LEIBNIZS CONCEPTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL BY OKOJIE E. PETER epo4escriva@yahoo.

com MAY 2013 INTRODUCTION For many centuries, philosophers have been discussing evil, how it exists in the world, and how this relates to God. The discussion on evil and its relations to us is not an easy one though. It is commonly called the problem of evil. The problem of evil in contemporary philosophy is generally regarded as an argument for atheism. The atheist contends that God and evil are incompatible, and given that evil clearly exists, God cannot exist. The problem is generally used to disprove Gods existence by showing an inconsistency between an all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing God; and the existence of evil. Philosophers over the centuries have tried to show that there is no inconsistency with the existence of God and evil. Leibniz is one of the philosophers who grappled with this problematic. For him, we live in the best of all possible worlds because God chose to create this world, and in trying to solve the problem of evil, his argument provides that the attributes of God such as omniscience, omnipotence and perfection are validly not inconsistent with the presence of evil in the world. The aim of this work therefore, is to focus on the modalities of logic, namely, possibility, necessity, and contingency, the problem of evil and how Leibniz deciphers it, free-will, and objections to Leibnizs claims. Thus, in seeking to do this, I shall thread the following course: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. A Brief Biography of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz The Notion of the Problem of Evil Background to Leibnizs Theodicy Leibnizs Conception of the Problem of Evil Leibnizs Account, a success or failure? Conclusion

1. A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1646, his father being a professor of moral philosophy. Leibniz was a Christian idealist philosopher who was heavily influenced by Benedict Spinoza. He studied both Greek and Scholastic philosophy. He later studied mathematics under Erhard Weigel. He then gave himself to the study of jurisprudence and got a doctorate in Law at Altdorf in 1667. He discovered the infinitesimal calculus without being aware of the fact that Isaac Newton had already written on the same subject before him. However, it was Leibniz who first published his in 1684, whereas Newton published his in 1687. He rejected the offer of professorship at Altdorf. It was in 1682 that he founded at Leipzig the Acta eruditorum, and in 1700 he became the first president of the Society of Sciences at Berlin, which later became the Prussian Academy. Being a Christian, he occupied himself with the problem of uniting Christian Confessions; particularly he tried to find common ground for agreement between Catholics and Protestants.1 Although Leibniz had enjoyed a life in the public limelight, his popularity declined at the end of his life. He died in obscurity in 1716, and his

Frederick Copleston, S. J., A History of Philosophy, Vol. 4, (New York: Continuum Intl Publishing, 2003) p.265

funeral was attended by his secretary only.2 His main works include Monadology, Philosopher's Confession, Principles of Individuation, New Essays in Human Understanding, Essays in Theodicy, New System of Nature and of the Interaction of Substances amongst others. 2. THE NOTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL The problem of evil, is the difficulty of reconciling the existence of evil in the world with the existence of an omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful) and perfectly good God. This argument is the atheistic argument that the existence of such evil cannot be agreeable with, thus negates the existence of such a God. The problem of evil has occupied human minds for untold ages. This persistent problem has engaged professional thinkers and thoughtful persons alike in various attempts to make sense of the existence of evil in the world. In his autobiography, the twentieth-century British philosopher Bertrand Russell expressing his concern wrote: Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.3 The Greek philosopher Epicurus is most likely the first recognized philosopher to ask how the existence of evil could be compatible with the nature of God (The Wrath of God 13).4 According to Epicurean philosophy, the notions of good and evil are identified with pleasure and pain respectively. The Epicurean claim is that only pleasure is good. Accordingly, this translates into pursue pleasure (good) and avoid pain (evil).5 David Hume in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion says of Epicurus: Epicurus old questions are yet unanswered. Is he (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?6 Even if Epicurus is regarded as the first to raise the question of compatibility of evil with the nature of God, some earlier philosophers had articulated the idea and described it or anticipated in their thoughts. Amongst such ancient figures are: the Pythagoreans and Heraclitus. In the Pythagoreans view of the world as being governed by a continual conflict between order and disorder, good is placed on the side of order while evil on the side of disorder. While introducing the notion of the civil law as a reflection of the divine law which foreshadows the Stoics and medievals position, Heraclitus however balances off with another thought: To God all things are fair and good and just, but men have supposed some unjust and some just.7 By this Heraclitus seems to suggest there is no real distinction between good and evil, he means whatever is, is good. All these positions can be linked in the formulation of the problem of evil.
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William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, 2nd ed., (Belmont: Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2002) p.258 3 R. Douglas Geivett, Evil and the Evidence for God (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993) p.3 4 Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig, (London and New York: Routledge) p.551 5 William F. Lawhead, Op. Cit., p.91 6 David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947) p.243 7 William F. Lawhead, Op. Cit., p19

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The problem of evil in contemporary philosophy is regarded as an argument for atheism. The atheist contends that God and evil are incompatible, and given that evil clearly exists, God cannot exist. In modern terms, medieval philosophers did not engage the evidential problem of evil: rather, they occupied the aporetic problem of evil, in order to try to decide the apparent logical incompatibility between God's attributes and the existence of evil.8 The problem, for that reason, was taken to be that of explaining the compatibility of the existence of evil with divine moral purity or holiness. These philosophers believed that God is the author of everything that exists, and given that evil is one of the things that exists, it might seem that God is therefore the author of evil. And if God is author of everything, he is therefore implicated in the evil and cannot be morally pure or holy. Framed in this way, the atheistic problem of evil invites certain sorts of responses. In particular, it invites the theist to explain how a being that is omniscient and omnipotent can allow evil to exist. From the medieval era till now, responses to the problem of evil therefore have been focused largely on presenting theodicies.9 BACKGROUND TO LIEBNIZS THEODICY Though before the medieval era, the question of the presence of evil in the world was of great concern, the theistic argument against the atheistic position was clearly evident in the medieval philosophers such as Augustine, Anselm, and Bonaventure. When we consider, however, the works of medieval philosophers who addressed the problem of evil, the atheistic problem is not to be found. Since these figures believed that the arguments of natural theology demonstrated the existence of God, the problem that evil presented for them was different from that engaged by modern and present-day philosophers. The main traditional Christian response to the problem of evil was formulated by St. Augustine (354 - 430 A.D.) and has constituted the majority report of the Christian mind through the centuries, although it has been much criticized in recent times. The main philosophical position is the idea of the negative or privative nature of evil. Augustine holds firmly to the HebrewChristian conviction that the universe is good - that is to say, it is the creation of a good God for a good purpose.10 This doctrine was adopted by the Scholastics generally and finds adherents among several modern philosophers of note, Leibniz for example. In light of the fact that Leibniz lived in between eras in which evil was taken to present different problems for the monotheistic philosopher, immediately leads one to wonder what sort of problem he sought to address. It would be archaic, however, to claim that Leibniz was engaged with the atheistic problem, for in his time the existence of evil was taken to be an argument for an unorthodox form of theism rather than an argument for atheism. 3. LIEBNIZS CONCEPTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL The question on the problem of evil bothered Leibniz throughout his philosophical career. This is evident in the fact that the first and the last book-length works that he authored, the Philosopher's Confession (1672) and the Theodicy (1709) were both devoted to this problem. It
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Marilyn Mccord Adams and Adams Robert (editors), The Problem of Evil, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp. 1-3 9 Theodicies refer to the attempts to show that there is no inconsistency with the existence of evil in the world created by a perfectly good and all-powerful God. 10 Frederick Copleston, S. J., A History of Philosophy, Vol. 2, p.85

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is therefore suffices to appropriate that Leibniz's concern with the problem of evil was central to his overarching philosophical concerns throughout his philosophical career.11 Much of Leibnizs philosophy is focused on the concept of God and modalities. The modalities are possibility, necessity, and contingency. What it means for something to be possible is that it exists in some possible world. For instance, John Cardinal Onaiyekan possibly could have been elected pope in March 2013 Conclave but was not in respect to the actual world. The modal concept of possible deals with things that could be. The question that follows then is: what are possible worlds? The answer is: possible worlds are possible realities. The actual world is the world which actually exists. The possible worlds do not all exist but they are used to explain and understand possibilities in a logical sense. For something to be necessary means that it exists in all possible worlds. It is necessarily true that a man whose head is seceded from his body is not alive. For Leibniz, God is a necessary Being. He is necessary because He exists in all possible worlds. There is even a possible world in which only God exists according to Leibniz. A contingent truth is something that is not necessarily false nor necessarily true. Leibniz calls these, truths of fact. Things which are contingent are things true in one or more possible worlds and false in one or more possible worlds. Leibniz said that all propositions can be reduced down to a subject-predicate format. For Leibniz, any proposition stating a necessary truth is a proposition in which the predicate in contained in the subject. One cannot affirm the subject and deny the predicate without involving oneself in self-contradiction.12 All the predicates are literally contained within the subject. The statement the bird is flying means that flying is contained within the bird (which is the subject). This theory of proposition will help Leibniz as he defends Gods choosing of possible worlds. God is a necessary Being and therefore God knows all the possible worlds to create. He knows this because the knowledge of possible worlds is innate in His mind because He is omniscient. Before creation, God had to know all possible worlds, and had to know the blueprint of everything within each possible world. The predicates, or possible worlds, are contained within the subject, God. This knowledge allows God to choose the possible world He wanted to create. His choosing of anyone of these worlds is a completely free action on Gods part because He could exist by Himself. Leibniz says that we live in the best of all the possible worlds because since God is all-good and all-knowing, He would have to choose the best of all of these. Now, the actual world, while still having evil in it, is an extremely good world. There seems to be a dilemma here for Leibniz. Gods choosing of a possible world is a completely free act and cannot err if God is all-powerful. Therefore everything we do in the actual world was known and chosen by God. Everything we do must occur but this does not mean it is necessary but rather preordained by God. Leibniz distinguishes between three kinds of evil. Evil may be taken metaphysically, physically and morally. Metaphysical evil consists in mere imperfection, physical evil consists in suffering, and moral evil consists in sin.13

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Maria Rosa Antognazza. Leibniz: An Intellectual Autobiography, (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni. Press, 2009) p.88 Joseph Omoregbe, A Simplified History of Western Philosophy, (Lagos: Joja Educational Research and Publishers Ltd., 1991) p.33 13 Theodicy, Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil, ed. Austin Farrer, trans. E. M. Huggard (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952) p.21

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Metaphysical evil is due to the imperfection or finitude of created things which render them liable to evil. This means therefore, that it is unavoidable as far as created things are concerned to be perfect. However, the only alternative to the existence of metaphysical evil is nonexistence of finite beings in the world. As it follows that Leibniz thinks that existence is better than non-existence, since God always chooses the best and brings into existence, finite beings. God cannot create perfect creatures, for such beings would be infinite and would therefore be Gods; there can be only one God. Physical evil is a constituent element of the order and harmony in the systems of the universe; it is part of the mechanism of the universe. Physical evil is that affecting a nature, whether this be corporeal or spiritual, whose integrity it alters. Pain and sorrow are physical evils. God permits such evils so that out of them a greater good may come.14 It is like the shadows in a picture, shadows which serve to bring the colours into bolder relief and great beauty. Moral evil consists essentially in the disorder of the will, and is called fault or sin. In explaining this idea of moral evil, Leibniz finds himself in a more difficult position. Moral evil presupposes freedom on the part of human beings. Moral evil is found in a rational and free nature as such. The will, with its power of obeying or disobeying the norms of conscience and the natural law is the subject in this case. Leibniz says that moral evil is culpable and will be chastised by God. But, owing to the fact that human freedom has no room in the deterministic metaphysical worldview of Leibniz, Leibniz realizes this and affirms that man is free, but denies that his metaphysical view of the universe rules out human freedom. Hence he draws the distinction between metaphysical necessity and moral necessity. Metaphysical necessity, according to him is absolute necessity and leaves no room for freedom. Whereas moral necessity is not incompatible with freedom; it is what prompts the will while still leaving it free.15 Had free-will theodicy not been, the problem of evil could not have been without selfcontraction in Leibnizs conception. 4. LIEBNIZS ACCOUNT, A SUCCESS OR FAILURE? Maintaining that the world we live in is the best possible world created by the all-powerful, allknowing, perfectly good God, many philosophers have criticized the best possible world theory and Gods perfection in Leibnizs conspectus. This seems to be a misled thought though. Maybe a best possible world does not exist. And even if that it were true that the actual world is the best world, why are there so much pain, suffering, and moral evil in the world? The fact that evil exists in the world would contradict this best possible world theory. Would God need to even actualize the best possible world if it were to exist? This seems to be quite a problem indeed. With the reality of great pains, anxiety and sufferings around the world, from the individual to peoples, whether in Nigeria, Syria, Iran or Israel, it might be apt to fuse with Voltaire whose work titled Candide makes a caricature of this notion of the world being really good. Voltaires text presents a main character who goes through life meeting all these evils and challenges yet continually says that this is the best of all possible worlds. It is like a blind man saying: I see very clearly. Since we live in the best possible world, we can imagine other better worlds than this one. We do not have the knowledge or goodness to know that those possible worlds are actually better. God is good and wise, and this should be enough for us to know that he made the right choice.

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William A. Wallace, The Elements of Philosophy, (New York: Society of St. Paul, 2007) p.145 Joseph Omoregbe, Op. Cit., p.40

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Also, the possibility of an event does not entail co-possibility with other events (one change may lead to contradiction or major changes in the world with unforeseeable consequences). David Hume is associated with raising a criticism against Leibniz by attacking his design argument for Gods existence. In his contribution entitled Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in Feinberg (2008) he argues Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has execute16 Hence, he argues that God is imperfect because of the mistakes in the world. Hume seems to attack natural evil and the fact that there are natural imperfections in the universe such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes among others. Nevertheless, if the free-will theodicy of Leibniz works, then the existence of moral evil is logical. As such can address Voltaires argument not minding whether these objections are good or not. On the other hand, the free-will theodicy does not provide answer to Humes arguments. 5. CONCLUSION This work has tried to develop an appraisal of Liebnizs notion of the Problem of Evil; drawing the background of his stance. From the foregoing, it is deduced that Leibnizs philosophy has helped solve the problem of evil though never fully solved. His views on how God chooses to create the world create more problems for what Leibniz was trying to solve. And Humes objections seem to cast doubt on how natural evil can exist in the universe. The problem of evil might be a problem for Christian theists that will never fully be solved. Perhaps the answer is so far beyond human understanding. Christian scholars have developed several theodicies in attempt to solving this problem and their efforts have at least solved some objections.

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David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in Joel Feinberg, Reason And Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy, (Cengage Learning, 2008) p.39

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Marilyn Mccord and Adams Robert (editors), The Problem of Evil, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) Antognazza, Maria Rosa Leibniz: An Intellectual Autobiography, (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni. Press, 2009) Copleston, Frederick S. J., A History of Philosophy, Vol. 2, (New York: Continuum Intl Publishing, 2003) -------------------------------- A History of Philosophy, Vol. 4, (New York: Continuum Intl Publishing, 2003) Craig, Edward, ed. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (London and NewYork: Routledge, 1967). Feinberg, Joel. Reason and Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy, (Cengage Learning, 2008) Geivett, R. Douglas. Evil and the Evidence for God (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993) Hume, David Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947) Kolak, Daniel and Garrett Thomson. The Longman Standard History of Modern Philosophy, (New York: Pearson/Longman, 2006). Lawhead, William F. The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, 2nd ed., (Belmont: Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2002) Omoregbe, Joseph A Simplified History of Western Philosophy, (Lagos: Joja Educational Research and Publishers Ltd., 1991) Theodicy, Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil, ed. Austin Farrer, trans. E. M. Huggard (New Haven, CT: Yale Uni. Press, 1952) Wallace, William A. The Elements of Philosophy, (New York: Society of St. Paul, 2007) INTERNET SOURCES Hume, David. The Reading Selection from Natural Religion Philosophy Home Page. Web. 12 May 2013. <http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/introbook2.1/x4211.html&gt;. Voltaire. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 31 Aug. 2009. Web. 12 May 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voltaire/&gt;. Roach, Jesse Leibniz and the Problem of Evil Retrieved May 3, 2013 http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Leibniz/leibniz.html 7|Page