 5. Granting the case of the prior chapter, I recast Leibniz’s theodicy under the assumption that he harbors a libertarian view of freedom and show how such a commitment would color his claims about possible worlds, free choice, and the best.8 Unlike the typical worries about a determined God who produces a necessary world filled with horrors that is somehow the best of all worlds, Leibniz reread offers a far more dynamic theory of possible worlds and divine choice, one that preserves not only God’s freedom but creaturely freedom and the dynamic interplay between the two amidst the unfolding drama of providence. Such dynamism offers a very different perspective on what it means to say our world is the best of all possible worlds. The end result is a theodicy wholly unlike the common caricature mocked by Leibniz’s opponents.
With Leibniz’s revised theodicy before us, I look, in chapter 6, at alternative answers to the problem of evil amongst modern philosophers of religion. Time and again, I show that these contemporary defenders of God universally reject Leibniz’s theory of the best. Yet, in forwarding their alternative, they offer a theory that is either a recapitulation of Leibniz reread or a theory that is compatible with Leibniz reread. In short, I show that neither the alternatives to Leibniz theodicy nor the alternatives to the best succeed in escaping the Leibnizian conclusion. Hence, in the end, I conclude that Leibniz’s theodicy looks to be inevitable for classical theism and even for many not-so-classical theisms.
Now, before delving in, a word about target audience and tone. The danger when writing a book of this kind is that it walks a narrow road with a ditch on either side. On the one side is the risk that those who are not Leibniz scholars will quickly pass over the volume on the presumption that this is a book solely for specialists. Yet, make the work too accessible to non-specialists and a new danger emerges, the risk of losing Leibniz scholars who presume it is an introductory text with nothing to offer the field of Leibniz studies.
Narrow though the road may be, this work strives to offer much to specialists and non-specialists alike. For the former, the contents of this volume, if taken seriously, require a seismic shift in Leibniz studies. In addition to highlighting largely ignored antecedents to Leibniz’s theory of the best specifically and his philosophical theology generally, this work highlights a near universal assumption about Leibniz’s view of freedom — namely, that his rejection of equipoise is a rejection of libertarian choice — and demonstrates that this ubiquitous interpretive assumption is erroneous, a fact that requires a reassessment of all that Leibniz builds upon his theory of freedom, which is to say, everything.
For the philosopher of religion, philosophical theologian, or even systematic theologian who wades into the waters of the problem of evil or the relationship between divine and human freedom, the claims of this volume are no less significant. For the pages to follow unearth a tradition concerning divine providence that pervades the ancient and medieval worlds and proves exceedingly difficult to avoid under the presumptions of classical theism — and even amidst the presumptions of not-so-classical theism. This tradition culminates in Leibniz but is largely ignored because of it, given how maligned his theodicy has been. Yet, the fact remains: Leibniz’s optimism is not his invention but his inheritance, passed down from some of the most revered pagan and Christian thinkers of the pre-Modern world.
Hence, both specialists and non-specialists have much to consider in the pages to follow. For better or worse, then — or perhaps for the best — I have tried to walk this narrow road, making the contents of this volume maximally accessible to non-specialists without abandoning the very real contributions to Leibniz studies. And the result I offer to you, dear reader, in the hope that both will benefit.
Alexander Pope, Essay on Man (Upsala: L. G. Berglund, 1799), 11.
M. de Voltaire, Candide, ou l’Optimisme (London, 1759).
The full title is Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal, or Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil, which Leibniz published in 1710. The work can be found in G 6:25-436.
The term “theodicy” was coined by Leibniz and is taken from the Greek words θεός (God) and δίκη (justice), indicating a defense of the justice of God in the face of evil.
The works dedicated to answering the problem of evil are too vast to catalog here. We will explore several contemporary replies in chapter 6, including Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974); Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977); Eleonore Stump, “The Problem of Evil,” Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985), 392-424; Eleonore Stump, “Providence and the Problem of Evil,” in Christian Philosophy, ed. Thomas P. Flint (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 63-7; John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (London: Macmillan, 1985); Marilyn McCord Adams, “The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians,” in Reasoned Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, ed. Eleonore Stump (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 301-327. Some additional defenses in contemporary literature include Ninian Smart, “Omnipotence, Evil, and Supermen,” Philosophy 36, no. 137 (1961): 188-195; Peter Van Inwagen, “The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence,” Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 135-165; Peter Van Inwagen, Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil (Grand rapids, MI Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004); Richard Swinburne, “Some Major Strands of Theodicy,” in The Evidential Argument from Evil, ed. Daniel Howard-Snyder (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996): 30-48; Gregory Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Lisle, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2001); Richard Swinburne, Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford University Press, 1998); John S. Feinberg, The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006); John G. Stackhouse, Can God Be Trusted?: Faith and the Challenge of Evil (Lisle, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008).
The predicate “Latin” is meant to distinguish the commitments of Christianity in the Latin West from the commitments of the Christian East amongst Greek, Syrians, and others. Leibniz plainly situates his own theology within this tradition in a number of places, including his Examen religionis Christianae.
I have in mind here the Reformed scholastics generally, which includes the Herborn encyclopedists, a group Leroy E. Loemker has argued are one of the main influences on Leibniz. See Leroy E Loemker, “Leibniz and the Herborn Encyclopedists,” Journal of the History of Ideas 22:3 (1961): 323-38.
Readers will notice that I more often than not refer to “free choice,” not “free will.” Though the latter is common parlance, the former is more accurate to the classical discussion. The will (voluntas) is the faculty by which rational creatures exercise choice. The question of freedom is whether this faculty has the power of “free choice” (liberum arbitrium).
Thank you, Nathan for the correction. I spoke without thinking it through. regarding the Freedom issue. Thanks again.
Well, of course… we could not speak about God, unless we use the language that God himself enabled us to use.