Kremer & Latzer - The - Problem.of - Evil.in - Early.modern - Philosophy.dec.2001

The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy
This page intentionally left blank

The Problem of Evil in
Early Modern Philosophy
Edited by
ELMAR J. KREMER AND
MICHAEL J. LATZER
U N I V E R S I T Y OF TO R O N TO PR E S S
Toronto B u f f a l o London
University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2001
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-3552-3
Printed on acid-free paper
Toronto Studies in Philosophy
Editors: James R. Brown and Amy Mullin
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
The problem of evil in early modern philosophy
(Toronto studies in philosophy)
Papers presented at a conference held at the University of Toronto,
Sept. 3-5,1999
ISBN 0-8020-3552-3
1. Good and evil - Congresses. 2. Theodicy - History of doctrines -
17th century-Congresses. I. Kremer, Elmar J. II. Latzer, Michael John,
1961- III. Series.
BJ1401.P762001 111'.84 C2001-930698-9
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing
program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing
activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program (BPIDP).
www.utppublishing.com
Contents
Contributors vii
1 Introduction 3
Elmar J. Kremer and Michael J. Latzer
2 Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts 1 0
Alfred J. Freddoso
3 Descartes's Theodicy of Error 35
Michael J. Latzer
4 Spinoza: A Radical Protestant? 49
Graeme Hunter
5 Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil 66
Steven M. Nadler
6 Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism or
Philosophical Courage? 81
Denis Moreau
1 Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil 1 01
D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon
8 Leibniz and the 'Disciples of Saint Augustine' on the Fate of
Infants Who Die Unbaptized 1 1 9
Elmar J. Kremer
vi Contents
9 Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of Theodicy 138
Donald Rutherford
10 Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil 165
Robert C. Sleigh, Jr.
Contributors
Alfred J. Freddoso
Graeme Hunter
Elmar J. Kremer
D. Anthony Lariviere
Michael J. Latzer
Thomas M. Lennon
Denis Moreau
Steven M. Nadler
Donald Rutherford
Robert C. Sleigh, Jr,
University of Notre Dame
University of Ottawa
University of Toronto
Lakehead University
Gannon University
University of Western Ontario
Universite de Nantes
University of Wisconsin, Madison
University of California, San Diego
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy
1
Introduction
ELMAR J. KREMER AND MICHAEL J. LATZER
The essays in this volume are about the problem of evil as it was understood and
wrestled with in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Or perhaps
'problems' of evil would be a better designation, since many distinct issues are
to be found wi t hi n the labyrinthine twists and turns of this momentous issue.
For the philosophers of the period, the task of theodicy was both philosophical
and theological. Philosophically, evil presented a challenge to the consistency
and rationality of the world-picture disclosed by the new way of ideas. But in
dealing with this challenge, philosophers were also influenced by the theologi-
cal debates about original sin, free will, and justification that were the aftermath
of the Protestant Reformation, and that exercised a formative influence on Euro-
pean intellectual life right up to the publication of Leibniz's Theodicy in 1710.
I
Is God unable to prevent evil? Then he is impotent. Is he unwilling? Then he is
malevolent. Is he both good and powerful? Whence, then, is evil? The problem,
in this formulation, is that the theist seems to be committed to an inconsistent
triad: God is omnipotent; God is benevolent; and yet evil exists. It seems that
any two parts of the triad taken together are inconsistent with the third. The
existence of an almighty and benevolent God is consistent with the appearance
of evil, if evil is an illusion. Similarly, the existence of an omnipotent but malev-
olent God is consistent with evil, as is the existence of a God at once benevolent
and limited in power. And, of course, if the divine attributes are held to be
beyond human comprehension entirely, the problem of evil again does not arise.
4 Elmar J. Kremer and Michael J. Latzer
God would in such a case be said to be 'good' and 'powerful,' but not in any
way humans can understand; hence the alleged compatibility of God and evil
could not be established. Classical theism, however, disallows the abandonment
of any part of the triad, and insists that we can express the divine attributes at
least analogically in human language. Thus the conditions for a genuine theod-
icy are set out by Leibniz, the philosopher who coined the word 'theodicy'
(from the Greek theos, 'God,' and dike, 'justice') and for whom the project was
a lifelong preoccupation: A genuine theodicy must consist of a set of proposi-
tions, not just hypothetical but actually true, capable of showing the ultimate
consistency of the existence of God and evil without sacrificing the attributes of
God as classically defined.
If it is possible to speak of a 'consensus' or 'mainstream' approach to theod-
icy in the Christian West, such would be the theodicy of Saint Augustine, to
whom Leibniz himself owed a great deal. The intellectual struggle with the
problem of evil defines the philosophy of Augustine to an enormous degree. As
he records in his Confessions, as a young man Augustine was attracted to the
sect of the Manichaeans precisely because of their rational solution to the prob-
lem of evil: cosmic dualism. Rather than fruitlessly endeavouring to show how
a single all-good principle could account for evil, the solution of the Manichae-
ans was to posit an evil god as the source of evil, leaving good alone as the
product of the good god. In the seventeenth century, Pierre Bayle will ironically
hail the 'hypothesis of the two principles' as indeed the only truly reasonable
solution to the problem. But Augustine found the answer to Manichaeism in his
discovery of the 'nothingness' of evil. Because evil is literally no-thing, but
simply the privation or absence of a good which ought to be present, there is no
need to trace its presence to any evil god, still less to the positive will of the one
good God. God merely 'permits' the privatio boni which his power could easily
prevent, but which his goodness allows, for his own good reasons.
What are these reasons? One of the most famous and influential Augustinian
contributions, with roots in both pagan philosophy and biblical revelation, is the
so-called 'aesthetic' theme: that whole consisting of evil and the good made
possible by and drawn out of evil is better than a condition simply good to
begin with, just as shadows are needed in paintings and dissonance in musical
compositions. Along with this theme, Augustine developed what has come to
be called the 'free will defence.' God is able to draw good even out of the
disordered (hence evil) choices of free rational agents, angelic and human,
which choices are themselves the causes of a vast amount (if not all) of the evil
around us.
As perennial as the themes of Augustine's theodicy are the challenges to
them, challenges that are central to the theodicy debates in the early modern
Introduction 5
period. If the world containing evil is ultimately a good world - perhaps even
the best of all possible worlds - does this not amount to a denial of the reality of
evil? Is the appearance of evil not in the end a function of the limitation of
human perception, such that, to an unclouded mind, 'whatever is, is right'? And
if God incorporates human choices, good and bad, in the plan for creation con-
ceived from all eternity, does not the inevitability of this plan imply that no
creatures are really free? So acute is this problem, and so contentious in the
history of Christian dogma, that Leibniz calls it a 'labyrinth' wherein human
reason goes inevitably astray. In the two centuries following the Protestant
Reformation, the problem of freedom and predestination reached an unsur-
passed degree of crisis, involving not just a plethora of excruciatingly difficult
and sophisticated attempts at solution, but social and cultural upheaval as well.
Thus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the theodicy problem was no
mere idle puzzle of dogmatics, but a problem of immense social significance, a
problem which cut to the heart of the philosophical and theological projects of
the very best minds of the age.
II
The problem of theodicy is urgent within the philosophy of the early modern
period because the dream of the new scientists was for a complete explanation
of reality without remainder, a physico-mathematical modelling of the world-
picture without any irrational surd to spoil the picture. It is striking that Des-
cartes, in the Meditations on First Philosophy, tries to limit his dicusssion of the
problem of evil to the problem of error, or a problem concerning the trust-
worthiness of clear and distinct ideas. Of course, this restriction of the problem
cannot hold, since error is intimately connected with sin or moral evil, and
Descartes is impelled to wrestle with evil like any traditional theodicist. In the
Fourth Meditation, he offers a version of the 'free-will defence,' locating the
origin of evil in the will of the erring creature. However, as Michael Latzer
argues, Descartes's free-will defence founders on his conception of God's abso-
lute and inscrutable predestination of all events, including human acts of
thought and will. Descartes presents this conception in his correspondence with
Princess Elizabeth as consoling - there is a Providence that shapes our ends.
But tracing evil to its source in utterly unfathomable divine decrees, and placing
God above the laws of mathematics and logic, as Descartes does, spells the end
of a rational theodicy.
Descartes would have wanted to avoid such an outcome. But Spinoza, by
contrast, makes a conscious and systematic effort to undermine the traditional
preconditions of theodicy in favour of what he regards as a more truly philo-
sophical (and more sublime) analysis of God, destiny, and the human condition.
Steven Nadler points out in his 'Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil' that
Spinoza's denial that God acts by free choice, that God is 'good' (as defined by
classical theism), and that God acts for the sake of ends, places him outside the
domain of traditional theodicy. But Spinoza is also interested in the project of
consolation. Nadler locates Spinoza in the context of medieval Jewish theodi-
cies, and notes that although Spinoza rejects such elements as post-mortem rec-
ompense for good deeds done and injustice suffered, he sees in Gersonides hints
of his own prescription for happiness: freedom through scientia intuitiva, or
knowledge through essences, related to their infinite causes. Through posses-
sion of adequate ideas, and indifference to the affective modes of good and evil,
the reward of virtue can be found in this world alone and authentic human good
realized.
However, as Graeme Hunter points out in 'Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?'
Spinoza also had close ties with some of the radical Protestants in the Nether-
lands, and in some passages presents his work as part of a new and more radical
Protestant reformation. Hunter rejects the traditional reading of the Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus through the lenses of the Ethics, and examines Spinoza's
dicta in the Tractatus concerning the spirit of Christ, the essentials of Christian
belief, and the principles of Christian reformation on the premise that they were
sincerely held and seriously intended. Hunter argues that against the crude
anthropomorphism of Cartesian divine voluntarism, the Spinoza of the Tracta-
tus offers an orthodox understanding of divine providence, ruling all things by
grace, mercy, and pity.
Leibniz is another of the moderns whose Christian orthodoxy seems to sit
uneasily with his philosophical principles. The tension in Leibniz's case is
brought out by Donald Rutherford in 'Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations
of Theodicy.' Like the Stoics, Leibniz teaches a doctrine of consolation based
on the pursuit of virtue grounded in the knowledge of divine justice. Leibniz
insists that his conception of the Fatum Christianum offers a richer consolation
than the Fatum Stoicum, because the Fatum Christianum includes an affirma-
tion of God's providential care for individual human beings. In the last analysis,
however, Leibniz does not locate beatitude in resignation to the Redeemer of
worldly suffering, or in the timeless beatific vision, but in the 'perpetual
progress' of the unending development of substances, and the independence
from fortune which true virtue, and conformity with the universal will, provide.
Recognition of the seriousness of Leibniz's consolatory and apologetic aims
in theodicy is a welcome corrective to caricatures of Leibniz's theodicy as shal-
low and merely popular. And, in fact, as Robert Sleigh notes in his essay, seri-
ous scholarship concerning Leibniz's undertakings in theodicy is in relative
Introduction 7
infancy, compared to other aspects of his system. Sleigh's contribution traces
some of the developments in Leibniz's thinking from the time of the early Con-
fessio Philosophi, through the Discourse on Metaphysics, and finally the
Theodicy, particularly with regard to Leibniz's handling of the classical themes
of the free-will defence and of evil as privation. As always in the work of the
great polymath, natural theology is never far removed from the abstruse doc-
trines of his metaphysics, such as his theories of contingency and of individua-
tion. His genius is in bringing together in synthesis his own idiosyncratic
metaphysical doctrines and the classical themes of Augustinan theodicy, includ-
ing the doctrine that the created universe as a whole reflects God's perfect wis-
dom and power.
That there is nothing to be improved upon in God's creation is common to the
theodicies of the moderns. But as Denis Moreau argues in 'Malebranche on
Disorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism or Philosophical Courage?' Male-
branche is a notable exception. For, in a striking way, Malebranche is willing to
allow that God's governance of the world through simple 'ways,' while unim-
peachable and wholly worthy of the Creator, may (and indeed does) involve
dysteleological 'surd' evils, instances of suffering of which we can say, without
any qualification, nuance, or excuse, 'It's evil.' Arnauld claimed that in this
respect Malebranche's theodicy is Manichaean. It can also be viewed as a pre-
cursor of the theodicies of the age of the Holocaust. Like a good Cartesian,
Malebranche highlights the connection of error and moral evil. But, unlike
Descartes, he shows a tolerance for an unredeemed remainder of physical evil.
In abandoning a pristine world-picture, Malebranche thus credits the phenome-
nological experience of suffering.
Ill
Another reason for the seventeenth-century preoccupation with evil and theod-
icy, equal in importance to the Rationalist dream of a perfect science, involves
the labyrinthine problem of freedom and predestination, particularly in the cau-
sation of sin. Although a problem with a biblical lineage, the contingencies of
history brought it, by the early modern period, to a near-crisis level of acute-
ness. The denial of human freedom and the determinism imposed by divine pre-
destination which Martin Luther read in some of the Pauline epistles was key to
the Reformer's rejection of the efficacy of good works, and of the whole sacer-
dotal-sacramental system of the Roman Church. The first attempt at a reasoned
refutation of Luther on freedom, Erasmus's On the Freedom of the Will, was
crushed by the more powerful reasoning of Luther's mighty Bondage of the
Will. Although the Church devised what was meant to be a definitive answer to
Luther at the Council of Trent, the more than a century of rancorous struggle
over grace and freedom which Catholics fought with Evangelical and Reformed
Churches spilled over into battles among Catholics.
The most important debate on these topics within the Catholic Church
occurred in the meetings of the Congregationes de Auxiliis. These were ad hoc
committees of cardinals called together to resolve a dispute that began in 1588
with the publication of the Jesuit Luis de Molina's work on the agreement of
free will with grace, and related matters, 'according to Several Articles in St.
Thomas,' and its repudiation by Domingo Banez, a more traditional Thomist
and the leading Dominican theologian of the time. The meetings lasted from
2 January 1598 until 28 August 1607, and ended without a resolution of the
issues. Dispute broke out again among Catholics after the publication of Jan-
sen's Augustinus in 1640 and continued into the eighteenth century. Alfred
Freddoso's essay, 'Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts,' illus-
trates the degree of complexity that the problem had reached in the Jesuit camp
at the threshold of the seventeenth century. Suarez's finely tuned analysis of the
concurrence of God in the sinful acts of creatures is an attempt to walk the
razor-thin line between ascribing the causation of evil acts to God (and so vio-
lating divine goodness) and ascribing their causation to creatures (and so violat-
ing omnipotence).
The disputes between the various Christian denominations, as well as within
the Catholic Church, provided much material for Pierre Bayle's Historical and
Critical Dictionary. Bayle's massively erudite work intensified the theodicy
problem on many fronts, and, whatever Bayle may have intended, provided
ammunition for atheology well into the late eighteenth century. (Its influence is
felt, for example, in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.) Some of
Bayle's aporetic challenges on the freedom-foreknowledge issue are discussed
by D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas Lennon in 'Bayle on the Moral Problem
of Evil.' Typically cloaking his views in commentary on the views of others,
Bayle voices his dislike of classical solutions by approving the Socinian denial
of foreknowledge. This move seemed to Bayle at least more reasonable than the
unfathomable affirmation of both divine foreknowledge and human liberty of
indifference, to be found, for example, in the theodicy of William King. More
generally, the theodicy problem is given acute focus by Bayle through his insis-
tence on two theses: first, that 'good' can be applied univocally to God and
creatures, so that we cannot get away with claiming God's goodness is quite
unlike ours, subject to different rules; and, second, that God is utterly free to
make any world, unfettered by any need to achieve plenitude of being, or any
other quasi-aesthetic result. These theses generate the haunting fear that per-
haps God is not good at all.
Introduction 9
Leibniz's Theodicy, written in response to Bayle, was the last instalment in
Leibniz's lifelong effort on behalf of the reunification of the Christian churches.
Thus in a letter of 2 May 1715, about eighteen months before his death, he
expresses his pleasure at the favourable reception of the Theodicy by 'excellent
theologians of the three religions.' Yet, as we have seen in connection with
Donald Rutherford's essay, Leibniz's own theological views were sometimes
sufficiently unorthodox to threaten his project. Elmar Kremer, in 'Leibniz and
the "Disciples of Saint Augustine" on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized,'
argues that Leibniz's repudiation of the Augustinian position on this particular
point led him to a markedly unorthodox position on original sin. Kremer also
argues that Leibniz's position on the fate of infants who die unbaptized reflects
an important break with the Augustinian division of the problem of evil into two
parts, one dealing with humans (and other intelligent creatures) and one dealing
with subhuman creatures.
Leibniz's discomfiture is archetypical of the early modern philosophers in
their dealings with the problems of theodicy. Their philosophy tended to put
them at odds with all of the important Christian theological positions on sin,
grace, and justification. Yet they were forced, for practical as well as theoretical
reasons, to stay in touch with the ongoing theological discussion. It is our hope
that the studies in this volume will stimulate further research into the resulting
struggles of the early modern philosophers to resolve this most poignant and
troubling of problems.
The papers in this volume were delivered at a conference on the problem
of evil in early modern philosophy held at the University of Toronto during
3-5 September 1999, and sponsored by the SSHRC, by the Department of
Philosophy, University of Toronto, and by St. Michael's College, University
of Toronto. We would like to thank Sebastien Charles and Syliane Charles of
the University of Ottawa, Sarah Byers, Karen Detlefsen, Sarah Marquardt,
Jon Miller, Tobin Woodruff, and Byron Williston of the University of Toronto,
and Patricia Sheridan of the University of Western Ontario, who provided
commentaries on the papers, as well as those who attended and took part in the
discussion at the conference.
Suarez on God's Causal Involvement
in Sinful Acts
ALFRED J. FREDDOSO
1. Introduction: Evil and God
In this paper I will explore certain key features of Francisco Suarez's account of
God's action in the world, with an eye toward explaining his view of the precise
way in which God concurs with - that is, makes an immediate causal contribu-
tion to - free action in general and sinful action in particular. Suarez agrees with
his mainly Thomistic opponents that God is an immediate cause of every effect
produced by creatures - including every free act and, a fortiori, every sinful act
elicited by creatures with a rational or 'free' nature. But he differs markedly
from them in his account of how it can be plausibly maintained that God
permits sin without causing sin or, to put it somewhat differently, how it can
be plausibly maintained that the moral defectiveness of a sin is not traceable
to God as a source.
The heart of the paper will be drawn from sections 2-4 of Disputation 22 of
the Disputationes Metaphysicae (DM), but I want to begin by defining the prob-
lematic in light of Suarez's general discussion of the metaphysics of evil in Dis-
putation 11. Suarez agrees with traditional writers that what is 'evil in itself is
either (a) the privation of some good that ought to belong to a given subject in
view of its nature and powers or (b) the subject itself insofar as it suffers such a
privation. Beyond this, however, he notes that a positive entity can be 'evil for
another' in the sense that its presence in a particular type of subject entails the
absence of some good which that subject ought to have. Such an entity might be
a natural evil, that is, a positive entity that deprives its subject of some natural
good it ought to have according to the standard set by its own nature. For
2
Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts 11
instance, from the perspective of Aristotelian science heat is a positive entity
that is naturally bad for water, since water is by its nature cold; again, a sixth
finger on one hand is a positive entity that is naturally bad for a human being,
since by their nature human beings have five fingers on each hand; and, more
generally, pain is a positive entity that is naturally bad for animals. In addition,
some positive entities that are 'evil for another' are moral evils, that is, entities
that are bad for a free nature precisely insofar as it is free. Moral evil is divided
into the evil of sin or fault (malum culpae) and the evil of punishment (malum
poenae), a distinction that Suarez characterizes as follows:
We can say succinctly and clearly that the evil of sin (malum culpae) is a disorder
in a free action or omission - that is, a lack of due perfection as regards a free
action - whereas the evil of punishment (malum poenae) is any other lack of a due
good that is contracted or inflicted because of sin. (DM 11.2.5)
Thus, a sinful act, while good to the extent that it is a real quality of a rational
will, is defective because by its nature it induces a privation of the due ordering
to God that its subject - a free and rational creature - ought to have. An evil of
punishment, on the other hand, can itself be either a sin that is causally con-
nected with other sins or some other type of suffering that God directly inflicts
or at least permits.
Although Suarez concedes that from outside the Christian perspective it
seems that human beings suffer natural evils that are in no way connected with
sin, he nonetheless notes that, according to the Faith, all the natural evils that
befall us as human beings in fact stem ultimately from sin and especially from
original sin, since God's antecedent intention was that we should be free from
sin and suffering and death:
Even though, leaving aside divine providence, one could conceive of some natural
evil in a rational creature which was not inflicted because of any fault and which
would thus be neither a sin nor a punishment, nonetheless, we believe that in con-
formity with divine providence no lack of a due perfection can exist in a rational
creature unless it is a sin or else takes its origin from sin. It is for this reason that
Augustine, In Genesim ad litteram, chap. 1, says that every evil is either a sin or a
punishment for sin. In fact, it is not only the evil that exists formally in human
beings, but also that which exists in irrational and inanimate things, to the extent
that it results in harm for human beings themselves, that pertains to the evil of
punishment - not punishment with respect to the lower things but with respect to
the human beings themselves, because of whose sin it is inflicted or permitted.
(DM 11.2.5)
12 Alfred J. Freddoso
(In this connection, though, it is important to note in passing that punishment,
strictly speaking, is contrary to the will of the sufferer. So within the Christian
dispensation the evil of punishment loses its character as punishment when it is
willingly embraced in atonement for sin out of supernatural love for God and
neighbour and is in this way joined to the redemptive suffering of Christ.)
Having laid out this taxonomy, Suarez turns to the causal origins of evil and,
more specifically, to the role of the First Cause in the genesis of evil. His discus-
sion is subtle and complex, and so I will limit myself to just a few relevant
points. Some natural evils are the per accidens or incidental by-products of the
'perfect' action of unimpeded and non-defective created (or secondary) agents
on non-defective patients, and as such they are traceable to God's immediate
influence in the same way that they are traceable to the immediate influence of
their proximate secondary causes. By contrast, other natural evils find their
direct source in a defect of power in the agents that cause them or in various
external impediments that keep their agents from 'perfectly' producing the
effects at which they are aiming. Such evils are not causally traceable directly to
God, but they are traceable to him indirectly and in the final analysis, since the
various defects from which they originate always have their ultimate source in
'perfect' actions of the sort just described (DM 11.3.23). What's more, both nat-
ural evils and evils of punishment are such that God, as an intelligent and prov-
ident agent, can directly intend them for the sake of some good, even if he
cannot be a per se and immediate cause of them (DM 11.3.21). So on Suarez's
view there is in principle no metaphysical or moral problem with God's being a
causal source in some way or other of natural evils and evils of punishment.
Sinful actions, however, are a different story because they constitute a free
agent's rejection of God's unfailing love and impede the agent's union with God
and with other rational creatures. As such, they have a special repugnance to
God's goodness and are directly contrary to what he intends. Thus, even though
God might use our sins as instruments in bringing us to true humility and repen-
tance, he cannot directly intend sin or be a causal source of sin or in any way
induce us to sin.
Suarez summarizes his discussion in this way:
Because of its depravity, the evil of sin cannot be intended or willed by God, but
only permitted. On the other hand, the other kinds of evil, wherever they come
from, can be directly willed and intended by God, as long they do not include sin.
For they do not have a depravity that is incompatible with his great goodness. And
so it is only the evil of sin that God cannot be a cause of, whereas he can be a cause
of the other kinds of evil. (DM 11.3.24)
So as far as the causal origin of evil is concerned, the only daunting general
metaphysical problem, according to Suarez, is to explain in a precise and per-
suasive way how God makes an immediate causal contribution to each sinful act
without its being the case that the moral defectiveness of such acts is causally
traceable to him in any way.
2. God's General Concurrence: The Basic Account
In order to grasp Suarez's solution to this problem, we must begin with his
account of God's general concurrence in Disputation 22 of the Disputationes
Metaphysicae. By the end of Disputation 21, Suarez takes himself to have
established that every effect depends on God per se and immediately for its con-
servation. One way to broach the topic of Disputation 22 is to ask whether
every effect likewise depends on God per se and immediately for its production.
When the production takes place directly through creation ex nihilo, the answer
is obviously affirmative. But the more problematic case is production through
the communication of an accidental or substantial form, since such production
is normally effected by the action of secondary causes.
The question can be put in a slightly different way by asking whether God acts
per se and immediately in every action of a created or secondary cause. To be
sure, God per se and immediately conserves created agents with their active pow-
ers at the very time when they are engaged in their productive activity. But from
this it follows only 'that God's influence is required ... remotely andperaccidens
for the action of any created cause' (DM 22.1.1). The question now being posed
is whether every action of a created agent is literally a single cooperative action
with the First Agent, an action in which both God and the created agent are per
se and immediate causes of the very same effect at the very same time.
Suarez's affirmative reply to these two questions can be captured in five 'con-
currentist' tenets that he shares in common with his Thomistic rivals. These
constitute what I will call the 'basic account' of God's general concurrence.
The first tenet is that God is a per se and immediate cause of any effect pro-
duced by a created agent, while the second is that in producing such an effect,
God and the created agent act by the very same cooperative action. Given these
two tenets, it follows that in each case of secondary causality, a unitary effect is
immediately produced by God and the relevant secondary cause through a sin-
gle cooperative action. In other words, the effect is not divided into a part
caused by God and a part caused by the created agent; nor do they act by sepa-
rate actions. There is just a single effect produced by a single action, and that
action belongs to both God and the secondary cause.
The third tenet is that even though there is just a single action, God and
the secondary agent act by different powers within diverse orders of causality.
More specifically, the secondary agent acts by its created or natural powers
as a particular cause of the effect, whereas God acts by his uncreated power as
a general or universal cause of the effect. (Hence the designation 'general
concurrence.')
This tenet requires careful unpacking. Concurrentists are committed to the
view that when God cooperates with a secondary agent to produce a given
effect, God's immediate contribution and the secondary agent's immediate
contribution are complementary. The problem is to formulate a satisfactory
metaphysical characterization of this complementarity that will not render
superfluous either the secondary cause's immediate contribution or God's
immediate contribution.
The only viable way to do this is to claim that certain features or aspects of
the unitary effect are traceable exclusively or primarily to God and that certain
other features of the effect are traceable exclusively or primarily to the second-
ary agents.
1
Accordingly, the concurrentists claim that God acts as a universal
cause whose proper effect is being or esse as such, while the secondary cause
participates in God's universal agency by directing it toward its own proper
effect, that is, toward a particular effect to which its intrinsic powers are ordered
in the relevant concrete circumstances. This should not be understood to mean
that God's concurrence is exactly similar in every instance of secondary causal-
ity or that it is, as it were, an 'indifferent' influence that is somehow 'particular-
ized' by the secondary cause. To the contrary, in each instance God's action and
the secondary cause's action are one and the same action, and so just as the
actions of secondary causes are obviously multifarious in species, so too God's
concurrence varies in species from one circumstance to another.
2
Rather, the
point of calling God a universal cause of the effects of secondary agents is, in
part, that any communication of esse by a secondary agent is a participation or
sharing in God's own communication of esse as such, and that God's manner of
allowing for this participation is to tailor his proper causal influence in each
case to what is demanded by the natures of the relevant secondary agents.
An analogy might be useful here. Suppose that I use my favourite pen to
write you a letter. It seems clear that both the pen and I count as joint immediate
causes of a single effect, though in different 'orders of causality.' More specifi-
cally, I am a principal cause of the letter, while the pen is an instrumental
cause.
3
Yet the fact that the letter is written in black rather than in some other
colour depends primarily on the causal powers of the pen as an instrumental
cause rather than on any of my powers as a principal cause. (Remember that we
are concentrating on my action just insofar as it is identical with the pen's
action; my further reasons for choosing this particular pen do not enter into
that.) On the other hand, the fact that the word 'philosophy,' rather than some
other word, occurs at a certain place on the piece of paper - or, even better, the
fact that there is any word produced at that place rather than none at all -
depends primarily on my influence as a principal cause rather than on the pen's
as an instrumental cause.
Similarly, it seems reasonable to claim that one and the same effect is primar-
ily from God insofar as it is something rather than nothing, and primarily from
its secondary cause insofar as it is an effect of one particular type rather than
another. For example, a newly conceived armadillo is from God insofar as it is
something rather than nothing, and from its parents insofar as it is an animal of
the species armadillo rather than some other sort of effect.4 This formulation
seems to capture both (a) the idea that a secondary cause's communication of
esse presupposes God's contribution and (b) the idea that the particular type
of esse communicated in any instance of secondary causality stems from the
natures of the relevant secondary causes. In summary, then, the effect is undi-
vided and yet such that both its universal or general cause and its particular
causes contribute to its production in distinctive and non-redundant modes.
By contrast, if God had acted by himself to create the baby armadillo ex
nihilo, then he would have been a particular cause of the new armadillo (see DM
22.4.9). As it stands, however, his cooperative influence is merely general or
universal in the sense that he allows the active powers of the relevant secondary
agents to determine the specific nature of the very same effect that his own
influence plays an essential role in producing. In short, the manner of his con-
curring is adapted in each case to the natures of the relevant secondary agents
and is different from the mode of acting he would have engaged in if he had
caused the relevant effect by himself. A secondary agent, on the other hand,
cannot act at all or communicate esse to any effect independently of God's gen-
eral concurrence, since its power, even if sufficient for the effect within the
order of secondary causes, needs God's concurrence in order to be exercised. As
Suarez puts it, God's readiness to grant his concurrence to a created agent in a
set of concrete circumstances is one of the prerequisites for that agent's acting
in those circumstances. But an agent is 'proximately able' to act, or 'in proxi-
mate potency' for acting, only when all the prerequisites for its acting have
been posited in reality. It follows that even though a created agent might have a
power which is sufficient within its own order for a given effect, it is not proxi-
mately able to produce the effect without God's readiness to grant his concur-
rence for that very effect.
5
Thus, in holding that God acts as both a universal and immediate cause of the
effects of secondary agents, the concurrentists delineate a mode of cooperative
action that defines a middle position between occasionalism, which in essence
holds that God is a particular cause of every effect produced in the world, and
the position according to which God is only a remote - that is, non-immediate -
cause of the effects produced by secondary agents. What's more, the distinction
between universal and particular causality gives concurrentists the resources to
explain how two agents, operating by different powers and in different orders of
causality, can produce one and the same effect by a single cooperative action.
The distinction between universal and particular causality also provides con-
currentists with at least a foothold for the claim that the moral defectiveness of a
sinful action is traceable exclusively to the rational agent who is its secondary
cause. Revert for a moment to the example of the pen, and suppose that the term
'philosophy' is barely visible because the pen is running out of ink. This defect
is traceable to the pen as an instrumental cause and not to my influence as a
principal cause. In like manner, the fact that a sinful action exists at all is trace-
able primarily to God, whereas the fact that it is morally defective is traceable
exclusively to the rational agent. (Indeed, Suarez himself takes it to be distinc-
tive of rational agents that they are capable of being the sole originating source
of their own moral defects, whereas the defects of natural agents must always
be derived in the final analysis from the positive action of some other agent or
agents [see DM 11.3.23].) However, as noted, the distinction between universal
and particular causality provides only a foothold for the claim that God is not a
source of the moral defectiveness of sinful actions. For the basic account of
concurrence needs to be fleshed out more precisely, and it remains to be seen
whether the other elements in a full account of God's general concurrence will
themselves cohere with this claim.
The fourth tenet is that the secondary cause's contribution to the effect is sub-
ordinate to God's contribution. Suarez explains this subordination as follows:
If we draw a conceptual distinction between the action insofar as it is from the First
Cause and the action insofar as it is from the secondary cause, then the action can
be said to be from the First Cause in a prior and more principal way than from the
secondary cause; and, similarly, the First Cause will be said to have his influence
on the action prior in nature to the secondary cause's having its influence on it. For,
first of all, the First Cause is a higher cause and influences the effect in a more
noble and more independent way. Second, the First Cause is related to the action
per se and primarily under a more universal concept, since the First Cause has an
influence on every effect or action whatsoever precisely because every effect or
action has some share in being. The secondary cause, on the other hand, always has
its influence under some posterior and more determinate concept of being. (DM
22.3.10)
Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinf ul Acts 17
Later I will raise the issue of whether this account of subordination is strong
enough as it stands, but all parties would agree to at least as much as Suarez
asserts here.
The fifth and final tenet is that in any given case the cooperative action of
God and the secondary cause with respect to a given effect is such that the inf lu-
ence actually exercised by the one would not have existed or effected anything
at all in the absence of the influence exercised by the other. This follows from
the fact that a secondary cause is unable to effect anything without God's con-
currence, taken together with the fact that in any given concrete situation God's
general concurrence complements the particular concurrence of the secondary
cause and hence does not overdetermine the effect.
This, then, is the sort of divine cooperation with secondary causes that both
Suarez and his opponents are concerned to defend.
6
I want to turn now to the
differences between them that emerge from the attempt to f ill out this basic
account.
3. The Thomistic Gambit
In section 2 of Disputation 22, Suarez tries to show, against unnamed 'later
Thomists' (DM 22.2.7), that God's general concurrence involves nothing other
than his actual influence on the secondary cause's action and effect. More spe-
cifically, he argues at great length that God's general concurrence has no effect
within the secondary agent itself that is in any way prior to the cooperative
action by which that agent's own effect is produced; rather, God's concurrence
is just his contribution to that cooperative action, that is, to the cooperative pro-
duction of the joint effect. In the words of the title of section 2, Suarez's claim is
that God's general concurrence is 'something in the manner of an action' and
not 'something in the manner of a principle of action.'
But what is it to claim that God's concurrence involves 'something in the
manner of a principle of action' ? And why do many Thomistic authors make
this claim?
To answer these questions, we should begin by noting that the theories
opposed to Suarez's take their inspiration from a model that many scholastic
thinkers associate with certain traditional axioms regarding the subordination of
finite agents to God, namely, that of a craftsman using a tool in order to produce
an artifact - not unlike the example of the pen and the letter I used above to
illustrate the difference between universal and particular causality. The crafts-
man fashions the artifact through the tool as an instrument, and this in turn sug-
gests that the craftsman does something to the tool even while using it in the
production of the effect. In other words, the craftsman is not only engaging in a
cooperative or joint action with the tool, but is also unilaterally imparting to the
tool a principle of action that is causally prior to that cooperative action.
But what sort of 'principle of action' are we speaking of here? There are two
possible answers to this question, corresponding to the two theories that Suarez
criticizes in section 2.
According to the first answer, in using the tool the craftsman imparts to it a
power that 'completes' or 'perfects' its intrinsic power and makes the tool prox-
imately able to act on the relevant patient in such a way as to produce the arti-
fact. So on this view the tool's intrinsic power is insufficient for the effect even
within its own order of causality - namely, instrumental causality - and so that
power needs to be supplemented by a 'higher agent,' the craftsman. Moreover,
the power conferred by the craftsman is best thought of as temporary in the
sense that it is not a type of power that could be had by the tool as an accidental
form or characteristic that endures beyond the temporal interval during which
the craftsman is using it; that is, it is a type of power that the tool has when and
only when it is being moved by the higher agent in the cooperative action by
which the artifact is produced.
According to the second answer, in contrast, the craftsman does not empower
the tool, but simply applies the tool's intrinsic power to the patient in such a
way as to produce their joint effect. On this view, the tool's power is anteced-
ently sufficient within the order of instrumental causality and does not need
supplementation. Instead, the tool, with its pre-existent power, simply needs to
be moved or directed in the appropriate ways by a higher agent in order to be
proximately able to participate in the production of the effect. In technical
terms, this motion is variously called an 'application' or 'pre-motion' or 'pre-
determination' which has the tool as its subject and is prior in some obvious
sense - even if not temporally prior - to the cooperative action by which the
artifact is produced.
So the answer to the original question is this: The relevant principle of action
conferred on the tool by the craftsman is either a power or the application of a
power. And it is the reception of this principle of action that constitutes the
tool's subordination to the craftsman during the time of their cooperative action.
When we turn now to God's general concurrence with secondary causes, this
model, articulated in one of the ways just explained, yields the standard inter-
pretations of the following scholastic axioms: (a) 'A secondary cause does not
act unless it is moved (or: pre-moved) by the First Cause'; (b) 'A secondary
cause is applied to its action by the First Cause'; (c) 'A secondary cause is
determined (or: predetermined) to its effect by the First Cause'; (d) 'A second-
ary cause acts in the power of the First Cause'; and (e) 'A secondary cause is
subordinated in its acting to the First Cause.' And it is precisely these standard
interpretations that give rise to the two theories of God's concurrence that
Suarez finds wanting.
7
According to the first of these theories, by his concurrence God first 'com-
pletes' the secondary cause's power and then proceeds to produce the effect in
cooperation with the secondary cause, where the completion of the power is
causally (rather than temporally) prior to the cooperative action. Suarez gives
two descriptions which, taken together, capture the most plausible version of
this theory:
The concurrence is a certain entity that emanates from the First Cause and is
received in the secondary cause, bringing the secondary cause to final completion
[as an agent] and determining it to produce a given effect. The reason why this con-
currence is said to be something 'in the manner of principle' is that it is the second-
ary cause's power to act or, at least, it formally brings that power to completion.
(DM 22.2.2)
The First Cause's concurrence is something in the manner of a principle and
infused power ... The concurrence begins, as it were, with the conferral of this
power and yet does not consist in this conferral [alone], but rather proceeds further
right to the creature's very own action, with the result that what influences the
action immediately is not only the power communicated to the secondary cause but
also the divine and uncreated power itself. (DM 22.2.24)
Suarez begins his critique of this theory by insisting that the powers of sec-
ondary causes are usually complete or perfect within their own order of causal-
ity just in virtue of God's having created and conserved them. Hence, secondary
agents do not normally need a supplementary power of that same order - that is,
a special power that is contemporaneous with their action. To put it in technical
terms, secondary agents are as a general rule 'perfectly constituted in first act
within their own order' prior to the time when their power is exercised.
Moreover, even if it is true that in some cases the power of a secondary cause
needs to be supplemented by God or some other higher agent at the very time of
the action, this supplementation is naturally prior to God's general concurrence
and not apart of it:
It is true that God sometimes, at least supernaturally, makes up for a secondary
cause's imperfection by supplementing its power to act; he does this especially in
our own case when he infuses the supernatural habits. But this falls outside of our
present topic, since such an infusion of power has to do not with the First Cause's
concurrence, but rather with the secondary cause's being elevated or perfected
through the First Cause's action. Accordingly, if we are speaking of a secondary
cause that has been perfectly constituted in first act within its own order, then it is
pointless to add to it some other principle of acting that is received within it. (DM
22.2.4)
In other words, God's general concurrence always presupposes that the sec-
ondary cause's power is complete and sufficient within its own order of causal-
ity, regardless of how or when this completion is accomplished. It is only when
the secondary cause proceeds from 'first act' into 'second act' - that is, only
when it proceeds from already having sufficient power to actually exercising
that power - that God's concurrence comes into play.
And in reply to the objection - again inspired by the model of the craftsman
and the tool - that the power conferred by God on the secondary cause is indeed
part of his general concurrence because that power is an instrument through
which he himself acts, Suarez asks whether or not God's contribution to the
effect is exhausted by his producing this 'instrumental' power within the sec-
ondary cause. If the answer is yes, then God is merely a remote cause of the
secondary agent's effect, since the only power by which he acts is a created
power that inheres, even if only briefly, in the secondary cause. On the other
hand, if God's contribution to the joint effect is not exhausted by the production
of this alleged instrumental power, but includes as well an independent and
immediate exercise of his own uncreated power, then any instrumental power is
wholly superfluous:
If ... in addition to the influence of this instrumental power, God is also said to
influence the secondary cause's action immediately by his own uncreated power,
then it is at once evident per se how pointless the alleged instrumental power that
remains on God's part would be. For the divine power is intimately present there
through itself. And by its own eminence this power is sufficient to have, and pro-
portioned for having, a per se influence on the action; indeed, it must necessarily
have such an influence in order for the creature to be able to effect any action what-
soever. Therefore, an instrumental power of the sort in question on God's part is
unnecessary; therefore, such a power is wholly irrelevant to the First Cause's con-
currence, which is necessary per se and pertains to the secondary cause's essential
subordination to the First Cause. (DM 22.2.6)
At this juncture, the objector might concede Suarez's point but insist that
even if God does not confer any power on the secondary cause, he must at least
apply or pre-move or predetermine that cause, with its own intrinsic power, in
order to make it proximately capable of producing the joint effect. For surely,
Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinf ul Acts 21
the argument goes, the secondary cause's essential subordination to God can be
preserved only if God is thought of as acting on and through it.
This brings us to the second and more sophisticated theory, which corre-
sponds to the second opinion about the craftsman's relation to the tool. Suarez
characterizes this theory as follows in two different places:
The second position is that the First Cause's concurrence is something in the man-
ner of a principle within the secondary cause itself and is ordered toward its action,
though not as a per se principle of that action [that is, a power], but only as a neces-
sary condition for acting. This seems to be the position of all those who claim that
God's concurrence occupies itself with the secondary cause prior to the latter's
action, by applying or determining it to that action. (DM 22.2.7)
The First Cause's concurrence begins (as I will put it) with the motion or appli-
cation of the secondary cause, but is consummated in the immediate and per se
causing of the very effect or action of the secondary cause itself. (DM 22.2.14)
So on this theory God's concurrence does not produce a power within the
secondary cause, but instead produces a motion by which God applies the sec-
ondary cause to its action. Still, this application or pre-motion must be 'at least
causally prior' to the secondary cause's action (DM 22.2.7). For even though
the application is temporally simultaneous with the action by which God and
the secondary cause cooperate in the production of the latter's effect, it has the
secondary cause itself as its subject and hence cannot be identical with the
cooperative action. This is why Suarez calls the application a 'necessary condi-
tion' for the cooperative action.
Each of the arguments for the second theory invokes one of the scholastic
axioms noted above, and the model of the craftsman and the tool looms promi-
nently in the background throughout. Like the tool, the secondary cause must be
pre-moved or applied to its action; that is, it must be directed or determined by
the art and power of the divine craftsman to produce the effect that its own
i ntri nsi c power is proportioned to. And just as the tool acts in the power of the
craftsman, so too the secondary cause acts in the power of the First Cause.
Again, just as the tool is elevated by the craftsman's application so that it can
participate in producing the craftsman's proper effect - namely, the artifact - so
too the secondary cause is elevated by the First Cause's application so that it can
participate in producing God's proper effect - namely, esse. Or so, at least,
argue the proponents of the second theory.
Suarez, however, is not impressed with these arguments and goes so far as to
call the alleged application (or pre-motion or predetermination) 'neither neces-
sary nor ful l y intelligible' (DM 22.2.14). He argues in effect that while the
model of the craftsman and the tool might help us to appreciate certain general
features of God's general concurrence, it is badly misleading in the details.
First of all, the craftsman's application of a tool typically aims at putting the
tool into the appropriate spatial relations with the patient. By contrast, God's
general concurrence already presupposes that the secondary agent is suitably
proximate to its patient. For this proximity is one of the prerequisites for the
secondary agent's action, and God's general concurrence presupposes that all
the necessary conditions for acting are already satisfied.
Again, the craftsman's application of the tool has as its direct formal termi-
nus or effect a series of spatial locations that belong to the tool as accidental
forms. By contrast, there is no plausible analogue for such an effect in the case
of God's putative application of the secondary cause:
If [the application] is an instance of real efficient causality, then it will be a real
movement or change belonging to the secondary cause. What terminus, then, does
it have? Not a spatial terminus or a terminus in any category other than quality, as
seems per se evident. But neither can the terminus be a quality. For if this quality is
bestowed as a power of acting ... the arguments made above [against the first posi-
tion] will be brought to bear again. On the other hand, if the quality is not bestowed
in order to effect anything, then it has nothing to do with acting, and there is no
possible reason why it should be called a necessary condition. You will object that
it is necessary for conjoining the secondary agent to the First Agent in the way that
an instrument is conjoined to the principal cause. But this and similar claims,
which can be expressed in words, cannot be explained in terms of realities. For the
conjoining in question is neither a real union nor a more intimate presence, but only
some new effect, the role of and need for which in the secondary cause's action is
what we are scrutinizing. (DM 22.2.23)
So unlike the craftsman's application of the tool, God's alleged application of
the secondary cause has no obviously relevant effect within the secondary
cause. Suarez's conclusion is that God's concurrence does not, after all, involve
an 'application' of the secondary cause in any non-metaphorical sense.
Again, whereas the tool's acting in the power of the craftsman is perhaps
identifiable with the craftsman's application of it, a secondary cause's acting 'in
the power of God' is nothing more than its acting 'through a power that partici-
pates in a higher power and ... with a dependence in [its] action on the actual
influence of that power' (DM 22.2.51). But this is compatible with the claim
that by his concurrence God acts with the secondary cause rather than, literally,
on or through it.
The model of the craftsman and the tool is especially troublesome when
applied to the free actions of rational creatures. According to Suarez, an agent is
free just in case, with all the prerequisites for acting having been posited, that
agent is (a) able to act - that is, to will - and also able not to act (freedom with
respect to exercise); and (b) able to will an object and also able to will some
contrary object (freedom with respect to specification).
8
His charge in the
present context is that because the pre-motions or predeterminations posited by
his opponents are causally prior to the secondary cause's action and ordered
toward a single effect - in this instance, a single act of the rational agent's will -
they are destructive of both freedom with respect to exercise and freedom with
respect to specification:
The condition called a 'predetermination' is not only unnecessary for a free cause
in light of its peculiar mode of acting, but is also for that very reason incompatible
with it if it is going to act freely with respect to both exercise and specification. For
the use of freedom would be impeded on both these counts by such a predetermina-
tion. This claim is explained, first, for the case of indifference with respect to the
specification of the act: Since the First Cause alone is said to effect the predetermi-
nation in question, the will is merely in passive potency with respect to it; hence,
the will is not free with respect to it, but is instead passively or negatively indiffer-
ent, in the way that matter is indifferent with respect to various forms. For, as we
showed above, there is no freedom in a passive faculty as such. Therefore, it is not
within the will's active and free power to receive this or that determination; there-
fore, since it is determined to only one act, it is able to effect that act and no other.
(DM2.2.35)
9
Indifference with respect to the exercise of the act is likewise destroyed. For, as has
been explained, if the sort of predetermination in question is necessary, then before
it is received, the will does not have it within its active and free power to exercise
the relevant act, since it is not yet a proximate principle - that is, a principle that is
complete and accompanied by all the prerequisites for acting. It is not yet even a
remote active power (as I will put it), since it does not have it within its power to do
anything to acquire the condition or predetermination in question. Instead, it is
merely in passive potency with respect to that condition - which is not sufficient
for freedom. Again, once the condition called a 'predetermination' is posited in the
will, it is impossible for the will not to exercise the act, and it cannot resist the
determination or its motion; therefore, at no time does the will have both the power
to exercise the act and also the power not to exercise the act; therefore, its indiffer-
ence with respect to exercise, which consists in this power, is destroyed. (DM
22.2.37)
8
As we shall see below, the rejection of predeterminations does not by itself
guarantee freedom as Suarez defines it. But the affirmation of predetermina-
tions does seem to destroy freedom so defined, since, according to Suarez's
opponents, the predeterminations are themselves necessary prerequisites for a
secondary cause's acting in any way at all. But if that is so, then Suarez's argu-
ments seem to be right on the mark. First of all, the pre-motion or predetermina-
tion is always ordered toward the exercise of the relevant power, in this case the
faculty of the will. It seems to follow that if the predetermination is in place,
then the rational agent is unable to refrain from acting - which undermines free-
dom with respect to exercise. Second, any predetermination is ordered toward
a particular species of effect. And here it seems to follow that the agent can-
not will any object other than the one toward which the predetermination is
ordered - which undermines freedom with respect to specification.
The problem is, needless to say, exacerbated in the case of sinful actions:
If [the will] receives a determination to will an evil object, why should it be
imputed to it that it does not receive a determination to will against that object? For
this cannot be imputed to it because of some prior act, both because it is possible
for there not to have been any prior act, and also because the prior act could not
have been effected without some other predetermination, with regard to which the
same problem arises again; nor, again, can it be imputed to the will because of the
absence of some act, both because (a) the predetermination to that act is likewise
not within the will's power and so neither can the absence of the act be imputed to
it, since without exception the primary root of the will's not operating, even when
all the other prerequisites have been posited, is that it does not receive the predeter-
mination in question - for if it did receive it, it would operate - and also because
(b) it is not always the case that a positive evil act is preceded by the absence of
some required prior act; rather, [in some cases] the one act is omitted at the very
same time the other is being chosen. (DM 22.2.36)
The Thomists posit predeterminations in part to sustain the doctrine that God
is the principal originating source of being and goodness, including moral
goodness. Suarez is charging in effect that their theory has the unintended con-
sequence of making God the primary source of moral defectiveness as well and
of obliterating the distinction between God's merely permitting sin and his
being a cause of the defectiveness of sin. What's more, given the doctrine of
predeterminations, it is futile to invoke the distinction between universal and
particular causality and to claim that only the material element of a sinful act -
namely, its being as a quality of the mind - is primarily from God, whereas
its formal element - namely, its moral defectiveness - is exclusively from the
secondary cause. For to predetermine just this act in just these circumstances
involves willing the act by an absolute volition. As Suarez puts it in a related
context:
The [formal] element follows from the [material], since the created will's free act
with respect to this object in these circumstances cannot exist without having the
badness that is concomitant with it. Therefore, if someone wills by an absolute
volition that such an act be elicited by a created will with respect to this object in
these circumstances - and especially if he wills this in such a way that he carries
the created will along with him into the exercise of that act - then it is clear that
(i) he morally or virtually wills the badness that is necessarily conjoined with the
act and that (ii) he is a source and cause of that badness. (DM 22.4.19)
The distinction between universal and particular is metaphysically useful in the
case of sinful actions only if one's full-blown account of God's concurrence
with sinful acts absolves God of predetermining the sinful act with which he
concurs or of willing it 'absolutely' in some other way. Otherwise, it will render
God guilty of 'carrying the created will along with him into the exercise of the
act.' Or so, at least, claims Suarez.
Needless to say, the Thomists have standard replies to arguments of this sort,
including an alternative account of what freedom consists in. According to this
account, free acts cannot be predetermined by any temporally antecedent causal
activity but are compatible with God's contemporaneous predeterminations,
which are coordinated by divine providence with the rational agent's own inten-
tions and choices. Hence, it is not the case that an act is free only if all the pre-
requisites for action are compatible with its not being exercised or compatible
with some other contrary act of will being exercised; rather, an act is free only if
all the prerequisites for action other than God's contemporaneous predetermi-
nations are compatible with its not being exercised or with some other contrary
act of will being exercised.
10
What's more, the Thomists contend, it is still the
rational agent's own intentions and choices that serve as the root of moral defec-
tiveness, despite God's predeterminations.
Here, as earlier in Disputation 19, Suarez tries to show that the Thomistic
replies to his arguments are unsatisfactory. However, I will not pursue the dispute
over predeterminations and the nature of free agency any further here, except to
note that it cannot be understood in isolation from the whole nest of interrelated
issues involving providence, predestination, foreknowledge, and grace that set
Dominican and Jesuit thinkers at odds with one another in the last half of the six-
teenth century.'' In any case, Suarez has his own distinctive way of dealing with
free actions in general and sinful actions in particular, and to this I now turn.
4. God's Concurrence and Free Action According to Suarez
Broadly speaking, Suarez's account of God's general concurrence runs parallel
to the account published by Luis de Molina a few years before the appearance
of the Disputationes Metaphysicae.12 However, with respect to free acts of will
Suarez's account represents a genuine advance in precision and detail.
Suarez begins section 4 of Disputation 22 by explaining how God concurs
with secondary agents that act naturally, or by a necessity of nature, rather than
freely.
13
These natural agents are necessarily such that they act in a given set of
circumstances to produce a given effect when and only when all the prerequi-
sites for their acting are satisfied in those circumstances. These prerequisites
include both (a) 'internal' conditions such as the potential agent's possession
of enough power within its own order of causality to produce the effect and
(b) 'external' conditions such as the receptivity of the patient, its proximity to
the agent, the absence of impediments, and, as we have seen, God's concur-
rence in first act - that is, God's offer of, or readiness to grant, his concurrence
for the action.
14
Given that God always accommodates his concurrence to the nature and
requirements of created causes, the manner in which he concurs with naturally
acting causes is straightforward. In each case, he simply gives the relevant sec-
ondary agent the sort of concurrence that it requires in order to produce the type
of effect to which its nature is determined in the relevant circumstances. And
although God does this freely, he also does it, says Suarez, 'in the manner of a
nature' - that is, he does it as a matter of course (DM 22.4.3). For having willed
to create and conserve naturally acting causes as part of his providential
plan, God freely adopted from eternity a general policy of granting them the
concurrence which is 'owed' to them by a 'debt of connaturality' - that is,
a concurrence that satisfies the requirements of the natures with which God
has endowed them (DM 22.4.3).
To be sure, this general policy admits of exceptions, as when God works
miracles by simply withholding his concurrence (as well as the offer of con-
currence) from secondary agents. (This is the way in which the scholastics
generally interpret the miracle of the fiery furnace in Daniel 3, to cite just one
example.) But in addition to the general policy, God's providential plan includes
his willing 'efficaciously,' in each particular case of natural secondary causality,
to concur with this particular natural agent in these particular circumstances for
this particular action in order to produce this particular effect:
Just as God decided from eternity to produce these particular [naturally acting] enti-
ties and not others, and to produce them at this particular time and in this particular
order and with these particular motions, etc., and not in any other way, so too he also
decided to concur with these same entities in their actions according to their capac-
ity. And just as God has an absolutely distinct and particular knowledge of all things,
so too his will decides all things distinctly and in particular, and it extends to each
individual thing according to its capacity and need; therefore, in giving his concur-
rence, he decided from eternity to concur with this cause, in this place, and with
respect to this subject for this individual action and effect in particular, and to concur
at another time for another action, and so on for all actions. (DM 22.4.6)
Moreover, because natural agents act from what we might call 'deterministic
natural tendencies,' their actions occur by a necessity of nature.
15
For this rea-
son, God wills 'in an absolute and determinate way' to concur with both the
exercise of their power and the species of action to which that power is uniquely
determined in the relevant circumstances (DM 22.4.5). That is, each action of a
natural agent is such that God (a) wills it unconditionally and (b) offers for it
only a concurrence that corresponds to the agent's deterministic natural ten-
dency in the circumstances. Thus, it is a necessary truth that God offers his
concurrence to a natural agent for a particular action and effect if and only if the
agent actually produces that very effect by that very action. In technical terms,
God's concurrence with a natural agent exists in first act only if it exists in sec-
ond act as well.
Suarez argues, however, that if God offered his concurrence in this very same
way to agents capable of free action, their freedom would be destroyed with
respect to both exercise and specification, even in the absence of the sort of pre-
motions or predeterminations posited by his opponents. For if God offered his
concurrence to a free agent for just a single act of will in a given set of circum-
stances, and if he willed 'in an absolute and determinate way' the one act for
which that concurrence were offered in those circumstances, then the agent in
question would, first of all, have to elicit an act of will, and so would not be free
with respect to exercise:
In order for two free causes to concur per se and in a fixed order with respect to a
single action, the antecedent intention or volition of just one of them is not suffi-
cient unless it has enough power over the other cause to carry it along wherever it
pleases. Therefore, if, in the case of the concurrence under discussion, the only
thing that precedes it is the divine act of will by which God efficaciously wills to
concur with the secondary cause for a given effect, then in order for that effect to
f ollow per se, this act of God's will must have enough power over the free second-
ary cause to carry it along with it into action. And so the free cause's indifference in
the exercise of the action is destroyed. (DM 22.4.10)
16
Second, since God would be granting his concurrence for just one act of will,
the secondary agent would have to elicit just that act of will for which God was
offering his concurrence, and so would not be free with respect to specification.
Suarez notes that there have been two principal ways of dealing with this
problem within the Catholic intellectual tradition. Some authors, accepting a
single account of divine concurrence for both natural and free causes, have
claimed that the freedom of rational agents is preserved by the mere fact that
God gives his concurrence freely. Suarez rejects this reply outright, contending
that the cooperative action in which God concurs can be free with respect to
God and yet not free with respect to the relevant created cause. As we saw
above, this is exactly how things stand with regard to the actions of natural
agents; God freely concurs with such actions, and yet they occur by a necessity
of nature. So this way of responding to the problem fails to preserve creaturely
freedom.
A second ploy is simply to claim that in giving his concurrence God wills not
only the action but the mode or modality of the action, so that in the case of free
agents he wills that their acts be elicited freely. Suarez agrees with this senti-
ment, but argues that it is not sufficient by itself. The metaphysician must give a
coherent account of just how it is possible for God to concur causally with an
act that is elicited freely, that is, an account of just how it is possible for a ratio-
nal agent's free act to be God's act as well:
This teaching, thus taken in a general way, is absolutely certain; yet it is also cer-
tain that when God wills something to happen in a certain determinate mode, it per-
tains to his wisdom and efficacy to apply causes that are suited to that mode of
acting. For he would be at odds with himself if he willed something to happen in a
given mode and then in some other way impeded or removed the causes for that
mode of operating. Accordingly, what we are asking in the present context is this:
When God wills that a secondary cause act freely and with indifference, how is he
able to make his concurrence determinate without this involving a contradiction?
Thus, it is not enough to claim that the two things blend together in the efficacy and
agreeableness of divine providence. Rather, one must either explain how it is that
there is no contradiction between them - which the present reply does not do - or
else look for some other mode in which God can move the creature 'efficaciously
and agreeably' in such a way that it acts and acts freely. (DM 22.4.13)
Having completed his brief survey of other views, Suarez proposes his own
ingenious alternative. Stated simply it is this: When God offers his concurrence
for a particular free act of will A, he, first of all, makes this offer conditionally
on the free agent's cooperation, so that even with the offer of concurrence in
place, the agent is still able not to elicit A; and, second, he simultaneously offers
his concurrence with respect to at least one other particular act A* that is con-
trary to A, so that even with the offer of concurrence for A in place, the agent is
still able to elicit A* instead. The first point preserves freedom with respect to
exercise, while the second preserves freedom with respect to specification. I
will now elaborate on each in turn.
When God offers his concurrence for a particular free act of will that lies
within the power of a rational agent, he does not will that act in the 'absolute
and determinate way' in which he wills the actions of secondary causes that act
by a necessity of nature. Rather, as far as his own causal contribution is con-
cerned, he wills a free act only conditionally:
God does not, through the act of will by which he decides to give his concurrence
to a free cause, decide altogether absolutely that the free cause will exercise the act
in question; nor does he will absolutely that the act exist. Instead, with a sort of
implicit condition he wills the existence of the act to the extent that the act pro-
ceeds from him and from that concurrence of his which he has decided to offer.
And by virtue of that volition he applies his power to the act in question, but on the
condition that the secondary cause - that is, the created will - should likewise
determine itself to that action and issue forth into it. For by its freedom the will is
always able not to issue forth into the act. (DM 22.4.14)
So in the case of a free act, God's offer of concurrence does not - as it does
with acts that occur by a necessity of nature - automatically result in the coop-
erative action; in technical terms, the concurrence can exist in first act even if it
never exists in second act, that is, even if the act of will for which it is offered is
never exercised. Still, because God's readiness to give his concurrence com-
pletes the prerequisites for a free act of will, the agent is in the strict sense prox-
imately able to elicit the act even if, as it may turn out, the act is never elicited.
Hence, Suarez's definition of freedom with respect to exercise is satisfied, since
the agent is able to refrain from eliciting the act even though all the prerequi-
sites for action - including the concurrence in first act - have been satisfied.
This, he contends, is the way in which God's concurrence is accommodated to
rational agents as far as the free exercise of their acts is concerned.
What's more, Suarez argues that only this mode of concurring with free acts
can preserve the truth that even though God is a cooperating cause in acts that
are sinful, he is not a cause or source of the defectiveness of such acts. Like any
other effect of a secondary cause, a sinful act cannot occur without God's gen-
eral concurrence. Indeed, in order for God to have creatures who can freely love
him in this life, he must offer his cooperation with respect to acts that are sinful;
otherwise, created rational agents would never be proximately able to turn away
from him. Nevertheless, God's offer of concurrence for such acts does not
imply that he intends them or approves of them or in any way induces free crea-
tures to elicit them. In technical terms, the fact that he offers his concurrence for
a sinful act does not itself entail that if the act is in fact elicited, God wills it by
his 'providence of approval' (providentia approbationis)', rather, in offering his
concurrence he wills such an act only conditionally and, if it is elicited, it falls
only under his 'providence of permission' (providentia concessionis). So God's
permission of a sinful act consists precisely in (a) his willing it only condition-
ally, (b) his offering his general concurrence with respect to it in the manner just
explained, and (c) his doing nothing positive to induce the agent to elicit it.
Suarez stipulates that God's conditional willing applies only to the offer of
concurrence, because it is important to keep in mind that God's general concur-
rence is not his only contribution to free acts (see DM 22.4.30). Out of love, he
almost always prompts us antecedently toward good acts by various means, both
natural and supernatural, even though he allows us to reject this assistance and,
as it were, to abuse his general concurrence. According to Suarez, it is precisely
the fact that this sort of special divine assistance - over and beyond general con-
currence - is offered prior to every good act of will that preserves the thesis, so
dear to his opponents, that God is the originating source of all moral goodness
and that he antecedently intends the good even while permitting the sinful.
In summary, then, any free act of will for which God offers his general con-
currence is such that the secondary agent is proximately able to refrain from
eliciting it. And Suarez is able to give a coherent metaphysical account of how
this is possible.
Let us turn briefly to freedom with respect to specification. When God offers
his concurrence to a free agent, he offers it for two or more distinct acts that are
contrary to one another:
God offers concurrence to each secondary cause in a mode accommodated to its
nature; but the nature of a free cause is such that, after all the other conditions
required for acting have been posited, it is indifferent with respect to more than one
act; therefore, it must also receive the concurrence in first act in an indifferent
mode; therefore, it must be the case that, from the side of God, the concurrence is
offered to a free cause not just with respect to one act but with respect to more than
one act ... If this were not so, then the created will would never be proximately
capable of effecting more than one act; therefore, it would never be free with
respect to the specification of the act. (DM 22.4.21)
In keeping with what was said above, a free agent is proximately able not to
elicit any of the acts of will for which God offers his concurrence in a given set
of circumstances. The further point that Suarez makes here is that in any such
set of circumstances, God offers a free agent numerically and specifically dis-
tinct concurrences for numerically and specifically distinct acts of will, so that
the agent is proximately able to will any one of those acts. This preserves free-
dom with respect to specification.
Once again, then, the way in which God offers his concurrence to a free agent
is accommodated to the secondary cause's mode of acting. And what was said
about sinful acts in the discussion of freedom with respect to exercise applies,
mutatis mutandis, to freedom with respect to specification. In particular, given
that one or more of the acts for which God offers his concurrence on a given
occasion is sinful, it follows that if any one of those acts is actually elicited,
God can plausibly be said to permit that act rather than to induce it or to be a
source of its moral defectiveness.
This, then, is the way in which Suarez understands Saint Thomas's claim that
while an act that is sinful is from God, God is not a cause of sin.
17
To revert to
the manner of speaking introduced above, the fact that a sinful act is something
rather than nothing is traced back primarily to God as a universal cause, but the
fact that it is morally defective rather than morally upright is traced back
entirely to its secondary agent as a particular cause. And, according to Suarez, it
is only his own full-blown account of God's concurrence with sinful acts that
succeeds in fleshing out this claim in a metaphysically adequate way.
5. Conclusion: Subordination and Middle Knowledge
One lingering question is whether Suarez's account of God's concurrence with
free acts preserves the claim that in such acts the rational agent's causality is sub-
ordinate to God's causality. Suarez, of course, claims that it does. But recall that
his own explanation of subordination limits it to God's acting 'in a more noble
and more independent way ... under a more universal concept.' Is this strong
enough? Isn't it rather the case that on Suarez's view God's concurrence is sub-
ordinated to the rational agent's influence, since it is ultimately up to the rational
agent (a) whether or not God actually concurs with an act and (b) just which act
he concurs with? To be sure, God freely and independently offers his occurrence,
but it seems to depend wholly on the rational agent whether or not that offer is
accepted. Suarez's opponents will point out that this is precisely one of the results
that their pre-motions or predeterminations were designed to prevent.
But Suarez does not lack the resources for an interesting reply. First of all, he
will insist that the dignity of rational agents lies, at least in part, in their ability
to be self-determiners - though always, of course, with God's concurrence. So it
is hardly an embarrassment to have propounded an account of God's concur-
rence with free action that captures the distinctiveness of rational agents.
Indeed, from Suarez's perspective it is a weakness in the position of his oppo-
nents that their full-blown account of God's general concurrence treats both nat-
ural agents and free agents in exactly the same way.
Second, as we have seen, Suarez joins with his opponents in accepting the
Catholic doctrine that God exercises particular providence over the world, so
that every particular action - including every free act - effected in the created
world is either (a) explicitly and knowingly intended by God from eternity or
(b) explicitly and knowingly permitted by God from eternity. In answering
objections to his account of God's concurrence with free acts, Suarez acknowl-
edges that in order for this account to cohere with the orthodox understanding
of God's particular providence, it must be the case that from eternity, and natu-
rally prior to his willing anything with respect to creatures, God has so-called
'middle knowledge' - or, as Suarez refers to it, 'conditional foreknowledge' -
of how all possible free agents would act in any possible situation in which they
were offered divine concurrence for their free acts. Such knowledge is neces-
sary because God's conditional offer of concurrence for free acts does not by
itself settle the question of just which free acts will be elicited. And so because
he does not know exactly how free creatures will act just on the basis of his own
intention to offer his concurrence for their actions, God needs middle knowl-
edge in order for his providential plan to be complete - that is, in order for him
to be able to intend or permit particular free acts antecedently.
18
Given this picture, the points most relevant in the present context are (a) that
God's offer of concurrence is independent of the rational agent's causal contri-
bution to any particular free act, (b) that it is ultimately up to God whether to
allow particular rational creatures to be in the circumstances in which, as God
foresees, they will elicit particular free acts of will, and (c) that God anteced-
ently provides for the very acts which will in fact be elicited. So even though
Suarez's account of the subordination of the causality of free agents to God's
causality is weaker than that of its opponents, his complete account of God's
general concurrence is nonetheless strong enough to allow for God's complete
sovereignty over the free acts, including the free sinful acts, of his creatures.
Notice, too, that the doctrine of God's middle knowledge solves the problem
of how God's causal contribution to a free act can, without constituting a prede-
termination or pre-motion, be temporally simultaneous with the rational agent's
contribution - as indeed it must be if the act in question is from both God and the
secondary cause. We should not imagine that on Suarez's account the free agent
begins to act temporally prior to God's causal contribution and that this initiation
of the act is, as it were, a sign to God of how he himself should act. Rather, God
always knows exactly which act the rational agent will elicit in the relevant cir-
cumstances, and so he himself is able to act simultaneously with that agent.
One final point. Suarez denies that God's having middle knowledge renders
otiose his offer of concurrence for free acts that are never in fact elicited. For, he
argues, unless the concurrence is actually offered for such acts in the way stipu-
lated above, no act that is in fact elicited will be free - and this because it will
not satisfy the causal prerequisites for freedom.
19
Notes
1 I develop this theme at more length in 'God's General Concurrence with Secondary
Causes: Pitfalls and Prospects,' American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 67
(1994): 131-56.
2 See DM 22.4.8 for an explicit enunciation of this claim.
3 For Suarez's extensive discussion of the nature of instrumental causality, see DM
17.2.17-19 and 21-2.
4 According to Suarez, another aspect of the effect that is traced back to God's concur-
rence is the fact that the form produced is this singular form rather than some other
exactly similar form. So while the kind or species of the effect is traced back to the
secondary cause, its singularity is traced back to God.
5 See DM 22.4.6. Suarez calls this readiness on God's part 'the concurrence in first
act,' as opposed to 'the concurrence in second act,' which is the actual concurrence
and identical with the cooperative action between God and the secondary cause. This
distinction will become important below in the discussion of free action.
6 I will not rehearse Suarez's arguments for God's general concurrence, but I have
examined them at some length in 'God's General Concurrence with Secondary
Causes: Why Conservation Is Not Enough,' Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991):
553-85, and in Part 7 of 'Suarez on Metaphysical Inquiry, Efficient Causality, and
Divine Action,' in Francisco Suarez, On Creation, Conservation, and Concurrence:
Metaphysical Disputations 20-22, translation, notes, and introduction by Alfred J.
Freddoso (South Bend, IN: St Augustine's Press, 2001).
7 Suarez is willing to accept the axioms. However, he rejects the standard interpreta-
tions of them, in part because they are obscure and in part because, as he sees it, they
undermine the relative autonomy of secondary agents - an issue that becomes espe-
cially important in treating God's concurrence with the free acts of rational creatures.
For Suarez's own interpretations of the axioms, see DM 22.2.47-51.
8 See DM 19.2.
9 Suarez's argument against the possibility of a passive f aculty's being free can be
f ound at DM 19.2.19-20.
10 See DM 19.4.2-7. There Suarez attributes to his opponents the claim that a free
faculty is one that remains 'indifferent,' given that all the things required on its own
part - or just on the part of the rational intellect and will - have been posited, but not
all the things required on God's part.
11 For an overview of the debate between the Jesuits and Dominicans, see the intro-
duction to Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge (Part iv of the 'Concordia'),
translated, with an introduction and notes, by Alfred J. Freddoso (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1988). Also, the interested reader should look at DM 19.2 and
DM 19.4-9 for Suarez's extensive discussion of free agency.
12 See Part 11 of Molina's Liberi Arbitrii cum Gratiae Donis, Divina Praescientia,
Providentia, Praedestinatione et Reprobatione Concordia (Antwerp, 1595).
13 Unlike some scholastic authors, Suarez denies that natural or non-rational agents can
act indeterministically, and so he does not distinguish natural agents from agents that
act by a necessity of nature. However, the focus of this part of section 4 is on actions
that occur by a necessity of nature. If some natural agents are able to act indetermin-
istically, Suarez would have to deal with them in a way analogous to the way in
which he deals with free agents.
14 On this last point, see DM 22A.I.
151 have analysed the notion of a deterministic natural tendency at some length in The
Necessity of Nature,' Midwest Studies in Philosophy 11 (1986): 215-42. Notice that
God concurs freely in actions that occur by a necessity of nature. Suarez expresses
this by saying that the actions are free for God but necessary for the relevant second-
ary agents. So the whole framework of natural modality presupposes God's free
actions of creating, conserving, and concurring with secondary agents.
16 It is a bit unclear here just how God's efficacious will would 'carry [the secondary
agent] into action' if it involved no antecedent action on the secondary agent itself.
What Suarez probably has in mind is that in such a case the rational agent would in
effect become a natural agent with respect to the act in question.
17 See Summa Theologiae 1-2, q. 79, a. 1-2.
18 See DM 22.4.38-9. For an extensive treatment of the issues involved here, see
the introduction to Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge (Part iv of the
'Concordia').
19 Sections 2-4 of this paper contain material from Part 7 of 'Suarez on Metaphysical
Inquiry, Efficient Causality, and Divine Action.' I thank Sarah Beyers and Robert
Sleigh for their helpful comments and questions at the conference on which this
volume is based.
Descartes's Theodicy of Error
MICHAEL J. LATZER
I have called my paper 'Descartes's Theodicy of Error' in deference to Des-
cartes's claim in the synopsis to the Meditations that the Fourth Meditation has
to do only with error, not with sin. In fact, it may seem strange to consider
the Fourth Meditation as a theodicy at all. Considering the 'order of reasons' of
the Meditations, the point of Meditation Four could well be seen as narrowly
epistemological. Having proven the existence of his almighty, supremely good
Creator, Descartes now needs to use this concept to undergird his criterion of
truth; the fact of human error creates an immediate problem for the concept
of the non-deceiving God. In contrast to cognitive mistakes, or misapprehen-
sions of the true and the false, which define the overt problem of the Fourth
Meditation, Descartes defines sin as error in the pursuit of good and evil. And
the study of moral failings is properly theological. In his effusive dedication to
the theology faculty of the Sorbonne, which prefaces the Meditations, Descartes
draws a line between philosophy and theology by restricting the attention of the
philosopher to the questions of the existence of God and of the soul. He calls
them the chief of those questions 'that ought to be demonstrated by the aid of
philosophy rather than of theology.' The questions of sin and the soul's salva-
tion belong to a completely different order of inquiry, one in which the philoso-
pher must defer to the theologian.
There is surely some validity in Descartes's distinction between philosophy
and theology, between the analysis of cognitive mistakes and of sins. Any anal-
ysis of sin must include the questions of divine grace granted or withheld, of the
effects of concupiscence and original sin, and finally of the larger and vexing
questions of divine foreknowledge and predestination. These are all theological
3
36 Michael J. Latzer
problems, and tremendously volatile ones at that. It is understandable that Des-
cartes should not want to wade into such a whirlpool. It should be recalled that
Cornelius Jansen's Augustinus was published in 1640, one year before the Med-
itations, and within a short time the rancorous battles between Jansenists and
Jesuits were in high gear. In a 1642 letter to Mersenne, Descartes indignantly
protests against accusations that he is a follower of Pelagius, whose opinions he
claims never even to have heard of. Descartes claims it is possible to know by
natural reason that God exists, but he never said that this natural knowledge, by
itself, is enough to merit supernatural glory. In fact, it is evident, he says, that
since the future glory is supernatural, more than natural powers are needed to
merit it.
1
In this letter, he seems to make the same rather uncomplicated distinc-
tion between the proper domains of theology and philosophy.
However, the distinction proves to be one that Descartes himself cannot
maintain, and despite what he had specifically said in the Synopsis about leav-
ing sin out of the discussion, we find him in the Fourth Meditation actually
describing the causes of sin as well as of falsehood.
2
The distinction breaks
down in other ways, too, when we recognize that divine grace is just as surely
needed for cognitive clarity and the attainment of truth as it is for moral integ-
rity and salvation. And since Descartes believes the human mind, properly used,
is infallible, to make judgments in the absence of certain knowledge is, as he
says in the second set of Replies, a sin.
3
Therefore, despite its seemingly narrow focus - offering a theodicy of error -
I will take the Fourth Meditation as having general significance for the project
of theodicy, and as offering a solution to the problem of evil as complete, in its
own succinct way, as Leibniz's is on a grander scale. (In fact, the theodicy of the
Fourth Meditation anticipates many of the most important themes of Leibniz's
theodicy.)
How, once again, does the problem of evil arise for Descartes, or more partic-
ularly, how does it arise according to the order of reasons of the Meditations'! A
saying of Saint Teresa of Avila is that the soul ought always to consider that
only it and God are in the world. Descartes has placed himself in just that situa-
tion by the end of the Third Meditation, and, strikingly, no sooner has he done
so than evil looms on the horizon of his thought. Up until the Third Meditation,
the investigation proceeded in accord with the assumption of the evil genius.
But now, with the demonstration of God having been accomplished, 'it is neces-
sary to admit nothing that does not agree with the principle of divine veracity.'
4
Descartes is faced with the twin problems of explaining both how error is com-
patible with the existence of the veracious God, and how God is not responsible
for it.
Descartes's defence of God's ways in the Fourth Meditation has three main
Descartes's Theodicy of Error 37
thrusts. One is to recognize his own ontological condition, as a hybrid of being
and nothingness. Now, the mere fact of his fmitude and dependence is not evil.
In fact, it is exactly the recognition of his personal finitude that leads Descartes
up the ladder of argument to the recognition of an unlimited and independent
being on whom he depends for his existence. However, his finitude is recog-
nized as the precondition for moral and cognitive lapses. The second thrust is to
emphasize the role of the created will. According to Descartes, the will is a fac-
ulty so great that it is the principal way in which we bear an image and likeness
of God. But the will is free: as Descartes writes in the Fourth Meditation, 'when
something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to pursue or
to shun, we are moved by it in such a way that we sense that no external force
could have imposed it on us.'
5
Errors and sins are therefore matters of the sin-
ner's personal responsibility, of his failure to restrain the will within proper
bounds, namely the bounds of what is clearly and distinctly perceived. The final
theme of Descartes's theodicy connects with the first. It is to consider the sinner
within the context of the wider world. From that perspective it emerges that, to
quote Descartes again, 'it might be, so to speak, a greater perfection in the uni-
verse as a whole that some of its parts are not immune to error, while others
are, than if they were all alike.'
6
In other words, the greater perfection of the
universe as a whole might be served by the existence of erring and sinning indi-
viduals, in the sense that variety and plenitude of being are greater than stale
uniformity and homogeneity among the world's parts. A world of finite beings,
among whom are sinners and saints, would in this calculus be a better world
than one containing sinners alone or saints alone.
There is an interesting tension in the Fourth Meditation theodicy between the
latter two themes (which themes might for convenience be dubbed the free-will
defence, and the principle of plenitude). Brian Calvert has argued that the ten-
sion, or the 'internal difficulty,' is serious enough to render Descartes's theodicy
ineffective. The problem is that, at the cosmological level, Descartes suggests it
is fitting for God to have made humans prone to error, since it is fitting there be
every sort of creature in the universe. But, at the personal level, Descartes is
determined to map out a way to avoid ever falling into error, and he suggests
that always restraining the will to assent only to what is clearly and distinctly
perceived can serve as a foolproof means of error-avoidance. Thus, in Calvert's
words, while the cosmological explanation commits Descartes to the claim that
'some actual error has to be found in a perfectly good world,' at the same time
'if his prescription for error-avoidance is taken seriously, and is intended to be
universally heeded, this would entail the possibility of there being a world in
which no actual mistakes were ever made.'
7
The question arises: what if all rational beings succeeded in avoiding error?
Would this not, paradoxically, be a frustration of God's plan, and a tarnish on
the perfection of the universe? And since it is inconceivable that God's works
could be frustrated, does this not show that God must infallibly destine some
creatures to err and to sin, making their 'freedom' a fiction? We are thus left,
according to Calvert, with an 'implicit contradiction,' which can easily be made
explicit if we restate Descartes's theodicy as: 'This is the way all men can and
ought to follow to avoid error, but not everyone ought to follow it.'
8
An easy line of defence on Descartes's behalf would be to point out that his
theodicy is not an original creation. In fact, Gilson states that there is absolutely
nothing original in the Fourth Meditation, calling it a 'tissue of borrowings from
the theology of St. Thomas and of the Oratory,'
9
of which only the ordering of
the parts can make any claim to originality. So the problems of Descartes's
theodicy are problems endemic to traditional Christian theodicy, allied with,
and intractable as, the problem of reconciling human freedom with divine fore-
knowledge and predestination. Nonetheless, there is interest in examining what
Descartes has to say in answer to this problem, in part because this exercise
helps display the resources of Christian philosophy in wrestling with the prob-
lem of evil, and in part because Descartes's own argumentative twists and turns
illustrate both the tensions in the air in the 1640s, and some of the implications
of Descartes's fundamental theological positions. In particular, Descartes's
extreme understanding of divine omnipotence adds an unusual element to his
otherwise orthodox solution.
I will argue three points in defence of Descartes's theodicy. First, let us con-
sider the unlikely eventuality of all human beings attaining infallibility. Would
this indeed spoil the world, by reducing its variety and plenitude? I see no rea-
son for thinking so, and, in fact, a careful look at Descartes's language shows
that he does not think actual errors are necessary to bring about a world worthy
of its divine architect. Rather, the condition of fallibility, of the capacity for
error, is what makes for plenitude of being. Descartes is thus not guilty of any
inconsistency in intending to bring about the eradication of error. Second, I
believe that Brian Calvert's objection suffers from the fallacy of fatalism. That
is, the objection mistakenly assumes that the necessity that there be sin entails
the necessity of some actual sinner's sin. Descartes argues convincingly that
there is no such entailment. And third, I will argue that even if the critic insists
that actual error is necessary in a metaphysically perfect world, even that my
own particular errors and sins are necessary, Descartes's handling of the prob-
lem of human freedom and divine foreknowledge allows him to defend a robust
sense of human freedom in a world completely dictated by divine decree.
To begin with, does invocation of the principle of plenitude somehow commit
Descartes to the claim that a perfect world must include moral evil? L.J. Beck in
The Metaphysics of Descartes judges that it does, and that the principle is inef-
fective in providing a theodicy for moral evil. He writes:
One might have expected him to have admitted that a whole is more perfect, the
greater and richer the diversities which its systematic unity combines. But it is not
clear at all how a whole such as the universe is more perfect because its parts are
not merely diverse, but some are perfect and others imperfect.
10
In other words, defects like error and sin cannot be justified on the principle that
a perfect world needs variety, since mere diversity in and among the strata of
being provides quite enough richness to render the world worthy of its maker.
But exactly what use does Descartes make of this principle? He says in the
Meditation that God could have brought it about that, while remaining free and
having finite knowledge, he might nonetheless never err. And he cites two ways
this might have been brought about: if God had given his intellect a clear and dis-
tinct perception of everything about which he would ever deliberate; or if God
had permanently stamped on his memory the resolution never to make judgments
about anything not clearly and distinctly perceived. Now God did neither. Des-
cartes lacks a clear and distinct perception of everything about which he would
ever deliberate, and he forgets never to make judgments about anything not
clearly and distinctly understood. These are two expressions of his finitude. But
the limitations appropriate to the human place in the great chain of being are not
themselves evil. They are the preconditions for our mistakes and sins. In claiming
that the principle of plenitude is ineffective for Descartes's theodicy, Beck is mis-
construing the explanatory role the principle is invoked to serve.
Descartes is not committed to the claim that there must obtain actual error
and sin in order for this to qualify as a suitably various or diverse universe.
Instead, if we pay attention to his language in the Meditation, what we find is
that he says only that it is a greater perfection in the universe that some of its
parts are capable of error; the Latin is, 'ab erroribus immunes non sit,' that they
are not immune from error. He does not say that plenitude demands actual sin or
error.
l
'
This is reminiscent of the argument of Saint Augustine's De libero arbitrio
(On freedom of the will). Augustine imagines an objector saying, 'If our being
miserable completes the perfection of the universe, it will lose something of its
perfection if we should become eternally happy.' In answer Augustine says:
'... neither the sins nor the misery are necessary to the perfection of the uni-
verse; but souls as such are necessary which have the power to sin if they so
will, and become miserable if they sin.'
12
In other words, it is fallibility as such,
and not actual lapses, which contributes to plenitude. Descartes may plausibly
be read as saying much the same, and hence there is no justification for thinking
that actual infallibility would somehow spoil the perfection of the universe.
However, this answer does not totally silence the critic. For it might be
argued that the possession of freedom entails the inevitable commission of
actual errors. For example, in question 48, article 2 of the Prima Pars of the
Summa Theologiae, Saint Thomas says that 'the completeness of the universe
requires inequality among things in order to achieve all degrees of goodness ...
the perfection of the universe requires ... some that can cease to be good, and in
consequence on occasion do.' Also, in the reply to the third objection in the
same article, he says: 'That whole composed of the universe of creatures is the
better and more complete for including those things which can and do on occa-
sion fall from goodness without God preventing it.'
13
Now it may be that Saint Thomas is thinking here not of moral evil, but only
of the decay of corruptible beings. Perhaps he is merely contrasting the celestial
intelligences with terrestrial mortals. And he may not mean that what can fall
inevitably does, but instead may be making merely an empirical generaliza-
tion.
14
And as an empirical fact, an actual aspiration to infallibility seems
absurdly unrealistic. Can Descartes be serious about this, after all? In the corre-
spondence with Elizabeth, he makes some revealing comments that suggest he
himself is doubtful about this possibility. First he notes the difficulty of finding
truth: 'Our nature is so constituted that our mind needs much relaxation if it is
to be able to spend usefully a few moments in the search for truth.' (I'm always
telling my wife this: I need much relaxation if I am to search for truth!) Then he
advises: There is nothing to repent of when we have done what we judged best
at the time when we had to decide to act, even though later, thinking it over at
our leisure, we judge that we made a mistake ... It does not belong to human
nature to be omniscient, or always to judge as well on the spur of the moment as
when there is plenty of time to deliberate.'
15
In this light, the promise of infallibility through the prescription for error-
avoidance begins to sound like a rhetorical flight of fancy. The door is opened,
too, for a very potent excuse of wrongdoing. Perhaps plenitude of being does
not require actual sin and error. Nonetheless, experience shows that sin and
error seem very much to be 'permanent and ineradicable features of the uni-
verse.' I might pessimistically (or gleefully!) think on this basis that I am fore-
doomed to error and sin. Since it seems that God wills there to be a world
containing erring individuals, there is no point in my trying to avoid error, since
I may be one of those reprobate souls whose errors contribute to the general
good. The practical consequences of such a line of thought can be imagined. A
chilling illustration of the dangers of fatalism is to be found in the experience of
Christian Wolff, greatest of the dogmatic metaphysicians, who in 1723 was dis-
missed from his post at the University of Halle by Emperor Frederick William I,
because His Majesty had been convinced that Wolff's philosophical views
implied that deserters from the army should not be punished because they could
not help deserting.
16
There is, however, something distinctly fallacious about this reasoning. The
fallacy involved is a venerable one. A version of the fallacy of fatalism, it is as
follows:
Necessarily p or q.
Notq.
Therefore, necessarily p.
If Cain and Abel are the only two free creatures in the world, and it is hypo-
thetically necessary that there be sin, given the plan God has freely adopted, and
Abel does not sin, does this mean that Cain sins necessarily! He does not. It
was necessary (again, in this hypothetical sense) that one or the other of them
sin. To use Julian of Norwich's famous phrase, 'sin was behovely' - it behoved
that there should be sin. But it was not necessary in the same sense that any
given individual be that sinner. The free choice of the agent determines that.
Leibniz discusses this fallacy under the titles fatum mohametum and the 'lazy
sophism.' Suppose it is true, and even assured from all eternity, that a given man
will sin. Leibniz writes: 'Could this soul, a little before sinning, complain about
God in good faith, as if God determined it to sin? Since God's determinations in
these matters cannot be foreseen, how does the soul know that it is determined
to sin, unless it be actually sinning already ... But perhaps it is certain from all
eternity that I shall sin? Answer this question for yourself: perhaps not; and
without considering what you do not and cannot know ... act according to your
duty, which you do know.'
17
I believe that Descartes's theodicy can be defended on just this basis. An
interesting parable on freedom found in Descartes's correspondence with Eliza-
beth provides a good model for what Descartes is doing in prescribing his for-
mula for error-avoidance. In this parable, a king has forbidden duelling but has
arranged for two noblemen, whom he knows will duel if they meet, to meet by
chance in a given town. Although the king has arranged the rendezvous, which
will lead inevitably to the forbidden duel, Descartes reasons that the king in this
fable does not in any sense constrain the noblemen, nor does he impair the
freedom and voluntariness of their duel, nor are they any less culpable for dis-
obeying the prohibition.
18
Similarly, in defence of Descartes's theodicy, we may
posit that Descartes has hit on the correct formula for error-avoidance, and
proclaims it as such, and the fact that he knows that it will not universally or
consistently be heeded does not affect its validity. Infallibility is at least
theoretically possible, given the epistemology of the Meditations, and the only
coherent way to recommend the infallibility formula is to recommend it univer-
sally. Calvert is right that it would be senseless to say, 'Heed it, those of you
who are foreordained to heed it; the rest may ignore it.' Even if some rational
creatures will inevitably fall into error, they remain free in doing so, and the
prescription remains valid.
But this response may be thought of as incomplete for the following reason:
has Descartes not himself weakened or even totally undermined any genuine
sense of freedom by his strong insistence on God's absolute predestination?
Descartes lays great stress on the power of God. God's power is 'so immense,'
he writes in the Principles of Philosophy, that 'we would sin in thinking our-
selves capable of ever doing anything which he had not ordained beforehand.'
19
His correspondence is full of edifying counsels on resignation to the decrees of
providence. In a letter to Elizabeth of September 1645, he lists as the first of the
truths 'most useful to us'
that there is a God on whom all things depend, whose perfections are infinite,
whose power is immense, and whose decrees are infallible. This teaches us to
calmly accept all the things that happen to us as expressly sent by God ... we even
rejoice in our afflictions at the thought that they are an expression of His will.
20
Elizabeth responded that resignation to God's will does not reconcile one to
the ill-will of men. In reply, Descartes argues in the strongest terms that God is
not simply the universal or primary cause but the total cause of everything.
Indeed, he claims that 'the slightest thought could not enter into a person's mind
without God's willing, and having willed from all eternity, that it should so
enter.'
21
Unaided philosophy is able to discover this fact, he says, 'for the only
way to prove that he exists is to consider him as a supremely perfect being; and
he would not be supremely perfect if anything could happen in the world with-
out coming entirely from him.'
We are faced with the problem of what possible meaning freedom could have
in a world thus predetermined by God in every last particular. The Fourth Medi-
tation had breezily assumed that my acts of will, including acts of judgment, are
within my own power, and that I am responsible for these acts. But is my puta-
tive freedom to avoid error and to choose the good and the true a genuinely
unconstrained power, given that, in the very strident language of Descartes's let-
ter to the princess, 'the slightest thought could not enter into a person's mind
without God's willing, and having willed from all eternity, that it should so
enter' ? Would the parable of the king and the duelling noblemen not have to be
read very differently if the king not only knew infallibly that the noblemen
would duel, but had himself planted the inclination to duel in their minds? Per-
haps Pierre Bayle, in his gloss on Descartes's parable, is right in saying, 'There
would not be in this monarch any degree of will, either small or great, that these
two noblemen should obey the law, and not fight. He would will entirely and
solely that they should fight.'
22
Descartes adds to the problem in the Fourth Meditation itself by defining
freedom as incompatible only with extrinsic determination. Freedom is compat-
ible, on the other hand, with inward determination, whether it be by our own
perceptions, or by the secret prompting of God. He writes: '... willing is only a
matter of being able to do or not do something (that is, of being able to affirm or
deny, to pursue or to shun), or better still, the will consists solely in the fact that
when something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to
pursue or to shun, we are moved by it in such a way that we sense that no exter-
nal force could have imposed it on us.'
23
Anthony Kenny notes that this definition offers a confusing mixture of two
conflicting conceptions of liberty: liberty of spontaneity (we are free to do
something if and only if we do it because we want to do it), and liberty of indif-
ference (we are free to do something if it is in our power not to do it).
24
What is
Descartes's true opinion? Commentators in the seventeenth century, among
them Leibniz and Spinoza, believed the second conception just cited to be the
genuine Cartesian position. That is, they read Descartes as affirming a 'strongly
indeterministic or "hard" libertarian conception of the freedom of the will' (I
borrow this phrasing from John Cottingham).
25
Human freedom, on this read-
ing, is an absolute, contra-causal power, and so in the judgment of both Leibniz
and Spinoza, an absurd fiction.
Contemporary scholars, on the other hand, have tended to emphasize the
second part of the definition, and to put weight on those passages in which
Descartes describes indifference as the lowest form of freedom. For example,
immediately following the definition of freedom in the Fourth Meditation, Des-
cartes writes that 'the more I am inclined towards the one direction, whether
because I clearly know that in it there is the reason of truth and goodness, or
because God thus internally disposes my thought, the more freely do I choose
and embrace it.'
26
A little further on, he writes: 'I could not help judging that
what I understood clearly is true; not that I was coerced into holding this judg-
ment because of some external force, but because a great inclination of the will
followed from a great light in the intellect.'
27
Even more startlingly, Descartes
even suggests, anticipating J.L. Mackie, that God could have so made me as to
be free, yet guaranteed never to err - strongly implying that freedom is perfectly
compatible with divine determinism.
Now, if this were the last word, the problems of theodicy would be much sim-
plified for Descartes. The bottom line would be to focus, as Leibniz does, on the
overall fitness of God's plan for the world, with the understanding that God
providentially directs the wills of rational agents to fulfil their parts in the cos-
mic plan. Strictly speaking there would be no problem of reconciling human
freedom with divine preordination, since human freedom would be understood
as perfectly compatible with predetermination. In fact, the more determined the
will, the more free it is.
But interestingly, Descartes does insist that there is a problem in reconciling
human freedom with divine preordination. It is a problem so acute, he writes, a
mystery so impenetrable, that the finite intellect is quite incapable of solving it.
I refer to sections 39, 40, and 41 of Book I of the Principles of Philosophy,
wherein Descartes affirms successively human freedom, God's preordination of
all things, and the impossibility of reconciling these two seemingly incompati-
ble theses. He writes:
We possess sufficient intelligence to know clearly and distinctly that this power
[i.e., of preordination] is in God, but not enough to comprehend how he leaves the
free actions of men indeterminate ... It would be absurd to doubt of that of which
we are fully conscious, and experience as existing in ourselves [i.e., the power of
free choice], because we do not comprehend another matter which, from its very
nature, we know to be incomprehensible.
28
If Descartes were an uncomplicated compatibilist, there would be no need for
him to acknowledge any mystery here. He could simply say that we are free
when not constrained by any external force, although God is at every moment
inwardly inclining our wills toward his own ends. What he affirms, rather, is
that we have good reason both to think that God is the full, supreme, and imme-
diate cause of all states of being and action, and that human beings are able to
initiate their own acts of will in a radically indeterminate way. Hence, the
appeal to mystery: we cannot intellectually reconcile what seems to our finite
perception to be a flat-out contradiction.
The conception of the freedom-preordination problem sketched in the Princi-
ples is supported in several letters of the same period written to Descartes's
friend and supporter, the Jesuit scholastic Mesland. The following quotation
seems to offer a most robust defence of liberty of indifference, or of freedom
conceived as a contra-causal power of self-determination:
Perhaps others mean by 'indifference' a positive faculty of determining oneself to
one or other of two contraries, that is to say, to pursue or avoid, to affirm or deny. I
do not deny that the wil l has this positive faculty. Indeed, I think it has it not only
with respect to those actions to which it is not pushed by any evident reasons on
one side rather than on the other, but also with respect to all other actions; so that
when a very evident reason moves us in one direction, although morally speaking
we can hardly move in the contrary direction, absolutely speaking we can. For it is
al ways open to us to hold back from pursuing a clearly known good, or from admit-
ting a clearly perceived tru th, provided we consider it a good thing to demonstrate
the freedom of our wil l by so doing.
29
This model of freedom is not obviously consistent with the doctrine of the
Fourth Meditation. The Meditations offers a critique of liberty of indifference;
the Principles, and the letters to Mesland, defend it. What has happened to
bring about this change? According to Gilson, the support for liberty of indiffer-
ence fou nd in Descartes's later writings is a product, purely and simply, of his
desire for acceptance by the Society of Jesus. As Gilson tells the tale, Descartes
abandoned the Jesu it doctrine of Middle Knowledge he had learned as a school-
boy at La Fleche upon his reading of Gibieu f's De Libertate Dei et Hominis in
1630. Gibieu f presents a strongly Thomist and Au gu stinian attack on liberty of
indifference. However, by the early 1640s, to attack indifference was to attack
the Jesuits, the champions of Molina and Middle Knowledge, and to support the
Jansenist faction in the battles de auxiliis gratiae. Descartes was thu s careful to
present himself as indifferentist for Jesuit eyes, ever hopeful that his Principles
wou l d be adopted as the cu rricu l u m for Jesuit schools.
30
Obviou sl y, the story Gilson tells is qu ite u nfl attering to Descartes. Single-
mindedly determined to win acceptance for his physics, and to overthrow Aris-
totle, Gilson's Descartes wil l cynical l y alter or abandon any aspect of his sys-
tem not integral to the success of his physics, as occasion dictates. He emerges
as a most slippery philosopher - a Thomist in the Fourth Meditation and in the
conversation with Bu rmann, a Mol inist in writing to Mesland or Elizabeth. We
simpl y cannot look for any consistent doctrine of freedom in this man.
While I have no particu l ar bone to pick with Gilson's persuasive and detailed
historical argument, I do want to suggest that a case can be made in support of
the integrity and overall consistency of Descartes's doctrine of freedom. It is
interesting, in particular, to connect Descartes's later support of liberty of indif-
ference, such as is found in the Principles, with one of his earliest distinctive
doctrines: that of God's absolute omnipotence.
31
We recall that in Descartes's
estimation, the power of God is so immense that even the truths of logic and
mathematics are subject to it. In the famous letter of April 1630 to Mersenne, he
writes that 'the mathematical tru ths which you call eternal have been laid down
by God and depend on him entirely no less than the rest of his creatures ...
Please do not hesitate to assert and proclaim everywhere that it is God who has
laid down these laws in nature just as a king lays down laws in his kingdom.'
32
Now if in Descartes's view God's power is so great that he can bring it about
that not all the radii of a circle are equal, why would he hesitate to ascribe to
human beings a liberty so radical that it seems to contradict the truth of God's
foreordination of all things? It would after all be an easy matter for God to
endow us with a will at once independent and contra-causal, yet dependent and
totally determined. Like Walt Whitman, Descartes's God is large, and he con-
tains contradictions. And harmonizing this conception of the will with the
'compatibilist' and anti-indifferentist model is perhaps not so difficult. With
Augustine and Thomas, Descartes can agree that the will has a natural orienta-
tion toward the true and the good. With Gibieuf, he can agree that the will is
free when it is enslaved by its maker; that it is unfree when enslaved by the Evil
One; and that to be rendered by grace incapable of sinning is the acme of
freedom. Yet to make sense of the inward experience of our freedom (to say
nothing of morality, reward, and punishment), he can insist on a mysterious and
unfathomable core of radical self-determination.
Of course, this is a resolution of the problem which we can state, but which
we cannot understand. In essence, it is taking refuge in the sanctuary of igno-
rance. But is that always a disreputable defence? To quote from the Fourth
Meditation:
I must not be surprised if I am not always capable of comprehending the reasons
why God acts as he does ... for knowing already that my nature is extremely weak
and limited, and that the nature of God, on the other hand, is immense, incompre-
hensible, and infinite, I have no longer any difficulty in discerning that there is an
infinity of things in his power whose causes transcend the grasp of my mind.
33
In this passage, Descartes shows a commendable habit (Gilson calls it 'so
essentially Cartesian')
34
of leaving mystery where it properly belongs. Where
the being and action of the infinite God are concerned there must be intractable
mystery for intellects such as ours, which are by any measure feeble and lim-
ited. As suspect as appeals to mystery or to ignorance may in general be, I think
that in this case Descartes can justify making such an appeal.
Ultimately, though, while this move wins Descartes some breathing room in
the endgame of his theodicy, he faces ultimate checkmate if his doctrine of
God's absolute omnipotence is brought in. Many writers
35
have noted the prob-
lems this doctrine produces for Cartesian science; it creates problems no less
troubling for his natural theology. For if God is not bound by the logically pos-
sible, if there are literally no limits to what his omnipotent power can accom-
plish, then no possible theodicy will be effective. For no matter what good is
invoked for which evil is the price or the precondition, God could have achieved
this good without the evil.
36
In Descartes's case, the principle of plenitude is
eviscerated. He claims that the world containing fallible creatures may be more
perfect than one in which they never err. But God is bound by no such con-
straints. The omnipotent God who decides what is itself logically possible could
easily have brought it about that the most perfect world is one containing no evil
at all. That he did not choose this course casts doubt on God's moral character,
and the problem of theodicy menaces all over again.
Notes
1 Descartes, Letter to Mersenne, March 1 642, in Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, eds,
Oeuvres de Descartes (Paris: Cerf, 1 904), in, 544 (cited hereafter as AT); English
translation in John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony
Kenny, ed. and trans., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. HI: The Corre-
spondence (Cambridge, 1991), p. 210 (cited hereafter as CSMK).
2 Meditation iv, AT vn, 60-1 ; English translation in Donald Cress, trans., Rene
Descartes: Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing Co., 1 980), p. 83.
3 Anthony Kenny, 'Descartes on the Will,' in R.J. Butler, Cartesian Studies (Oxford,
1 965), p. 1 5 (reference to 2nd Replies, AT vn, 1 47).
4 Martial Gueroult, Descartes' Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order of
Reasons, vol. 1 , The Soul and God, trans. Roger Ariew (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1 984), p. 209.
5 Meditation iv, AT vn, 57; Cress, p. 81
6 Meditation iv, AT vn, 61 ; Cress, p. 83
7 Brian Calvert, 'Descartes and the Problem of Evil,' Canadian Journal of Philosophy
2(1 972): 1 25.
8 Ibid., p. 1 26.
9 Etienne Gilson, La liberte chez Descartes et la theologie (Paris: F. Alcan, 1 91 3),
p. 441 .
1 0 L.J. Beck, The Metaphysics of Descartes (Oxford, 1 965), p. 21 2.
1 1 Meditation iv, AT vn, 61 ; Cress, p. 83.
1 2 Augustine, The Free Choice of the Will [De libero arbitrio], Book in, ch. 9.
1 3 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae la, 48, 2 (Blackfriars edition, 1 967), vol. 8,
p. 1 1 5.
1 4 Ibid., p. 1 1 4, note b.
1 5 Descartes to Elizabeth, 6 Oct. 1 645, CSMK, p. 1 68.
16 James C. Morrison, 'Christian Wolff's Criticisms of Spinoza,' Journal of the History
of Philosophy 31:3 (July 1993): 405.
17 G.W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, 30, in Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber,
eds, Leibniz: Philosophical Writings (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1989),
p. 61.
18 Descartes to Elizabeth, Jan. 1646, AT iv, 353^; CSMK, p. 282.
19 Rene Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, sec. 40, in Henry Veitch, trans., Descartes:
A Discourse on Method (London, 1957), p. 180 (cf. edition of Haldane and Ross, i,
235).
20 Descartes to Elizabeth, 15 Sept. 1645, CSMK, p. 265.
21 Descartes to Elizabeth, 6 Oct. 1645, CSMK, p. 272.
22 Pierre Bayle, quoted in G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy, 163 (La Salle, IL: Open Court,
1985), p. 225.
23 Meditation iv, AT vn, 57; Cress, p. 81.
24 Kenny, 'Descartes on the Will,' p. 18.
25 John Cottingham, Descartes (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), p. 149.
26 Ibid.
27 Meditation iv, AT vn, 58/9; Cress, p. 82.
28 Principles, sec. 41; Veitch, p. 113 (Haldane and Ross, i, 173).
29 Descartes to Mesland, 9 Feb. 1645, AT iv, 173; CMSK, p. 245.
30 Gilson, La liberte chez Descartes, Part 11, La liberte humain, passim, esp.
pp. 433-42.
31 The characterization of Descartes's conception of God's power as a conception of
'absolute omnipotence' is made by Peter Geach, 'Omnipotence,' Philosophy 48
(April 1973): 10.
32 Descartes to Mersenne, 15 April 1630, AT i, 145; CSMK, p. 23.
33 Meditation iv, AT vn, 55; Cress, p. 80.
34 Gilson, p. 232.
35 For example, Steven M. Nadler, 'Scientific Certainty and the Creation of the Eternal
Truths: A Problem in Descartes,' Southern Journal of Philosophy 25:2 (1987):
175-92.
36 Peter Vardy, The Puzzle of God (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 112-13.
Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?
GRAEME HUNTER
The dabbler's Spinoza is, and probably will long remain, an atheist, though a
virtuous one. Scholars, of course, construct a figure of greater spiritual com-
plexity, taking into account the pronouncedly religious, even 'god-intoxicated,'
character of much of his writing. Yet even among those who have studied
Spinoza carefully there appears to be a broad consensus on at least one point:
Spinoza was not a Christian. The reason frequently given for this conclusion is
the complete lack of evidence of his membership in any Christian denomination
(see, for example, Laux 1993, 254f; Mason 1997, 208; Nadler 1999, 291; Zac
1985, 116/490).
There is however a minority view according to which Spinoza may have been
a Christian of some kind. For example, Victor Brochard allows that Spinoza might
have been one, 'in a sense' (1954, 342), and Richard Popkin concedes that he
might have held views comparable to those of Socinians or Quakers (1996,401).
One way of mediating between the majority and the minority view might be
to argue that Spinoza was a non-denominational or, in Leszek Kolakowski's
phrase, an 'unchurched Christian' (Kolakowski 1969). But that is not exactly
what I shall propose. Certainly I have seen nothing to suggest that Spinoza was
a member of any denomination, but neither do the facts demand that Spinoza be
classified under the Kolakowski label, 'unchurched.' I shall present the signifi-
cant body of evidence suggesting that Spinoza was a would-be reformer of the
Christian Church. This would make him a radical Protestant, one of a good
number of eccentric figures in the Netherlands' so-called 'second Reformation.'
Once having presented the evidence for this case, I shall briefly consider its
ramifications for understanding Spinoza, taking his theodicy as my test case.
4
50 Graeme Hunter
1. Direct Evidence for Spinoza's Christianity
The simplest way of proving Spinoza a Christian would be to find that he some-
where claimed to be one. Did he? At least two places in his writings have been
read as confessions and may be examined first.
la. First Person Plural
In 1675, at the instigation of a leading Netherlands public figure, Conraad
Burgh, Spinoza wrote a letter to his son, Albert, attempting to discourage him
from persevering in his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Spinoza's letter was
also a reply to one he had received from the younger Burgh, containing a
strident defence of his new faith. One of Burgh's arguments, which Spinoza
counters, is the claim that the ability of Jesus' low-born and ill-educated disci-
ples to convert the whole world to Christianity is a potent argument in favour of
the Roman Catholic Church. Spinoza replies that it not only speaks for Roman
Catholics but 'for all who call ourselves Christians' (pro omnibus qui Chris-
tianum nomen profitemur [Ep. 76, (1925) iv, 322.32T]).
1
At least that is how it
reads in Leibniz's handwritten Latin copy of this letter, which Carl Gebhardt
uses as one of the two originals reproduced in his now standard edition of
Spinoza's writings. A similar first person plural expression appears in the Dutch
of the Nagelagte Schriften (see Gebhardt's account in G iv, 429). Leibniz
thought the choice of words remarkable enough that he underlined 'profitemur'
in his copy.
This use of the first person plural in a confessional context is not unique. The
same letter to Burgh contains other examples. Four pages earlier, he wrote (op.
cit., 318.6-11):
You must concede that holy living is not the distinctive property of the Roman
Church, but the common property of all. And because through it we know ... that
we remain in God and God in us, it follows that whatever distinguishes the Roman
Church from others is absolutely superfluous ... (My emphasis)
Once again, just a few sentences later, Spinoza adds (318.15f):
Only by the Spirit of Christ can we be led into the love of justice and charity. (My
emphasis)
The latter instances of the first person plural are alike in both Leibniz's copy
and the Opera Posthuma.
Spinoza: A Radical Protestant? 51
However, in the Opera Posthuma the crucial word 'ourselves' in the first con-
text discussed above becomes 'themselves.' Thus it reads: 'for all who call
themselves Christian' (pro omnibus qui Christianum nomen profitentur [G iv,
322.16f]). Furthermore, in Gebhardt's judgment, the Opera Posthuma copy,
which he uses as his primary original in his edition, likely corresponds to what
Spinoza really wrote. Although Gebhardt's conjecture concerning the scribal
error which must have led both to Leibniz's copy and that of the Nagelagte
Schriften is not compelling, still his editorial authority is great and he raises suf-
ficient doubt about the other copies to prevent any conclusive case being made
on the basis of the intriguing occurrences of first person plurals within them.
There are other places in Spinoza's writings where the first person plural
occurs in what appear to be confessional contexts. One of them is mentioned
later in this paper. But at present I do not see how any one alone or even all
together could be held up as conclusive evidence of Spinoza's including himself
among the Christians.
Ib. The Words 'True Faith'
Angela Roothaan has recently claimed that Spinoza characterizes his own pre-
sentation of the fundamentals of faith in chapter 14 of the Tractatus Theologico-
Politicus (henceforward TTP) as 'vraie foi' and that his doing so implies his
own acceptance of that faith (1998, 269).
2
This would be a very elegant proof,
were it not that its single premise is false and its only inference invalid. Spinoza
does not in fact speak of 'vera fides' (the Latin equivalent of 'vraie foi') any-
where in chapter 14. But even if he did, it is quite clear that anyone might distin-
guish between 'true' and 'false' Christian beliefs without being a Christian.
Furthermore, 'true' and its counterparts in other languages can also have the
sense of 'authentic,' and authentic beliefs of a given faith can be identified by
anyone who knows the faith without implying either that he or she is a believer
or that the beliefs in question correspond to extra-religious fact.
Neither piece of allegedly direct evidence of Spinoza's Christianity seems,
then, to stand up well to scrutiny. The situation changes, however, when we
begin to look for indirect evidence. Scattered throughout Spinoza's writings, but
particularly in the TTP, are numerous references to the Christ. They and their
contexts are worthy of careful attention.
2. Indirect Evidence
These allusions to the Christ have of course been noticed by careful readers.
Richard Mason calls them 'puzzling' (1997, p. 208); they are admitted to be
52 Graeme Hunter
'difficult' by Alan Donagan (1996, 369) and 'particularly difficult' by Steven
Nadler (1999). Steven Smith, on the other hand, calls them 'careful and studied
ambiguities' (1997, 105). Popkin says amusingly (1996, 401): 'Jewish readers
often ask me: Why? Who is [Spinoza] trying to kid? Did he have to say such
things to please the censor, or the audience? They assume that he could not have
been serious or sincere.'
To see how Spinoza might have been both serious and sincere, it is easiest to
begin with TTP, chapter 14. To lay a great deal of weight on chapter 14 is actu-
ally to follow Spinoza's instructions to the reader. At the end of that chapter, he
counsels us to read it over and over again, together with chapter 7 (titled 'On the
Interpretation of Scripture' and presumably a propaedeutic to 14), because it
(chapter 14) contains the main points (praecipud) which Spinoza wants to
establish (G in, 180.6ff). The title of chapter 14 poses three questions which are
answered in the body of the chapter: 'What is faith?' 'Who are the faithful?'
and 'What are the fundamentals of the faith?' The answers to these questions, in
conformity with the method established in the TTP, are to be sought from 'the
whole of Scripture' (174.6), that is, from both the Old and the New Testaments
(174.2If). Hence there can be no doubt that the Christian faith is the one under
discussion, since it is the only faith that recognizes both Testaments as authori-
tative.
After defining faith in general terms as obedience (175), Spinoza speaks of
the necessity of measuring faith by works, and criticizes those sects who mea-
sure faith by verbal adherence to their own dogmas. In light of this rejection of
dogma, his next move is initially puzzling, because he goes on to propound
seven of what he himself calls 'dogmas of the universal faith' (fidei universalis
dogmata [177.14]). One wonders how someone who has just declared dogma
superfluous can so boldly propound new dogmas of his own. Yet Spinoza com-
mends them to the reader in the highest terms. If these dogmas are accepted, he
boasts, they will leave no room for controversy in the Church (nullum locum
controversiis in Ecclesia relinqui [177.13]).
In rejecting all dogma while proposing seven new ones, Spinoza appears to
be paradoxically active at both of what Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan
regards as the opposite poles of seventeenth-century religious controversy. In
his study of the development of Christian doctrine in the modern period, Peli-
kan depicts the seventeenth-century 'crisis of orthodoxy' as having come about
through a clash of opposites - the rejection of all dogma by some, and the plen-
tiful assertion of new dogma by others (1989, 9ff). In TTP, chapter 14, Spinoza
seems to illustrate the deft art of dancing at two weddings.
However, what Spinoza is doing is not as strange as it looks. When he says he
has 'left no room for controversy in the Church,' and capitalizes 'Church'
(Ecclesia), he shows that he is neither being inconsistent nor even a novelty in
his age. He was attempting, not to prescribe new dogmas as such, and thus to
found a new church, but instead to formulate with lapidary precision what he
claims were the traditional dogmas of the primitive Church (cf. TIP, ch. 14; G
in, I SO . lO f f ) . And in the Reformation context, the primitive Church was the
only one that could lay undisputed claim to universality. Here again Spinoza did
not deviate from his age, but rather typified it. To cite Pelikan once more (1989,
15): '[I dentification of "the true primitive church" as both the ideal and the
norm was a presupposition shared by all parties at the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century.'
Spinoza is no sectarian. He explicitly rejects the false doctrines introduced by
innovators in 'a blind and rash passion for interpreting the sacred writings and
excogitating novelties in religion' (77P, ch. 7; G in, 97.20ff). What Spinoza
proposes, on the contrary, will bring harmony because it expresses 'the mind of
the Holy Spirit' (ibid.; also 102.18f).
One consequence of defining faith as Spinoza does, in terms of obedience, is
that the only pertinent dogmas of the Catholic faith (fides catholicd) are those
pertaining to God and our obedience to him (TTP, ch. 14, 177). According to
Spinoza, they are seven: (1) that God exists, (2) that he is unique and worthy of
devotion; (3) that he is ubiquitous; (4) that he is incoercible, though gracious;
(5) that his worship and obedience consist in charity and justice; (6) that he
saves those who worship aright; and (7) that he also saves those who repent.
Spinoza makes it clear that he is not merely outlining the attributes of a God
who is to be an object of intellectual assent, but also of reverent worship (cultu
... adorare[ 177.18f]) .
Scholars have pointed to a certain resemblance between these seven dogmas
and Maimonides's explanation of the fundamental principles of the Law in the
Guide for the Perplexed (m, 27f). However, although these texts coincide at sev-
eral points in their teaching, they differ markedly in intent. Maimonides's aim is
to explain the spirit of doctrines to a readership who accepts the letter. Spinoza,
on the other hand, means to formulate the letter of doctrines whose spirit he
thinks to be universal in character.
3
In its form of presentation, Spinoza's list of dogmas bears much closer
resemblance to the creeds or 'symbols' proposed by the leaders of the great
Reformation traditions - for example, the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglicanism
or Melanchton's Augsburg Confession. Nearer to Spinoza's own time, place,
and thinking would be the Five Articles of the Remonstrants, the condemnation
of which by the Synod of Dort in 1618 led to the formation of the Collegiant
congregations, with whom Spinoza was connected at least by strong bonds of
friendship.
54 Graeme Hunter
3. Deism or Christianity?
However, even if the resemblance to Reformation creeds is conceded, it might
be said that little or nothing in my summary of Spinoza's articles of faith is
explicitly Christian. Perhaps, as the Utrecht physician and polymath Lambert
van Velthuysen did, we might suspect Spinoza of deism (Ep. 42, G iv, 207.23f).
However, Spinoza's reply to Velthuysen (and his only significant remark about
deism) is dismissive (Ep. 43, G iv, 219.32-220.4). Moreover, closer scrutiny of
several of his proposed dogmas will reveal a great deal that is Christian about
them.
The first (177) deals with the existence of God. But what kind of God? Those
of us who learned our Spinoza from the Ethics expect to find an impersonal and
indifferent God. But the God intended by dogma 1 is 'most just and merciful'
and also 'an exemplar of true living' (177.21f), an epithet more nearly applica-
ble to Christ (cf. Ep. 75, G iv, 314.13-16).
According to dogma 4, God does all things not only by his good pleasure, but
also by 'particular grace' (177.31). It is true that Spinoza offers no definition of
'grace' in the TTP,
4
but that would suggest that he intended it to be understood
in its generally accepted theological sense of 'the free and unmerited act by
which God restores his estranged people to himself (cf. Harvey 1964, art.
'Grace'). Indeed the idea that grace is free, unmerited, and restorative is sug-
gested by its being coupled here with God's sovereign 'good pleasure,' and else-
where with God's 'pity' (cf. 178.7f).
The fifth dogma defines worship of God and obedience toward him in terms
of the practice of justice and charity toward one's neighbour (177). It echoes
unmistakably Jesus' famous summary of the Law (Matt. 22:37^0), though
slanting it toward the value Spinoza, following the apostle James, attributed to
works over faith (cf. 175.21-32).
The seventh and final dogma, namely that God pardons the sins of those who
repent, is the most revealing of all. The gloss of it reads as follows (178.7-10):
... whoever believes firmly that God forgives sins out of pity and by grace, by
which he directs all things, and for this reason is greatly inflamed with love of God,
this person knows Christ according to the Spirit and Christ is in him.
In contrast to the God of the Ethics, the God of the TTP operates at a personal
level ('by pity and grace'), is providential ('directs all things'), and, most
important of all, is a God whose pardon is intimately connected with the in-
dwelling of Christ.
Spinoza's credentials as a reformer are established at the end of chapter 14,
where he writes that his intent is 'not to introduce novelty, but to rectify corrup-
tions' (180.1 Of). And he is only repeating there what he said earlier in chapter 7,
when he was critical of those innovators who yield to 'a blind and foolhardy
desire to interpret Scripture and think up novelties in religion' (97.20f).
If Spinoza is Christian, then he belongs to the tradition of the great reformers
of the first Reformation, such as Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, who were not
attempting to found a new religion, but only to purify the old. He belongs to that
tradition, not in the sense of accepting its achievements, but of emulating its
spirit. His dissatisfaction with what the first Reformation accomplished was no
doubt conditioned at least in part by that of his Collegiant friends, who thought
that the proliferation of warring Protestant sects following the Reformation
demonstrated the insufficiency of its reforms (Fix 1991, 91). Like Spinoza,
many of the Collegiants thought that a new reformation was required. Some
believed it would come from within the established Protestant churches; others
thought it would have to originate outside and go beyond them (op. cit., 115).
And the latter group was once again divided as to whether the final reformation
would come by some human apostle (op. cit., 89) or only after the return of
Christ himself (op. cit., 100). In chapter 14 of TTP, Spinoza seems to present
himself as the apostolic messiah many of the Collegiants were hoping for.
4. Spinoza's Radical Reformation
The outline of Spinoza the reformer, which is discernible in TTP, chapter 14, is
elaborated in the rest of that work. For example, that picture of Spinoza puts
what he says about the apostles into its proper context. In chapter 11, Spinoza
shows how they placed their teachings, as he puts it, 'on separate foundations'
(diversis fundamentis [157.32]), citing as a proof-text Paul's claim in the letter
to the Romans (15:20) not to have built on other men's foundations. At the end
of chapter 11, Spinoza tells us that this fateful principle of the apostles in fact
sowed the seed of the very religious discord which flowered so riotously and
with such devastating effect in his own time. Dissent will never be overcome, he
continues prophetically, until 'religion is separated from philosophical specula-
tions and reduced to the fewest and simplest dogmas that Christ taught to his
followers' (158.12).
Such a reduction of dogma to the bare essentials of the early Church is, of
course, precisely what Spinoza himself will propose three chapters later in the
same book. Is Spinoza in chapter 11 therefore engaged in nothing more than an
act of cheap self-promotion: Spinoza, his own John the Baptist, heralding the
messiah he himself will become three chapters later? Fortunately, we are not
obliged to read chapter 11 this way. It makes better sense if we read Spinoza as
56 Graeme Hunter
voicing messianic expectations already present in a community with whose out-
look he sympathizes.
The same hypothesis also helps to make proper sense of Spinoza's closing
words in chapter 11: 'Happy indeed would be our age,' he writes, 'if it too [like
the churches founded by Saint Paul] were freed from all superstition'
(158.13ff). If Spinoza is expressing the felt need of a genuine religious commu-
nity, it is perfectly natural that he should also offer them whatever he can to
address that need. But if he has no such community in mind, then Spinoza must
be simultaneously creating the need he hopes to satisfy, like a hawker of
unwanted consumer goods. Thus, much about the TTP makes more sense when
it is conceived as the work of a religious reformer addressing a situation crying
out for reform within a community that expects and longs for it.
If understanding Spinoza this way enables us to put some passages in con-
text, it also allows us to escape the interpretive errors that even some careful
readers have made. Lewis Feuer, for example, cites a passage in one of
Spinoza's letters to Oldenburg as evidence that Spinoza was 'spiritually excom-
municate among the Christians [of Holland]' (Feuer 1966, 149). The passage
which Feuer so interprets occurs in a letter to Oldenburg (Letter 73, G iv,
307.3-8), which he cites in Wolf's translation (Spinoza 1966, 343):
I hold an opinion about God and Nature very different from that which Modern
Christians are wont to defend. For I maintain that God is, as they say, the immanent
cause of all things, but not the transeunt cause. Like Paul, and perhaps also like all
ancient philosophers, though in another way, I assert that all things live and move
in God...
How does this indicate that Spinoza is 'spiritually excommunicate among
Christians'? Feuer obviously took Spinoza's critical reference to 'modern
Christians' to mean all Christians contemporary with Spinoza and Oldenburg.
But since that would have included Oldenburg himself, whom Spinoza had no
intention of criticizing, that interpretation is quite unlikely. Spinoza is not trying
to prove himself a heretic by standards Oldenburg accepts. On the contrary,
Spinoza is denouncing a newfangled standard that, in his opinion, Christians
(including Oldenburg) have no business accepting. In its place, Spinoza offers
Christians a better standard, one that is in conformity not only with Spinozistic
doctrine, but which also enjoys the backing of ancient philosophy and of the
primitive Church in the person of Saint Paul.
Feuer is right to see Spinoza as non-sectarian, but wrong to infer from it that
he was (or thought himself to be) an outsider to the Christian faith. Kolakowski
cautions wisely against precisely that kind of inference (1969, 208): 'One must
proceed with caution when distinguishing between Christian reformers and
"freethinkers," particularly in Protestant countries. It is a characteristic of
reformers, who are absorbed in religious questions, to free themselves of con-
fessional affiliations.' On this evidence, Spinoza once again looks less like a
heretic and more like a radical reformer.
5. Spinoza's Orthodoxy
To make the best case for considering Spinoza as a 'radical Protestant,' the term
should be taken in a generic sense, one that would cover many Collegiants,
Mennonites, Quakers, Socinians, etc. Measured against the orthodox, Spinoza
will always be a radical, but it is certainly possible to overestimate his religious
independence. A surprising number of his teachings, particularly those concern-
ing the person of Jesus Christ, are impeccably orthodox. For example, Christ is
elevated far above Moses. For Christ was the voice of God, which Moses only
heard (TTP, ch. 1, 21.9). Christ was not a mere prophet but the very mouth (os)
of God (TTP, ch. 4, 64.19).
As a path to salvation, Christ is unique in two senses, the first being that he is
universal. To be saved, for Spinoza, means neither more nor less than 'to have
the Spirit of Christ,' a state which presupposes no conscious knowledge of him
(TTP, ch. 5, 79.2Iff). That is why Alexandre Matheron was right to emphasize
'le Christ selon 1'Esprit' (Matheron 1971, 7), who is much more important in
Spinoza's eyes than the historical Jesus, 'le Christ selon la chair.' Indeed,
Spinoza explicitly says that Turks and other heathens, if they worship God by
exercising justice and charity toward their neighbours, have the Spirit of Christ
and are saved (Ep. 43, G iv, 226.1-4).
It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss this religious inclusiveness of
Spinoza's as heterodox. While it is true that the doctrine 'nulla salus extra eccle-
siam' met with almost universal agreement in the seventeenth century, it is also
true that most sects were careful not to limit salvation to their own members. Arti-
cle 18 of the Anglican Church's Thirty-nine Articles is probably typical. It reads:
They also are to be had accursed that presume to say, that every man shall be saved
by the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life
according to that Law and the light of Nature. For Holy Scripture doth set out unto
us only the name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved ...
Jesus himself says that he has 'sheep that are not of this fold' (John 10:16), thus
making it difficult to rule out the possibility of salvation without conscious
knowledge of Christ.
58 Graeme Hunter
But Spinoza also makes Christ unique in the stronger sense of being superior
to all other men. Christ is the highest expression of the wisdom of God (Ep. 73,
G iv, 308.12f)- In fact, Christ alone possesses 'super-human wisdom' (sapien-
tiam, quae supra humanam est [7TP, ch. 1, G HI, 21.10f]). And without Christ
no one can enter into the love of justice and charity necessary for salvation
(Ep. 76, Giv, 318, 11-15).
Christ is also an effect of the same providential order to which Spinoza
alludes in his gloss of dogma 7. He was sent to all nations to free them from
bondage to the Law (TTP, ch. 3, 54.24f), and also to proclaim a universal law to
them (TTP, ch. 5, 71.1). Therefore he is part of a providential plan unfolding in
history.
Spinoza holds that Jesus Christ is not really or bodily present in the Eucha-
rist, which would place him beyond the pale of orthodoxy as far as both Roman
Catholics and the main Reformed denominations were concerned (Ep. 76, G iv,
319.15ff). But to hold that the Eucharist was merely symbolic was considered
orthodox teaching both by Zwinglians and by many of the radical Protestant
sects.
Finally, and most surprisingly, one can find in Spinoza both early and late
statements which, though not endorsements of the Trinity, seem to presuppose
Trinitarian doctrine. The earlier instance occurs in the Cogitata Metaphysica,
published in 1663 as an appendix to the Principles of Descartes' Philosophy. Its
context is Spinoza's effort to show what is wrong with the inference from the
actual eternity of the Son of God to the possible eternity of creatures. Those
who make this argument are mistaken both about the nature of eternity and the
nature of the Son of God, he says. The refutation of the latter mistake brings out
Spinoza's almost Trinitarian teaching. Note also another use of the first person
plural, suggesting the writer's personal commitment to the belief under discus-
sion (CM H, 10; G i, 271.25-30):
We respond that it is most false [to say] that God can communicate his eternity to
creatures, or that the son of God is a creature. Instead, like the father, he is eternal.
And so when we say that the father begat the son from all eternity (patrem filium ab
aeterno genuisse), we mean nothing more than that the father has always communi-
cated his eternity to his son.
This passage relates the Father to the Son in a way clearly consistent with, if not
actually modelled upon, the relevant clause of the Nicene Creed: ex Patre natum
ante omnia saecula (begotten of the Father before all worlds).
In another place, Spinoza relates the Son to the Holy Spirit, writing to Albert
Burgh in 1675 that Christ is always co-present with the fruit of the Spirit (Ep.
76, G iv, 318.11-15). This puts Spinoza in conformity with Saint Paul's teach-
ing in Galatians 5:22-6, for whom the fruit of the Spirit belongs to Christ
because the Spirit is Christ's spirit.
6. The Unorthodox Spinoza
Not all Spinoza's teachings, of course, are orthodox. But what is most interest-
ing about Spinoza's unorthodoxy is that much of it, too, is better understood as
intending the reformation of Christian doctrine, rather than the simple refusal of
it. For example, Spinoza rejects the incarnation, saying to Oldenburg that for
God to take on human nature is no more possible than for a circle to take on the
nature of a square (Ep. 74, G iv, 309.2-6). Neither was there any physical resur-
rection, according to Spinoza (Ep. 75, 314.9-13; Ep. 78, 328.8-16). Yet both of
these unorthodox doctrines are explained to Oldenburg in a context that affirms
both the historical existence of Jesus and his 'spiritual' resurrection (Ep. 78,
328f).
Very shocking to the ears of Spinoza's contemporaries must have been the list
of Christian doctrines he declares inessential. He gives what he implies is only
a partial list of these in chapter 14 of the TTP, just after his presentation of
the seven dogmas. Apparently Christians do not need to know: (1) what God
is; (2) why God is the exemplar of true living; (3) whether God is actually or
only potentially everywhere; (4) whether God's providence is free or necessary;
(5) whether he enacts his laws as would a prince or teaches them as eternal
laws; (6) whether man has free will or obeys Divine decrees out of necessity;
(7) whether reward of good and punishment of evil is natural or supernatural
(TTP, ch. 14; G HI, 178.13-27).
No doubt some of these questions are inessential, but it is hard to admit it of
all of them. Surely one's ability to be a follower of Christ is connected with
being free (6). And does not belief, for example, in the efficacy of prayer pre-
suppose some opinion about the freedom of God and man (4)? Finally, it is
imperative to know in what way God (does he mean Christ?) is the exemplar of
true living, if we are to conform our lives to his in the obedience which Spinoza
recommends.
Spinoza's contemporaries certainly found him too cavalier with doctrine, and
it is not difficult to see why. Some of the doctrinal points he dismissed were
passionately debated in the religiously charged atmosphere of his day. It is easy
to see how dismissing them could create a reputation for atheism. But Spinoza's
concern with doctrinal matters can also be taken to mean that his fault was not
religious indifference but zeal. Did his fault lie perhaps, not in believing too lit-
tle, but in reforming too much? Indeed, can there be adiaphora and no diaphora?
60 Graeme Hunter
Would it make sense to point out superfluous doctrine, if nothing was deemed
indispensable? The list of inessentials seems to underline Spinoza's earlier
assertion of a core of fundamental beliefs, a credo.
7. How Did Spinoza Understand His Religion?
By its nature, scholarly discussion of Spinoza's tenets and adiaphora must
remain external to them. But it is pertinent to wonder how Spinoza's reformed
Christianity appeared to its apostle from the inside. Here there is insufficient
material for certainty, but just enough for conjecture. It is not unlikely that
Spinoza saw himself as part of what is now called the 'second reformation' and
as having much in common with many of his friends who were Collegiants.
Though Collegiants have ancestors in the Schwenkfeldian and Franckian
spiritualism of the early Reformation (Fix 1991, 86), the Collegiant movement
originated as a reaction to the dismissal of Remonstrant preachers following the
condemnation of their doctrine by the Synod of Dort in 1618 (Kolakowski
1969, 168). I do not claim that Spinoza was a Collegiant, but it is safe to say that
he was sympathetic particularly with their radical wing. Andrew Fix describes
the range of Collegiant religious thought as follows (1991, 115):
While the more moderate of the new reformers proposed to work within the estab-
lished Protestant churches to carry out a further reformation of these churches that
would build upon and extend the work of the first reformers, the radical new
reformers rejected the work of the original Reformation as a failure and called for a
reconstitution of Christian religious life on earth that went far beyond the reform of
individual congregations or churches to encompass a complete reorganization of
universal Christianity and of Christian society as well.
The phrase 'a reorganization of universal Christianity and of Christian society'
accurately describes Spinoza's ambition in the TTP. In the same vein, words
applied by another twentieth-century scholar to Spinoza's friend, the Collegiant
Jarig Jelles, fit Spinoza equally well. Hubertus Hubbeling writes (Hubbeling
1984, 159f): 'Jelles was in many respects a typical "reformer," i.e., someone
who deviates from the official line of the Church, who wants to push the Refor-
mation further in an ethical and spiritual direction, but if possible without any
great break with the tradition.'
It is unusual for radical reformers to understand themselves as such. Typi-
cally, often comically, they see themselves as the soul of moderation and rea-
son. And Spinoza is no exception. He sees the universal Church he champions
as occupying a middle ground between Protestant enthusiasm and Roman Cath-
olic 'superstition' (Ep. 76, G iv, 317.17-318.11). The necessity of taking such a
stand may have been suggested to Spinoza by the controversy which saw two of
his Collegiant friends, Pieter Serrarius and Pieter Balling, locked in dispute
with their erstwhile Quaker allies concerning the religious meaning of the
phrase 'the light.' Spinoza attempts to turn off the dim and subjective light of
the Quakers and hold up the bright and objective one of Scripture. At the same
time, he tries to uphold what is original in the Christian faith, without lapsing
into superstitious veneration of the merely traditional. His are the instincts of a
reformer. They are the responses that a radical reformer could be expected to
make to the volatile religious environment of seventeenth-century Holland.
8. Consequences: Spinoza on Providence
Probably everyone who has studied both texts carefully has noticed the distinct
difference in tone between the TTP and the Ethics. But few have found the two
books easy to reconcile. Although the TTP was published in 1670 and the Eth-
ics not until after Spinoza's death, in 1677, they were written too close together
for one to be a youthful, the other a mature, doctrine. Spinoza's numerous allu-
sions in the Tractatus to doctrines of the Ethics suggest that he was working on
both texts simultaneously during the 1660s (cf. Brochard 1954, 333).
One cannot absolutely discount the possibility that Spinoza was of two
minds, torn between a more materialistic, scientific philosophy, which he
expressed in the Ethics, and a more uplifting, spiritualistic one, developed in the
TTP. Against such an understanding, however, stands the unusually systematic
nature of Spinoza's thought. And if one is to understand all Spinoza's writings
as illustrations of one philosophical system, then there must be some single
course on which Spinoza's two philosophical flagships are bound.
Angela Roothaan complains that when reconciliations of the two texts do
occur, they inevitably (and unjustly) privilege the Ethics (Roothaan 1998, 270).
However, Victor Brochard is a notable exception to her rule, for he, though only
briefly, sketched an interpretation of the Ethics in the light of the TTP (Brochard
1954, 347-61), claiming that there are 'no contradictions or essential differ-
ences' between them, and taking the TTP as his standard of reference. It would
be a book-length task to work out that project in full,
5
but I would like to try
Brochard's method very briefly on the thematic question of theodicy.
Among the concepts entailed by theodicy, are those of goodness, evil, and
providence. And yet is not that entire family of concepts put massively in ques-
tion by the austere proof of 1E33 and its scholia, and then dismissed with little
more than derision in the Appendix of Ethics i? Spinoza appears to be a strict
necessitarian, for whom the consolations of providence and all terms of value
62 Graeme Hunter
are at best subjective fantasies. There is not space here to go over these rich
texts in the detail they merit. But in closing I will look at two concise refutations
which Spinoza deploys in the second scholium of 1E33, probably aimed at the
theodicies of Descartes and Leibniz.
6
The Christian interpretation of Spinoza
outlined so far puts this critique and the Spinozistic alternative offered to Des-
cartes and Leibniz in a new light.
In the last paragraph of 1E33S2, Spinoza sets his own position off against
positions that in ethics would be called voluntarism and intellectualism, but
which in theodicy were best represented in Spinoza's day by Descartes and
Leibniz respectively. Each philosopher had tried to give an account of the good-
ness of God which paid sufficient attention to the existence of evil.
The Cartesian voluntarists say that goodness and evil 'depend solely on the
will of God.' Spinoza thinks them right insofar as they recognize nothing out-
side of God capable of constraining him, but wrong to imply that God could
have willed anything other than he did, since God not only contains all that is,
but is himself immutable.
Though he does not explicitly say so, Spinoza would presumably also con-
sider the Leibnizian intellectualist to be right in thinking that God could not
have chosen any differently.
7
His error lies in supposing an ethical reality inde-
pendent of God, a kind of moral pattern (or exemplar) which determined or
even influenced his will. Nothing external could influence Spinoza's God for
the simple reason that nothing is external to him.
The two refutations taken together show Spinoza's God to lack both internal
flexibility and external choice. It is easy to conclude that the only middle
ground for Spinoza to occupy between Cartesian voluntarism and Leibnizian
intellectualism is a harsh fatalism. That is in fact how Leibniz understood him
(e.g., at Theodicy, in, 371). But if we read Spinoza here in the light of the TIP,
we can see that there is more conceptual space between Leibniz and Descartes
than Leibniz recognized.
Spinoza in the Ethics is committed to God's being immutable within and sov-
ereign without. But neither of those qualities requires that a brutal and inclem-
ent destiny rule our lives. God's immutability and sovereignty do not preclude
his governing by mercy and grace as the TTP's description of God requires.
God's nature (or Nature's God) may simply be so disposed that mercy flows to
the penitent and grace abounds to the weak.
On the present interpretation, the harsh criticism of final causes in the Appen-
dix of Ethics i would be directed only against anthropomorphic conceptions of
providence which make it a crude extension of human purposes. Nothing in the
Appendix prevents one holding that God both sustains all things and governs
their intercourse with one another. In other words, nothing prevents a Christian
view of providence from fitting comfortably between the rejected positions of
Descartes and Leibniz.
Notes
1 All references to Spinoza's works are to Spinoza 1 925, edited by Carl Gebhardt
(see Bibliography under 'Primary Sources'). In the text of this paper, this edition is
abbreviated as 'G,' following a common practice. References to the Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus (abbreviated TTP) are to be understood as referring to Spinoza
1 925 (i.e., G), vol. 3, and will supply in each case the page and line number of that
edition. For ease of reference to translations and other editions, the names of indi-
vidual works, chapters, and sections of Spinoza's writings are identified as fully as
possible, following the standard reference procedure of Studia Spinozana.
2 'Nous sommes surpris de lire alors que dans son Traite theologico-politique, Spinoza
tente de trouver une definition de la "vraie foi." S'il avait simplement voulu decrire
la croyance des hommes vue de 1 'exterieur, il eut etc vain et meme impossible de
parler de la verite de cette croyance.'
3 Steven Smith's study of Spinoza's Jewish identity (1 997,1 1 4f) points out two further
disanalogies.
4 The definition offered in the Ethics is not helpful, for there 'gratia' is understood in
one of its classical senses as equivalent to 'gratitudo.' That sense is lost in the
English word 'grace,' except in its use to mean the prayer of thanksgiving said before
meals.
5 I shall devote a large section of a forthcoming monograph to the reconciliation of the
two texts.
6 Cartesians are the obvious targets of Spinoza's criticism of 'those who say that good
and bad depend upon the will of God,' but many may wonder whether Leibniz could
really have been the target of Spinoza's denial that 'God does everything in pursuit of
the good'? It will be said that in 1 677 Leibniz was still several decades away from
becoming the most famous supporter of that doctrine and that Spinoza probably had
in mind the long tradition of 'intellectualism' in ethics.
That may be true. Nevertheless there are several reasons to suspect that Spinoza
had Leibniz in mind. (1 ) Leibniz already had worked out the position here attacked,
though he had as yet published nothing about it. (2) Leibniz visited Spinoza in
Amsterdam in 1 676 and spent several days with him discussing metaphysical ques-
tions. (3) Spinoza could easily have learned of Leibniz's philosophy from mutual
friends such as Schuller or Tschirnhaus. (4) If meeting Leibniz did goad Spinoza to
reply to the intellectualist position, in his already substantially completed Ethics, one
would expect that reply to take the form of a note or scholium just as it does. Finally,
64 Graeme Hunter
in the last paragraph of 1E33S2, Spinoza gives every rhetorical sign of rehearsing an
argument still fresh in his memory.
7 To say that Leibniz is the target of this criticism does not imply, however, that the
criticism hits home. Even the early Leibniz, in fact, attenuates this claim signifi-
cantly, saying only that God is unable to do less than the best salva perfectione (cf.
Leibniz 1978, i, 254, note 72).
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Spinoza, Benedict. 1925. Spinoza Opera. Ed. C. Gebhardt. 4 vols. Heidelberg: Carl
Winter.
- 1966. Correspondence. Trans, and ed. A. Wolf. London: Cass. Reprint of 1928.
Secondary Sources
Brochard, V. 1954. 'Le Dieu de Spinoza.' In Etudes dephilosophic ancienne etde
philosophic moderne. Paris: Vrin.
Donagan, Alan. 1996. 'Spinoza's Theology.' In The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 343-82.
Feuer, Lewis. 1966. Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism. Boston: Beacon Press.
Fix, Andrew. 1991. Prophecy and Reason: The Dutch Collegiants in the Early Enlight-
enment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Harvey, Van A. 1964. A Handbook of Theological Terms. New York: Macmillan.
Hubbeling, Hubertus G. 1984. 'Zur friihen Spinozarezeption in den Niederlanden.' In
Spinoza in der Frtihzeit seiner religiosen Wirkung. Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider.
Kolakowski, Leszek 1969. Chretiens sans eglise. Paris: Gallimard. [Trans of Polish
original, 1965.]
Laux, Henri. 1993. Imagination et religion chez Spinoza. Paris: Vrin.
Leibniz, G.W. 1978. Die philosophischen Schriften. 1 vols. Ed. C.I. Gerhardt.
Hildesheim: Olms. [Reprint of 1875-90.]
Mason, Richard 1997. The God of Spinoza. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Matheron, Alexandre. \91l.Le Christ et le salut des ignorants chez Spinoza. Paris:
Aubier-Montaigne.
Nadler, Steven. 1999. Spinoza: A Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1989. Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture (since 1700).
Vol. 5 of The Christian Tradition. 5 vols. Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press.
Popkin, Richard. 1996. 'Spinoza and Bible Scholarship.' In The Cambridge Companion
to Spinoza. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 383^07.
Roothaan, Angela. 1998. 'Spinoza releve-t-il de la theologie naturelle?' Revue de
theologie et de philosophic 130: 269-83.
Smith, Steven. 1997. Spinoza, Liberalism and the Question of Jewish Identity. New
Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Zac, Sylvain. 1985. 'Le probleme du christianisme de Spinoza.' In Essais spinozistes.
Paris :Vrin. 105/479-117/491.
Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil
STEVEN M. NADLER
On the face of it, the mere idea of discussing Spinoza's approach to the theodicy
problem should appear misguided, if not downright absurd. After all, should not
Spinoza reject the whole question of theodicy as incoherent, and grounded in a
false or inadequate conception of the nature of things? It would seem, in fact,
that the question cannot even be raised within his metaphysical and moral sys-
tem, and that thus it is worthless to investigate anything other than why that is
so. And yet, as I hope to show, I think there is more to it than that.
For the project of a theodicy even to begin, there are a number of essential ingre-
dients required. First, of course, there is the claim that there is a God and that God
is the creator (or, at least, the causal source) of the world we inhabit. Second,
there is the claim that there is evil (either apparent or real) in God's creation.
Whether we want to call it 'moral' evil, 'metaphysical' evil, or 'physical' evil, to
use Leibniz's categorization, there must nonetheless be some order of imper-
fection in that world, especially relative to human beings. Sometimes that imper-
fection will be the sins committed by moral agents. At other times, the
imperfection will consist in the suffering of the innocent and the flourishing of
the wicked. Birth defects, natural disasters, and undeserved punishment are all
undeniable and (apparently) inexplicable features of the world. In and of itself,
this is not problematic. It becomes problematic - and generates the set of ques-
tions known, following Leibniz, as 'theodicy' - only when taken in conjunction
with a number of claims about God, claims that also prevent any kind of simplis-
5
I
Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil 67
tic solution to those questions. First, God is omnipotent; that is, God can do what-
ever God wills to do, and God's will is, at least absolutely speaking, of infinite
scope. This prevents one from saying that God could not do anything about the
evils in his creation. Second, God is omniscient; God knows everything, includ-
ing the alleged apparent defects in his work. This prevents one from saying that
God could (and would) do something about the evils in his creation, if only he
knew about them; and since he obviously has not done anything about them, he
must not know about them. Third, God is benevolent and just; God wills only
what is good. This prevents one from resolving the conundrum simply by saying
that God knows about the evils, and is capable of preventing them, but simply
does not care to do so. How then can we reconcile the existence of evil, pain, and
suffering in the world with the fact that the world was created by a just, wise,
good, omniscient, omnipotent, and free God?
Now Spinoza rejects a number of these claims. First of all, for Spinoza, God
- or Nature (Deus sive Natura, in the famous phrase that Spinoza's friends
excised from the posthumous Dutch edition of his works) - is not omnipotent in
the classical sense. While Spinoza's God is, to be sure, the ultimate and infinite
cause of everything that exists, it is not, on the other hand, a free God who acts
by will and choice. As he explicitly notes, God, while free, 'does not produce any
effect by freedom of the will.'' All aspects of the universe follow necessarily and
with absolute determination from the infinite substance - God - and its attributes.
Nor is Spinoza's God a good and just being. In fact, God for Spinoza is entirely
devoid of any moral characteristics. God is nature, or at least the active, genera-
tive, eternal, and infinite aspects of nature - what he calls Natura naturans - and
is not a being that is motivated to act by any conception of the good; in fact,
Spinoza's God acts for the sake of no ends whatsoever. There is no teleology, nei-
ther within nature nor for nature as a whole. All ascription to God of 'acting for
the sake of some good end,' or of a free will moved by a conception of the good,
is to succumb to the kind of anthropomorphizing of God that is typical of the
organized superstitions that pass for the major sectarian religions.
Without a free, good, and just God, the whole question of theodicy does not
even get off the ground. Or maybe it would be better to say that the question is
answered immediately. There is suffering and disaster in the world because
there is no wise and providential God watching over the world, a world all of
whose events are necessitated simply by the laws of nature. So why even dis-
cuss Spinoza in the context of the theodicy problem?
Moreover, Spinoza at times seems to evince nothing but contempt for those
who would waste their time engaged in trying to resolve the problem of evil
with a theodicy (much as Job's friends attempt to explain the rationale behind
his suffering):
68 Steven M. Nadler
See, I ask you, how the matter has turned out in the end! Among so many conve-
niences in nature they had to find many inconveniences: storms, earthquakes, dis-
eases, etc. These, they maintain, happen because the Gods (whom they judge to be
of the same nature as themselves) are angry on account of wrongs done to them by
men, or on account of sins committed in their worship. And though their daily
experience contradicted this, and though infinitely many examples showed that
conveniences and inconveniences happen indiscriminately to the pious and the
impious alike, they did not on that account give up their longstanding prejudice. It
was easier for them to put this among the other unknown things, whose use they
were ignorant of, and so remain in the state of ignorance in which they had been
born, than to destroy that whole construction, and think up a new one. So they
maintained it as certain that the judgments of the Gods far surpass man's grasp.
(Ethics i, Appendix)
Engaging in theodician speculation is the way only to superstition, not enlight-
enment.
What I intend to show is that, in fact, Spinoza was not entirely unconcerned
with the problem of evil and suffering. What he offers us, however, is not so
much a theodicy, but rather a response to a particular kind of attempt at theod-
icy. This, by itself, is not particularly novel or surprising. Any careful reader of
the Ethics could figure this out for herself. But what I do find especially inter-
esting are two things: first, that the kind of theodicy to which Spinoza is
responding is a very prominent one in medieval Jewish philosophy and even
earlier rabbinic texts; and second, that the seeds of Spinoza's response to that
kind of theodicy are themselves also found in medieval Jewish thinking on evil.
In fact, what I think Spinoza is doing through his own account of human happi-
ness is offering a reductio upon a particular theodicy found in Jewish rational-
ism. Basically, what I take Spinoza to be saying is that certain classic Jewish
thinkers got it right, but did not take it far enough (at least, explicitly).
II
Before I turn to my main thesis, allow me first to bracket two issues in
Spinoza's thought that, strictly speaking, are peripheral to my discussion but
that nonetheless bear on the problem of theodicy.
First, there is Spinoza's definition of 'good' and 'evil.' Spinoza famously
claims that good and evil are 'nothing real in themselves.' Absolutely speaking,
there are no 'defects' in nature:
Perfection and imperfection, therefore, are only modes of thinking, i.e., notions we
are accustomed to feign because we compare individuals of the same species or
genus to one another ... We call them imperfect, because they do not affect our
Mind as much as those we call perfect, and not because something is lacking
in them which is theirs, or because Nature has sinned. (Ethics iv, Preface, n.207;
C545)
The labels 'good' and 'evil' are only relative to our conceptions of things, and do
not denote anything real about things themselves. 'As far as good and evil are
concerned, they also indicate nothing positive in things, considered in them-
selves, nor are they anything other than modes of thinking, or notions we form
because we compare things to one another.' By 'good,' all that is meant is 'what
we know certainly is a means by which we may approach nearer and nearer to the
model of human nature that we set before ourselves.' On the other hand, by 'evil,'
all we mean is 'what we certainly know prevents us from becoming like that
model' (Ethics iv, Preface, n.208; C 545). What is good, in other words, is simply
what is regarded by some creature as being useful; what is evil is simply what that
creature regards as inhibiting it from attaining its ends or fulfilling its desires.
Nothing is good or evil except insofar as one judges it to be good or evil.
The problem, however, is that Spinoza later goes on to speak about the 'true
knowledge of good and evil,' suggesting of course that one can be correct or
mistaken about what is truly good or useful.
2
In fact, Spinoza's moral philoso-
phy requires that there be a certain kind of pursuit - namely, the acquisition of
adequate ideas and the third kind of knowledge - that truly is our good as ratio-
nal beings. Good and evil may be relative to some standard or model that we set
before ourselves - in this case, a model of a human being - but there is also a
specific and objective model of the human being, namely, Spinoza's 'free per-
son' or 'virtuous person,' that we ought to strive to emulate. 'Knowledge of
God,' he says at Ethics ivP28, 'is the mind's greatest good.' And it is good, not
just because we believe it to be conducive to our well-being and supportive of
our conatus, but because it really is so. To be sure, this 'true knowledge of good
and evil' is as much an affect as the merely subjective conception of good and
evil, or at least 'involves' an affective component that does its motivating work.
But I do not think it can easily be dismissed as 'merely relative' to our concep-
tions. This is a notorious problem in interpreting Spinoza's ethical theory, and I
shall not pursue it here.
3
But what it does show, I think, is that Spinoza's resolu-
tion or dismissal of the theodicy problem does not consist in his simply elimi-
nating the reality of good and evil altogether, reducing them to mere modes of
our thought.
The other issue that I want to mention here, but not discuss at length, con-
cerns another dimension of the theodicy problem. Sometimes that problem is
70 Steven M. Nadler
framed not as a question as to why, in a world freely created by a good and pow-
erful and all-knowing God, there is sin and suffering and all creatures do not get
to enjoy their highest deserved perfection, but rather as a question as to why
God created a world distinct from God in the first place. If God is perfect and
self-sufficient, what could possibly move God to create anything outside of
God's being? For Spinoza, this question cannot even be raised. First, God does
not choose to create at all; the world follows necessarily from the eternal
attributes and the infinite modes, and could not possibly have not existed. There
was never a time before which it did not exist and then came into being. Second,
for Spinoza the world is not, in fact, separate from God. Rather, God just is the
substance of the universe, the immanent cause - and not a distinct transitive
cause - of all that exists.
There is, of course, a long and hallowed tradition for thinking in this way
about the relationship between God and creation, both in Jewish and Arabic
philosophy and, even earlier, in Greek thought. And it would be most interest-
ing to carry on Wolfson's project of seeking the precedents in those traditions
for Spinoza's dismissal of this aspect of the theodicy problem.
4
But in this essay
I must leave that issue behind.
Ill
When Job is overcome by his sufferings, when he has been robbed of every-
thing that was dear to him, when all finally seems lost, he raises his voice to
complain to God about the way he, to all appearances an upright man, has been
treated. His friends come and try to offer him consolation, or at least a rational-
ization of why he has been visited with such disaster. There must be a reason for
Job's tribulations, they argue, either because he or his relations have sinned or
because God has some other reason that transcends our cognitive powers. One
of his companions believes that our judgment about God's justice should not be
limited to what we see in this life, where often the righteous suffer and the
wicked prosper. If Job is truly innocent, Bildad suggests, then he should con-
sider that he will be rewarded in the long term - not just in this life, which for
the righteous is long, but especially in what will come to him after his death:
It is the wicked whose light is extinguished, from whose fire no flame will rekin-
dle; the light fades in his tent, and his lamp dies down and fails him ... His roots
beneath dry up, and above, his branches wither. His memory vanishes from the face
of the earth, and he leaves no name in the world. He is driven from light into dark-
ness and banished from the land of the living. He leaves no issue or offspring
among his people, no survivor in his earthly home. (Job 18:5-20)
The ultimate fate of the wicked, despite their temporary flourishing, is oblivion.
The implication is that the righteous person, on the other hand, while he may
suffer in this life, should enjoy the knowledge that the fruits and rewards of his
virtue will persist long after he is gone from this world. As Zophar insists, 'the
triumph of the wicked is short-lived, the glee of the godless lasts but a moment.
Though he stands high as heaven, and his head touches the clouds, he will be
swept away utterly, like his own dung' (Job 20:5-7).
This biblical text bears no explicit mention or even implication of an immor-
tal soul or an afterlife, something that appears in Judaism only later. But it does
suggest a theodicy that has the following general structure: do not judge God's
justice without taking a long-term perspective on a person's fate, including their
death and what happens afterwards.
When Judaism does finally develop, over the course of the rabbinic period, a
well-defined conception of an immortal soul and the resurrection of the dead,
along with the concomitant ideas of eternal reward in heaven (or Can Eden) and
eternal punishment in hell (Sheol or Gehinnom), this basic message can be
expanded into a full-blown theodicy. The true domain of divine justice is not
this world, but the world-to-come, Olam ha-Ba. That is where or when real
reward and punishment are allocated to the righteous and wicked. The innocent
may suffer in this life, they may undergo pain and misfortune, perhaps because
of their few sins; but they will be more than compensated for their sufferings in
the hereafter. Conversely, the wicked may flourish in this world, usually at the
expense of the righteous; but whatever gains they acquire in the here and now
are nothing in comparison to the suffering to be inflicted upon them either after
their death or at the end of days. When we take all of this into account, we can
understand the larger context of the suffering of the innocent, and, more impor-
tantly, realize the true justice of God's ways. When we take the long-term per-
spective, we see how everyone ultimately receives their just desserts, and we
will no longer be tempted to question God's goodness, wisdom, and power.
There are even figures in the Talmud and Midrashic literature for whom suffer-
ing in this life appears to be a welcome prelude to blessedness in the world-to-
come.
5
While this may not be the dominant theodicean strain in Jewish thought
- many rabbis, believing that divine justice manifests itself not in the world-to-
come but in the world we live in, stressed the importance of punishment and
reward for sin and righteousness in this life - it is one that holds a powerful
attraction for some important Jewish religious authorities and philosophers.
The tenth-century philosopher, and head (or gaori) of the academy in Babylo-
nia, Saadya ben Joseph, presents this kind of theodicy in particularly clear and
systematic terms. If God is just, Saadya asks, why do we see pious persons expe-
riencing pain and misfortune in this life while the impious flourish? Saadya
72 Steven M. Nadler
regards his explanation as the only rational one, that is, the only one we could
reasonably attribute to a rational and non-arbitrary God. A 'pious' person, he
claims, is someone in whose conduct 'the good deeds predominate,' while the
'impious' person is someone most of whose deeds are wicked. Some pious peo-
ple commit a greater number of sins than others (with those sins still constituting
only a minority of their actions overall), while some impious persons commit
more righteous acts than others. Now there is, he insists, a 'second world'
beyond this one, 'the world of compensation.' It comes into being 'only when
the entire number of rational beings ... will have been fulfilled. There [God] will
requite all [rational beings] according to their deeds.'
6
But it would be unj ust not
to take into account all of a person's actions, both the minority and the majority.
Saadya thus argues that God has laid down as a general rule that all individuals
will be requited in this world for the minority of their deeds, leaving the majority
of their deeds to be requited in the world-to-come. 'He therefore instituted rec-
ompense in this world only for the lesser portions of a person's conduct... while
the totality of his merits is reserved for a far-off time.'
7
This explains 'why it
often happens that a generally virtuous person may be afflicted with many fail-
ings, on account of which he deserves to be in torment for the greater part of his
life. On the other hand, a generally impious individual may have to his credit
many good deeds, for the sake of which he deserves to enjoy well-being for the
greater part of his earthly existence.' When all is said and done, everyone gets
exactly what they deserve: everyone gets some reward and some punishment,
either in this world or the next, perfectly proportionate to their deeds. Saadya
admits that sometimes it happens that a completely blameless person nonethe-
less suffers in this world. Saadya responds simply by saying that they will be
compensated for their trials in the world-to-come.
Later medieval Jewish philosophers, such as Maimonides and Gersonides,
agree with Saadya that the true reward for virtue is not freedom from pain or
suffering in this life - although a life of true virtue will, because of the nature of
virtue, grant one some relief and protection from many of life's vicissitudes.
Rather, the virtuous find their real reward in a greater recompense in the world-
to-come, in the life hereafter. This is, of course, also a standard feature of many
a Christian theodicy, as well. But what is particularly important for our study of
Spinoza is the intellectualist twist that the Jewish rationalists Maimonides and
Gersonides give this doctrine. Although I believe that much of what I have to
say is true of Maimonides, let me focus here only on Gersonides (Levi ben Ger-
shom), the fourteenth-century rabbi and philosopher from Provence.
In his philosophical masterpiece, The Wars of the Lord (in Hebrew, the Sefer
Milchamot ha-Shem), Gersonides argues that one should not judge concerning
God's providence on the basis only of what one observes in this world, particu-
larly the distribution of good and evil.
8
For what we commonly see is clearly a
lack of order and equity in their distribution, with people apparently not receiv-
ing their due rewards. Evil happens to the righteous, and good to sinners.
'Hence,' he insists, 'the following dilemma necessarily ensues: either God can
arrange it that a man receives his due reward but he does not attempt to do so,
and this would indeed be evil with respect to God (God forbid), or he cannot so
arrange this, which would be an imperfection in God.'
9
The solution to this conundrum is that 'the true reward and punishment do
not consist in these benefits and evils that we observe. For the reward and pun-
ishment that occur to man insofar as he is a man have to be good and evil that
are [truly] human, not good and evil that are not human.'
10
The goods and evils
that make up the greater part of this world are material benefits and losses -
such as good food and other sensual objects and pleasures - that we share with
other creatures. These may not be distributed in accordance with a person's des-
sert, but by chance and nature. The 'true' human good, on the other hand, con-
sists in 'the acquisition of spiritual happiness,' being tailored to what is a human
being's highest and most proper perfection. 'Since human evil consists of the
absence of this spiritual happiness, i.e., in its imperfection, it is evident that true
reward and punishment in man as man consists of the achievement or lack of
achievement of spiritual happiness, not of these sensuous goods or evils that are
ordered by the heavenly bodies.'
11
What this spiritual happiness consists in, for Gersonides, is the acquisition of
knowledge and an intellectual union with a higher intellect. The human mind is,
when left to its own devices, limited to the cognitions of the world around it that
can be had by its material intellect, working in conjunction with the senses. But
through the Agent Intellect - that is, through the separate Intellect or Soul that
governs this world and the innermost sphere to which it belongs - the human
mind can arrive at the knowledge of more general truths. It can know eternal
verities that, through the aid of the Agent Intellect, it abstracts from experience.
This is how the human mind moves past sensible cognition via images to the
apprehension of the intelligibles, of the forms of things without their matter.
12
Through this process, the human mind comes to an understanding of the true
order of the world. Its knowledge grows to mirror the knowledge that is in the
Agent Intellect itself.
Now these eternal truths that the mind can grasp constitute its 'acquired
intellect,' a part of the mind that is distinct from the material intellect. The human
soul is, for Gersonides, simply a part of the body; it is not a separate, incorporeal
substance. Thus, the human soul itself is corruptible.
13
But the acquired intel-
lect, since it consists only in this eternal knowledge, is not corruptible. In fact, it
is separable from the body and the material intellect. Because it is nothing but 'the
74 Steven M. Nadler
cognition of the very order inherent in the Agent Intellect' - an order of nature
that is embedded in the world that is governed by that Intellect - the acquired
intellect is eternal and immaterial. When the body perishes, so does the human
soul and the acquisition of knowledge. But the acquired intellect remains. It is, as
Gersonides insists, immortal. In fact, the immortality of any human being con-
sists only in this persistence of the acquired intellect after the death of the body.
14
Now true human happiness consists in the intellectual achievement repre-
sented by the perfecting of the mind, by the attainments of the acquired intel-
lect. In this life, we can enjoy some measure of this perfection. But the demands
of the body and the force of empirical circumstances often stand in the way of
the achievement and enjoyment of true perfection. Thus, even virtuous people -
those who have devoted their lives to the search for true knowledge - are subject
to the elements, to the disturbances and imperfections of this world. When they
die, however, they are capable of enjoying their highest happiness to the highest
degree:
It is important to realize that each man who has attained this perfection enjoys the
happiness resulting from his knowledge after death. We have some idea of this
pleasure from the pleasure we derive from the little knowledge we now possess
which subdues the animal part of our soul [so that] the intellect is isolated in its
activity. This pleasure is not comparable to the other pleasures and has no relation
to them at all. All the more so will this pleasure be greater after death; for then all
the knowledge that we have acquired in this life will be continuously contemplated
and all the things in our minds will be apprehended simultaneously, since after
death the obstacle that prevents this kind of cognition, i.e., matter, will have disap-
peared ... After death, [the intellect] will apprehend all the knowledge it has
acquired during life simultaneously.
15
The true reward for virtue, for pursuing the life of knowledge and intellectual
achievement, will be in the world-to-come, not in a life free of evil and suffering
in this world. Our highest happiness comes only after death. The view of our
rabbis is that true reward and punishment occur in the world-to-come and that
there is no necessity for reward and punishment in this world to be such that the
righteous and the sinner receive material benefits and evils, respectively. They
say "The reward of a commandment is not in this world."'
16
IV
Given Spinoza's views on knowledge and human happiness, he has all the ele-
ments in place for just the kind of theodicy that we find in Gersonides. In fact, it
is fairly clear that Spinoza's views on knowledge and happiness were strongly
influenced by what he read in Gersonides and Maimonides.
17
But it is equally
clear, I believe, that Spinoza denied the personal immortality of the soul. And
by doing so, he forestalled engaging in a particular type of theodicy - namely,
that practised by the rabbis of the Talmud, and by Saadya and Gersonides and a
host of other philosophers, Jewish and gentile. If there is no life after death, if
we do not persist after the corruption of the body and the end of its durational
existence, then there can be no true reward to hope for (nor any true punishment
to fear) in any 'world-to-come.' What I want to suggest is that Spinoza, in fact,
engages in a kind of reductio of Gersonides's theodicy: given everything that
Gersonides says about the soul, its intellectual achievement, and happiness - all
of which Spinoza accepts - there can be no true reward for virtue in any alleged
world after this one. Rather, virtue must be its own reward in this world, as a
source of abiding happiness and of freedom from the vicissitudes of chance and
fortune. Spinoza, in other words, takes Gersonides's theodicy to what he sees as
its logical conclusion.
The main project of Spinoza's Ethics is to show us how we can achieve some
measure of autonomy and happiness in a deterministic world. More particularly,
Spinoza wants to demonstrate how we are ordinarily slaves to our passions,
tossed about on a sea of affective reactions to the world. To the extent that we
acquiesce in such a state, we are subject to the control offerees outside our con-
trol, to the comings and goings of external objects as determined by the laws of
nature. As long as we identify our well-being with the possession of those tem-
poral and mutable objects and states of affairs in which we place value, it is an
unpredictable and unsteady thing.
Now we cannot control nature. But we can control our response to nature. We
can try to reduce the sway that our passions have over us, and thereby achieve a
modicum of freedom, that is, of eudaemonistic independence from the outside
forces acting on us.
18
The way to do this is through knowledge. By understand-
ing ourselves and the world, and especially by seeing how all things relate to the
eternal natures that constitute the one substance - God or Nature - and how
they follow necessarily from those natures or attributes, we will be led toward a
stoic peace of mind. The force of the passsions will be diminished and we will
be less subject to the vicissitudes of the world around us.
19
We will, in other
words, be moving towards an abiding state of happiness and well-being. What
we should strive for, in Spinoza's own words, is 'knowledge of the third kind' -
an intuitive understanding of things from an eternal perspective, as opposed to
the partial and defective acquaintance with things that we have through our
senses and imagination.
Knowledge of the third kind apprehends things not in their finite, particular,
76 Steven M. Nadler
and mutable causal relations to other finite things, not in their durational exist-
ence, but through their essences, their unchanging natures. And to truly under-
stand things essentially in this way is to relate them to their infinite causes:
substance (God) and its attributes:
We conceive things as actual in two ways: either insofar as we conceive them to
exist in relation to a certain time and place, or insofar as we conceive them to be
contained in God and to follow from the necessity of the divine nature. But the
things we conceive in this second way as true, or real, we conceive under a species
of eternity, and to that extent they involve the eternal and infinite essence of God.
(Ethics v P29 scholium)
What we are after is to understand bodies, not through other bodies, but through
extension and its laws. To use Spinoza's phrase, we strive to understand things
'sub specie aeternitatis': to see things, not from any finite perspective, but from
the infinite and eternal perspective of God.
Spinoza's knowledge of the third kind is, I suggest, Gersonides's acquired
intellect. Like Gersonides, Spinoza identifies this knowledge with the pursuit of
a general, non-sensory, non-temporalized perspective and deep understanding
of the order of nature. It is an intellectual apprehension, consisting in the pos-
session of clear and distinct - or 'adequate' - ideas of things. The pursuit of
such knowledge is also, Spinoza notes, what constitutes 'virtue' and the good
life.
20
Above all, knowledge of the third kind, like Gersonides's acquired intel-
lect, is eternal, basically because it is God's knowledge. When the body and its
faculties die, this knowledge that now forms a part of our cognitive make-up in
this life will remain.
But here is precisely where Spinoza begins his attack. With these doctrines in
hand, Spinoza goes on to deny the personal immortality of the soul. And, given
the similarity between his account of knowledge and happiness and that of Ger-
sonides, Spinoza can be read as saying that Gersonides must do the same. If
what survives the death of the body is simply a kind of knowledge, however
eternal, then there is no robust immortality of a personal nature. Thus, it would
be illegitimate to put this account of knowledge and happiness to use in the ser-
vice of a theodicy that promises an individual true rewards for virtue in the
world-to-come, as Gersonides does. Let us see why this is so.
In our pursuit of the third kind of knowledge, we are striving to acquire,
maintain, and increase our store of adequate ideas. Why is this to our benefit?
Simply because as adequate ideas are nothing but the eternal knowledge of
things, the more adequate ideas we have, the more of what belongs to us
remains after the death of the body and the end of the durational aspect of our-
selves. That is, the more adequate knowledge we have, the greater is the degree
of the eternity of the mind:
P38: The more the mind understands things by the second and third kind of knowl-
edge, the less it is acted on by affects which are evil, and the less it fears death.
Dem.: The mind's essence consists in knowledge; therefore, the more the mind
knows things by the second and third kind of knowledge, the greater the part of it
that remains, and consequently the greater the part of it that is not touched by
affects which are contrary to our nature, i.e., which are evil.
Is this a doctrine of the immortality of the soul? In large measure, this is a ques-
tion as to whether there is a personal soul after death. Can one eternal mind be
qualitatively distinguished from another and linked up to the life that was its
durational existence?
I do not see how, for Spinoza, one eternal mind could be qualitatively distin-
guished or individuated from another. Or, perhaps more accurately, I do not see
why any two eternal minds should necessarily be distinguishable one from
another. These eternal minds are composed only of abstract ideas or knowledge;
and there is nothing in principle to keep them from having identical contents.
The limiting case is perfect knowledge, in which case the mind would mirror
God's total and eternal understanding of things. In that case, one eternal mind
would have the same content as another. But even with lesser degrees of knowl-
edge, what is to keep two minds from having the same collection of adequate
ideas? Spinoza is fairly clear that the more adequate ideas two minds have, the
more they 'agree with each other,' and that insofar as we have adequate ideas,
we all 'agree' with each other (ivP35).
Individuating an eternal mind, not by its synchronic contents, but by linking
it up with a particular durational consciousness in this lifetime (and thus giving
it its personal dimension) is equally problematic. Spinoza states quite clearly
that continuity of memory is essential to continued identity of a person over
time (ivP39s).
21
But he also insists, as any good Cartesian would, that memory
lasts only as long as the body endures (vP21). Thus there will be no connection
within consciousness between the mind in duration and the mind sub specie
aeternitatis.
Regardless of what one thinks of these admittedly sketchy arguments,
22
there
is one very good reason - in fact, to my mind the strongest possible reason - for
thinking that Spinoza denied the personal immortality of the soul. This is a rea-
son internal to Spinoza's system, but it requires standing back a bit to consider
his entire philosophical schema, particularly its moral and religious aspects.
Remember that one of the major goals of Spinoza's project is to liberate us from
78 Steven M. Nadler
the grip of irrational passions and lead us toward the life of virtue, happiness,
and freedom (or, at least, the kind of autonomy that is available to us as rational
agents). And the two passions that he is most concerned about are hope and
fear. These are the passions that are most easily manipulated by ecclesiastic
authorities seeking to control our lives and command our obedience. Unscrupu-
lous preachers take advantage of our tendency toward superstitious behaviour
by persuading us that there is an eternal reward to be hoped for and an eternal
punishment to be feared after this life. What is essential for them to succeed is
our conviction that there is such an afterlife, that my soul, a soul in which I have
a very intimate stake, will continue to live after the death of my body, and that
there is a personal immortality. I believe that Spinoza thought that the best way
to free us from a life tossed about by hope and fear, a life of superstitious behav-
iour, was to kill at its roots and eliminate the foundational belief on which such
hopes and fears are grounded: the belief in the immortality of the soul. Maybe
there are eternal aspects of the mind. But, he is saying, the true eternity of the
mind is nothing like the personal immortality temptingly or threateningly held
out to us by the leaders of organized religions.
What really remains for Spinoza after death is an impersonal body of knowl-
edge, a body of knowledge which, in a sense, belonged to us during our life-
time. In this way, we are able to partake of and enjoy this eternity even during
own durational existence. Thus, as Spinoza notes, 'we feel and know by experi-
ence that we are eternal.'
23
But this eternity of the mind is not something in
which we can take comfort, in the sense of looking forward to a reward for vir-
tue in a world-to-come. And, I read Spinoza as saying, Gersonides and others
who would construct a similar theodicy have no right to claim that we should.
Perhaps we should look at Spinoza, not as the iconoclast who represents a
radical break with traditional Jewish thought, but rather as one who took a cer-
tain intellectualist trend in Jewish rationalism to its logical conclusion.
Notes
1 Spinoza does say that God is 'free,' but only because God 'exists from the necessity of
his nature and acts from the necessity of his nature' (Ethics iP17), not because God is
endowed with 'freedom of the will.' All of my references to the Ethics employ the
standard notation of part number (roman numeral), followed by proposition number
(P), and, where applicable, scholium (s). The editions I shall refer to are Spinoza
Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt, 5 vols (Heidelberg, 1925 and 1987), by volume number and
page number; and the translations by Edwin Curley, The Collected Works of
Spinoza, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), abbreviated as 'C.'
2 See, for example, ivP14.
3 See the discussions by Edwin Curley, Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of
Spinoza's Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 120-3; and
Henry E. Allison, Benedict de Spinoza: An Introduction (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1987), pp. 140-4.
4 Harry Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols (New York: Meridian Books,
1934).
5 See, for example, the words of R. Nehemiah: 'Which is the way which brings a man
to the life of the world to come? Sufferings' (Sifre Deuteronomy, sect. 32, f. 73b).
6 The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Treatise v, chapter 1.
7 The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Treatise v, chapter 2.
8 This is not Gersonides's only discussion of providence and the problem of evil. The
topic is also treated, in a very similar way, in his Commentary on the Book of Job.
The best discussion of Gersonides on providence is in Charles Touati's magnificient
study, La pensee philosophique et theologique de Gersonide (Paris: Editions de
Minuit, 197, 3), parts 6 and 7, pp. 394-538.
9 The Wars of the Lord, Book iv, chapter 6, translated by Seymour Feldman, 2 vols
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1984 and 1987), volume 2, p. 182.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., p. 183. This is not to suggest that Gersonides was unconcerned with the
distribution of these 'imaginary' goods in this world. In fact, part of his account of
providence includes a discussion of just this issue, relying also on union with the
active intellect. See Wars, Book iv.
12 See Wars, Book i, chapter 10.
13 Wars, Book i, chapter 11.
14 Ibid.
15 Wars, Book i, chapter 13, volume 1, pp. 224-5.
16 Wars, Book iv, chapter 6, volume 2, p. 197. As noted above, this is not the only kind
of theodicy we find in Jewish thought. Many rabbis, believing that divine justice
manifests itself not in the world-to-come but in the world we live in, stressed the
importance of punishment and reward for sin and righteousness in this life. It has
been argued, in fact, that Gersonides's view here goes against rabbinic tradition; see
Menachem Kellner, 'Gersonides, Providence and the Rabbinic Tradition,' Journal of
the American Academy of Religion 42 (1974).
17 Among the books found in Spinoza's library at his death was a copy of Maimoni-
des's Moreh Nevuchim, the Hebrew translation of the Guide for the Perplexed, but no
copies of any works by Gersonides; see Catalogus van de Bibliotheek der Vereniging
Met Spinozahuis te Rijnsburg (Leiden: Brill, 1965). Still, there can be no doubt that
Spinoza read and knew well at least the Milchamot ha-Shem, if not also Gersonides's
biblical commentaries. For studies of Spinoza and Maimonides, see Leon Roth,
80 Steven M. Nadler
Spinoza, Descartes and Maimonides (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924); Warren Zev
Harvey, 'A Portrait of Spinoza as Maimonidean,' Journal of the History of Philoso-
phy 19 (1981); and the discussions by Harry Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza,
2 vols (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934).
18 But not, however, a real physical or even full psychological independence. As
Spinoza insists, no human being can be completely outside the causal nexus of
nature; see Ethics ivP4.
19 This is the upshot of Books iv and v of the Ethics. See especially ivP6: 'Insofar as the
Mind understands all things as necessary, it has a greater power over the affects, or is
less acted on by them.'
20 See Ethics ivP23-6.
21 This is not agreed upon by all Spinoza scholars; see especially James Morrison,
'Spinoza on the Self, Personal Identity and Immortality,' in Graeme Hunter, ed.,
Spinoza: The Enduring Questions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
22 I argue at much greater length that Spinoza denied the personal immortality of the
soul in Spinoza's Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind (Oxford University Press,
forthcoming), especially chapters 5 and 6.
23 Ethics vP23s.
Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil:
Manichaeism or Philosophical Courage?
DENIS MOREAU
Introduction
Malebranche's theodicy is not present in his first and most famous work, the
Recherche de la verite, published in 1674-5. He conceived his theodicy only
after 1680, when his thought matured, especially with the Traite de la nature et
de la grace, and he continued to clarify its concepts and principles until the end
of his career. (The last work of the Oratorian, Reflexions sur la promotion phy-
sique, which appeared in 1715, contains a detailed summary of his reflection on
the theme.) This theodicy is not very well known. It is less well known than
other Malebranchian theories, like the 'vision in God,' and less well known
than other theodicies of the same period, such as that of Leibniz. Yet, this theod-
icy is extremely interesting and original. In my view, it is one of Malebranche's
major philosophical contributions.
To make matters simpler and to avoid difficult questions about freedom,
grace, and their reconciliation, I will deal only with physical evil. My paper has
three parts. First, I recall the basic principles of Malebranche's theodicy,
emphasizing three themes: what is usually called the 'principe de la simplicite
des voies'; the relation between the attributes of God, particularly between wis-
dom and power; and the univocity of knowledge in human beings and God,
which is implicit in Malebranche's theory of the 'vision in God.' Then I will
show how these principles lead Malebranche to an atypical position regarding
physical evil. Here I will show how Malebranche's reflection represents a con-
siderable innovation in theodicy, since it expresses a clear break with Saint
Augustine and Saint Thomas, as well as with positions that Leibniz was later to
6
82 Denis Moreau
occupy. Finally, I will sketch out two interpretations of Malebranche's theodicy.
The first, which can be called external, is inspired by the remark of Antoine
Arnauld and Frangois Fenelon, that Malebranche's theodicy is Manichaean.
The second interpretation is more internal: it views Malebranche's theodicy as
an effort to avoid separating Christian metaphysics from the concrete experi-
ence of pain, an effort that is significant even if, perhaps, bound to fail.
1
1. Foundations of the Malebranchian Theodicy
1.1. Simplicity of Ways: The 'principe de la simplicite des votes'
The fundamental principle of Malebranche's theodicy, usually called the 'prin-
cipe de la simplicite des voies,' is well known. Accordingly, I will present it
quickly, in the (almost) definitive version that Malebranche developed after
1685,
2
and then bring out some of its consequences.
In order to be glorified by his work, God wants to create what is best, what is
most perfect (e.g., see TNG I, HOC 5, p. 12). But according to Malebranche, the
intrinsic perfection of creation itself is not the only variable that God considers
when he creates. He must also take into account the perfection of what Male-
branche calls God's 'ways' (voies), that is, the manner of acting that God
employs to create and sustain the world. In other words, God, in his quest for
overall maximum perfection, must consider not only the created world, but
also, in order to optimize creation, the compound of the world and the 'ways.'
3
The ways are thus not simply means that are indifferently utilized for the
sake of a result (creation) that alone has value; they are an expression of
divine perfection, and must be integrated by God into his search for maximal
perfection.
What would be the most perfect divine ways of creation possible? They
would be, Malebranche explains, those that are the most simple, or more pre-
cisely those that 'glorify him [God] through their simplicity, their fecundity,
their universality, their uniformity, through the characteristics that express the
qualities that he is glorified in possessing' (Dialogues ix, 10/OC 12, p. 214; see
also TNG i, 13/OC5, p. 28). Malebranche gives two justifications of this claim.
First, 'God must act in a manner that bears the character of the divine attributes'
(TNG i, 19/OC 5, p. 32). Second, the ways of acting must testify to the wisdom
of the agent.
4
Malebranche emphasizes simplicity among the attributes whose
character creation must bear, and he holds that it is the simplicity of ways that
especially testifies to God's wisdom in creating.
But God does not choose the ways that are most perfect, or simple, absolutely
speaking, because it is the total perfection of the compound of world and ways
that must be maximized. Here, according to Malebranche, lies the explanation
Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil 83
of the evils and disorders present in creation. On the one hand, in order to actu-
alize an absolutely perfect work, one without any evil or disorders, God would
have to will each of its details in particular, and in this case, he would multiply
his particular volitions and ways. This he does not do, in order not to sacrifice
the simplicity of his ways: 'If a world more perfect than ours could be created
and conserved only in ways that are correspondingly [reciproquement] less
perfect... I am not afraid to say this to you: God is too wise, he loves his glory
too much to prefer this new world to the universe he has created' (Dialogues ix,
10/0C 12, pp. 214-15).
But, on the other hand, as is suggested by the 'reciproquement' in the previ-
ous text and the numerical example of the Abrege du traite de la nature et de la
grace quoted hereafter, one can estimate that very simple ways would be so
general, and would to such an extent prevent the detailed organization of the
world, that the world produced by them would inevitably be very imperfect.
5
So
God did not act in that way; to do so would be to produce a work that would
dishonour him. My hypothesis is that, according to Malebranche (after 1685),
the perfection of the world and the perfection of the ways vary in an inverse
manner. That is why the explanation for the nature of our world must be found
between the two extreme cases. It is neither the most perfect possible world, nor
the one created and conserved in the most perfect ways possible. It is the best
compound (or compromise) possible.
A numerical example in the Abrege du traite de la nature et de la grace (a
text written in 1704, when Malebranche republished all his responses to
Arnauld) is probably intended to illustrate this notion of the best compound:
A work that has a degree of perfection equal to eight, or which bears the character
of the divine attributes to a degree equal to eight, and that is produced by ways that
express the divine attributes only to a degree equal to two, expresses them overall
only to a degree equal to ten. But a work that is perfect only to degree six, or which
expresses the divine attributes only to degree six, and that is produced by ways that
express them once again to degree six, expresses the divine attributes to degree
twelve. Therefore if God chooses one of these two works, he will choose the less
perfect one because the less perfect work together with the ways bears the charac-
ter of the divine attributes to a greater degree ... (Abrege du traite de la nature et de
la grace, 5/'OC 9, p. 1085)
The quantitative relations set up by Malebranche can be represented as follows:
Perfection of the work Perfection of the ways Total perfection
8 2 1 0
6 6 1 2
84 Denis Moreau
This example is at once illuminating and difficult to interpret in detail. In
fact, we cannot find a simple mathematical and additive ratio that explains the
variation of the terms.
6
This probably means that the example is only a heuristic
device, which should not be over-interpreted.
7
But Malebranche may wish to
indicate that God's action cannot be adequately described by means of mathe-
matical models. In this case, the example discreetly contests the possibility of a
univocal application, to human beings and God, of a Leibnizian maxim like
cum Deus calculatfit mundus.
Malebranche asserts that 'God could make a world that is more perfect than
the one we inhabit' (TNG i, 14/OC 5, p. 29). And, a few years later and more
categorically, he states: 'I do not hesitate to repeat it: the universe is not the
most perfect that could be, absolutely speaking ...' (Rep. Refl. m/OC 8, p. 768).
Indeed, if God had not taken his ways of creating into consideration, and had
thus created in the most complex ways, the world would have been, in itself,
much better. Hence the presence, limited but nonetheless real, of disorders
within the world. Examples given by Malebranche are rain falling in a place
where it is useless, a stone falling on the head of a just man, the death of a child
whose mother let fall to the ground just before baptism, and the birth of a mon-
ster. Absolutely speaking, God could and should intervene and act by what Mal-
ebranche calls a particular volition, in order to modify the process that leads to
the production of these beings and events. But he does not do it, because such
an intervention would decrease the simplicity of his ways without compensat-
ing for the decrease with a sufficient increase of the perfection of the work.
We can see here why the Malebranchian theodicy is so different from the
Leibnizian one: the world according to Malebranche is simply not 'the best of all
possible worlds.' The reasons for this clash between Malebranche and Leibniz
about the status of creation can be found in their differing formulations of the
relations between God's ways and God's work. Let us see what Leibniz says.
From the very beginning of the Discourse on Metaphysics* he says that 'God
does nothing for which he does not deserve to be glorified' (sec. 3) and that, in
God's creative process, 'the simplicity of ways is balanced by the richness of
effects' (sec. 10). Here Leibniz resembles Malebranche, who may indeed have
inspired the Leibnizian formulae. But according to Leibniz, ways and work are
considered by God as whole, the elements of which cannot be separated so as to
be varied differentially.
9
In this case, the perfection of the ways and the perfec-
tion of the work, far from being opposite, are coincident. Hence, the God of Mal-
ebranche faces up to a choice which appears like a dilemma (the work or the
ways), and the Oratorian consequently concludes that the maximal perfection of
the combination obtained by sum is not coincident with the maximal perfection
of either of the elements of this sum. As for Leibniz, he proposes to integrate the
perfection of the ways into the perfection of the work, so that in his choice, God
makes the work and the ways as perfect as possible. Thus, Leibniz maintains that
our created world is really the best possible, and his disapproval of 'the opinion
of some moderns who boldly maintain that what God makes is not of the highest
perfection, and that he would have been able to do better' is an implicit criticism
of Malebranche (Discourse of Metaphysics, sec. 3).10
1.2. The Relation between the Attributes of God
The second theoretical foundation of the Malebranchian theodicy concerns the
relations among the attributes of God. The adoption of simple ways is basically
explained by a distinction between God's understanding and will: the require-
ment of generality and simplicity of the ways which follows from God's wis-
dom determines the nature of his creative will, and thus conditions (more
precisely, limits) the exercise of God's omnipotence. This point can be sharp-
ened by an examination of what Malebranche calls God's permission of evil
and disorder in the world. When the Oratorian tries to define God's intentional
relationship with the physical evils and disorders in the world, he writes: 'God
permits disorder, but he does not want it' (Dialogues ix, 9/OC 12, p. 212); or, in
a more elaborated way:
God makes monsters only in order to alter nothing in his action, only out of respect
for the generality of his ways, only to follow exactly the laws of nature he has
established and has nonetheless established not for the monstrous effects they must
produce, but for those effects more worthy of his wisdom and goodness. For he
wi l l s them only indirectly, only because they are natural consequences of his laws.'
(Dialogues ix, \\IOC 12, pp. 215-16)
What does this mean? God wants the best for each particular created being,
11
and, absolutely speaking, his omnipotence can realize this design. But, in fact
(Malebranche says 'in practice' [pratiquement]),12 the requirements of his wis-
dom force him to act by general volitions that produce effects not initially
willed by him as such (that he did not 'want to bring about'),
13
and thus to cre-
ate evils. The result is that the omnipotent God does not do all that he can do,
absolutely speaking. God 'wants things that he does not do' (Rep. Refl. i, l/OC
8, p. 655) and does things that he did not want: 'these are effects of which one
ought to say that God permits them because he does not will them positively
and directly, but only in an indirect manner' (Rep. Refl. I, \/OC 8, pp. 652-3).
What separates Malebranche and Leibniz is again visible here, even if the
two at first glance have the same goal: to explain the existence of beings that are
12
86 Denis Moreau
not as perfect as they would have been if they had been willed for their own
sakes by God. For Leibniz, when God, by a 'consequent' will, 'permits' physi-
cal evil that he did not will 'antecedently,' this physical evil pertains to the
series of compossibles which defines the best of worlds. Permission, and the
distinction between antecedent and consequent will, are therefore justified cos-
mologically by the order of the world. For Malebranche, it is considerations
which could be called 'theological' (the simplicity of divine ways), and not cos-
mological, which justify God's 'permission,' and explain the distinction
between 'direct' volition that is not realized and 'practical volition.'
So if God acts as he does, it is because he must conform his activity to what
his wisdom dictates as being worthy of him - simplicity and generality of his
ways - rather than to what would maximize the perfection of the created world
and the beings that compose it. The justification of the 'principe de la simplicite
des voies' lies in this determination and this restriction of the divine will by the
requirements of wisdom. Thus the famous phrase which scandalized Arnauld:
'[God's] wisdom renders him impotent' (TNG i, 3S/OC 5, p. 47).
14
1.3. Univocity of Knowledge
The third foundation of the theodicy of Malebranche concerns his theory of
knowledge. It is surprising to see Malebranche describe the divine actions and
make assured judgments, often pejorative, on their products. For an Oratorian
priest, it is at first glance a bit 'rash' (as people in the seventeenth century said)
and not very respectful to the transcendence of God to explain that this God
could have done better. But, to take Malebranche's point of view, there is noth-
ing surprising about that, because of the vision in God: as we do see our ideas in
God (that is to say, that our ideas are God's ideas), we are able to judge the
action and the works of God, without being afraid of being deceived by our
subjectivity:
Were I not persuaded that all men are rational only because they are enlightened by
the Eternal Wisdom, I would, without a doubt, be rash to speak about God's plans
and to want to discover some of his ways in the production of his Work. But
because it is certain that the Eternal Word is the universal Reason of minds, and
that by the light that it shines on us incessantly we can all have some communica-
tion with God, I should not be blamed for consulting this Reason, which, although
consubstantial with God himself, does not fail to answer those who know how to
interrogate it with serious attention. (TNG i, HOC 5, pp. 24-5)
In this way, Malebranche thinks that he eludes what can be called the Augustin-
ian or Leibnizian objection about our limited 'point of view': for Malebranche
it is not 'rash' to judge, and in certain cases to criticize, the creative behaviour
of God and its results. It is in a way from God's point of view that we pass these
judgments.
2. Malebranche's Break with Classical Theodicy
These principles are important for Malebranche, since they are what assures the
solidity of his reflection on physical evil, and strongly connects this reflection
with the rest of his system. But for us modern readers, it is above all the results
of Malebranche's reflections on physical evil that are of interest, because of
their originality. To show this originality, I propose a list of four points at which
Malebranche breaks with the 'classical' Christian discourse on physical evil. I
take Saint Augustine as the model of this classical discourse, while acknowl-
edging that equivalent affirmations are to be found in Thomas Aquinas.
15
Leib-
niz, too, arrived at similar conclusions, even if the steps which lead him to these
conclusions are very different.
2.1. Evil as 'Non-Being' or 'Worse than Nothingness' ('pire que le neant')
For Augustine and Thomas, physical evil is defined as a privatio boni, that is to
say, an absence of being in a creature which is good in itself;
16
hence, evil is a non-
being, a nothingness, a nihil quod dicitur malum (Augustine, De ordine n, 7).
What does Malebranche say on this subject? 'If a clock keeps bad time, it
is essentially defective, no matter what purpose its maker had. In the same
way, a monster is an imperfect work.' (Rep. Refl. m/OC 8, p. 770). To affirm
in this way that a monster is an imperfect work is to refuse to locate its
imperfection solely in an absence, or a lack, of good; it is to affirm that the
work is in itself an evil. Malebranche thus does not admit that physical evil is
outside the sphere of being; that is, he rejects the Augustinian view of the
creature as a being that is good in itself, and evil only to the extent that it
lacks some good.
It could be objected that this interpretation of Malebranche's position exag-
gerates his opposition to Augustine and Thomas, which could in fact be reduced
to a difference in point of view on the beings under consideration: The Oratorian
takes privation to be an absence that devalues the affected being; the others
would agree, but would insist on the being, and therefore the goodness, of the
being subject to privation. A second refusal by Malebranche shows, however,
that this is not how his position is to be understood. A monster, he writes, not
only 'does not make the work of God more perfect,' but even, 'on the contrary,
88 Denis Moreau
disfigures it' (Rep. Refl. m/OC 8, p. 765). This notion of disfigurement is essen-
tial here, and its numerous occurrences prove its importance for Malebranche in
his mature work.
17
It shows that the monster adds nothing to the perfection of the
world, but that it renders it worse than it would otherwise be: the monster dimin-
ishes this perfection since it 'would be better that it [the monster] not be' (TNG
i, 221OC 5, p. 36). This disfigurement of the world by the monster's presence in
it signifies therefore the power to vitiate, the disorganizing capacity that evil
beings and events have in creation. And since according to Malebranche the first
axiom we apprehend is 'nothingness has no properties' (Dialogues i, HOC 12,
p. 32), this disorganizing capacity or property shows that physical evils are, to
use an expression Malebranche is fond of, 'worse than nothingness.'
18
Here
Malebranche's thought on evil breaks decisively with classical Augustinianism:
to define evil as worse than nothingness is to say that it is a being and not noth-
ingness, and to attempt to think of it as something positive.
2.2. Order and Disorder in Creation
Augustine, like Thomas and Leibniz, affirms the existence of an 'order' of the
world, and conjointly the perfection of the universe.
19
It is one of the functions
of the famous Augustinian comparisons of the world to a picture or to a piece of
music to insist on this global order of the cosmos, of which creatures sometimes
deprived of being are constitutive elements.
20
For his part, Malebranche challenges these ideas of the order and perfection
of the world. He begins by contesting the notion that the created world is the
best possible, insisting on the paradigmatic case of the monster: 'There are
monsters whose deformity leaps to the eye ... A world made up of creatures
who lack nothing that they ought to have is more perfect than a world full of
monsters' (Rep. Refl. ui/OC 8, p. 770); 'The present world is a defective work'
(Meditations chretiennes vn, 12/OC 10, p. 73); 'When I open my eyes to con-
sider the visible world, it seems to me that I discover so many defects that I am
once again moved to believe what I have heard said many times, that it is the
work of a blind Nature who acts without design' (Meditations chretiennes vn,
2IOC 10, p. 69).
And so as not to leave any doubt concerning the authors here alluded to,
Malebranche denounces the comparison of the world to a poem or a picture,
both from the aesthetic and the cognitive points of view:
Shadows are necessary in a painting, just as dissonances are in music. Therefore,
women must give birth to still-borns and create an infinite number of monsters. I
would reply boldly to philosophers who reason thus, What a consequence! ... All
these disastrous effects that God allows in the universe are not at all necessary. And
if there is black with the white, dissonance with the consonance, it is not because
these give more force to the painting, and more sweetness to the harmony. What I
mean is that, at bottom, all this does not render God's work more perfect. On the
contrary, it disfigures it, and makes it disagreeable to those who prefer order ...
(Rep. Refl. mIOC 8, p. 765; see also Dialogues ix, 9/OC 12, p. 212)
2.3. 'Point of View' and Apologetic
For Augustine, it is wrong to affirm the existence of evils and of real physical
disorders in creation: They judge wrongly, Lord, who find something displeas-
ing in your creation' (Confessions vn, 14). Those who err in affirming that dis-
orders, evils, are to be found in creation do so because their point of view on
this creation is too limited, and because they accord too great an importance to
their immediate experiences. This prevents them, according to Augustine, from
showing the cognitive humility that would lead them to recognize that they do
not perceive in detail the logic of all whose goodness they affirm.
21
Or, as Leib-
niz would put it, from adopting at least tentatively the general and inclusive
point of view which alone allows for correct judgments on creation: 'It is in the
grand order that there is some small disorder; and it could even be said that this
small disorder is only apparent in the whole' (Theodicy, sec. 243).
We have seen that for Malebranche it is not a question of error, appearance,
or of a mistaken point of view. Since physical evil is real, it is necessary to
regard as exact those judgments which, taking precautions against error, affirm
its existence. There follows a modification of the response to the libertine
objection which argues from the existence of evil to the non-existence of God:
it will not do (as in the Augustinians, the Thomists, and Leibniz) to contest the
validity of pejorative judgments that libertines make on creation; it must instead
be shown that they are mistaken in arguing from these judgments, well-founded
in themselves, to the non-existence of the Christian God.
2.4. Being and Meaning
To be sure, Augustine, Thomas, and Leibniz do not deny the concrete suffering
of creatures. But their affirmations on the nature of physical evil create a gap
between what we feel and what we understand, between what is experientially
reported (about evil and disorder) and what is metaphysically explained (evil as
non-being, the full reality of the goodness of being, and consequently the
universal order). One is then led to differentiate levels of discourse (the ex-
periential and the reflective), to attribute a distinct signification to them (the
90 Denis Moreau
subjectively felt, the objectively known), and to arrange them in a hierarchy
from the point of view of their truth.
For Malebranche, by contrast, the metaphysics of evil and the experience of
suffering coincide in the same affirmation of the imperfection of creation. Judg-
ments on creation made in the immediacy of experience are therefore legiti-
mate, while the gap between thought and existence, or between being and sense,
is reabsorbed. This is why Malebranche, notably in the responses to Arnauld,
who tries to defend a position classically Augustinian in inspiration, insists
repeatedly on the 'visibility' of the evils he is speaking of: 'things being as they
are'; 'It is a visible defect that an infant should come into the world with super-
fluous members'; 'there are monsters whose deformity leaps to the eye' (Rep.
Refl. m/OC 8, pp. 686, 768, 770).
I hope that this four-point comparison is enough to show that Male-
branche's theodicy is highly innovative in the way it breaks with the classical
view, which denies the reality of evil, and posits or postulates the maximal
order of the world, thought of as perfect or as the best possible. There is real
originality is this, as compared with Leibniz, Fenelon, Bossuet, Descartes in
the embryonic theodicy of the Fourth Meditation, and all the manuals of the-
ology or philosophy of the second half of the seventeenth century that I have
been able to consult, all of which at bottom revive the Augustinian-Thomistic
solution. It remains to try to interpret this originality, to which Malebranche's
commentators, it seems to me, have not paid sufficient attention.
22
3. Interpretation
3.1. Manichaeism?
A first approach to interpretation is furnished by two contemporary readers of
Malebranche, Antoine Arnauld in the Philosophical and Theological Reflec-
tions ...,
23
and Franois Fenelon in his Refutation of the System of Father Male-
branche on Nature and Grace?* I do not wish to trace in detail their critique of
the theodicy of Malebranche, but only to remark that both Arnauld and Fenelon
raise the same objection, that the Oratorian adopts a position like that of the
Manichaeans when, on the one hand, he grants a positive existence to evil, and,
on the other hand, limits the all-powerful agency of God.
Arnauld raises this objection, for example, in Book i of the Philosophical and
Theological Reflections:
It is certain at least that St. Augustine was pained to hear,anyone speaking so
crudely of the disorders and irregularities that are supposed to be observable in the
works of God. He believed that the Manichaeans had drawn a great advantage from
these sorts of views. It is what he always had to deny constantly against these here-
tics, that there could be any other evil in nature than that which draws its origin
from the free will of rational creatures; that is, sin and concupiscence which is the
fruit and the root of it ... Thus it is indubitable that the Saint regarded as a blas-
phemy against the power and wisdom of God to take for true irregularities and
true disorders what appears to be such to the limited human soul.
25
Fenelon tends in the same direction. For his part, he compares Malebranche to
the Manichaeans, who 'believe that certain beings are evil by their nature and
that evil is something real and positive.'
26
'He [Malebranche] favours, without
meaning to, the heresy of the Manichaeans and of the Marcionites, their prede-
cessors. They said that the work of creation is not good, and it was that which
Jesus Christ, sent by the good principle, made reparation for.'
27
Taken literally, these comparisons surely seem unj ustified, or justified only
as part of a polemic against Malebranche and not as part of an attempt to arrive
at a true interpretation of his position. Malebranche was no disciple of Mam'.
28
According to Mani, the limitation of divine power is due to an evil principle sit-
uated outside of the good and combating it. But for Malebranche, this limitation
is an effect of the demands of divine wisdom. In the attempt to preserve some
relevance for the comparison drawn by Arnauld and Fenelon (while granting
that nothing in Malebranche could be identified as an evil principle), one could
at most speak of an 'intra-divine' Manichaeism, interiorized in God, the latter
being in himself his own principle of limitation. But the comparison then seems
crude and unacceptable.
29
But it is necessary first of all to recover the context of this critique, that is, to
pay attention to the sense of the word 'Manichaean' in the mind of Arnauld and
of Fenelon. In the seventeenth century, Manichaeism was not what we know
today, thanks to the discoveries and the research since the end of the nineteenth
century: a religion unto itself, with its own institutions and rites, and its dogmas
organized in a coherent manner. It can also be supposed that the knowledge
which Arnauld and Fenelon had of Manichaeism did not go much beyond the
presentation, itself a simplification, to be found in Saint Augustine.
30
Thus, for
a theologian of the 1680s, Manichaeism was essentially a dualist heresy main-
taining the existence of an evil principle combating God, and according a
positive existence to evil.
This having been stated, the accusation of Manichaeism levelled against
Malebranche is more understandable. If Arnauld and Fenelon believed they
could identify in him what they considered the Manichaean 'heresy,' this is
surely not because the thought of the Oratorian was according to them a revival
92 Denis Moreau
of the doctrine which defined Mani and his disciples in the third century. That
accusation is absurd. But for Arnauld and Fenelon, a heresy is also, and perhaps
especially, a 'deviation' of thought which can recur in many forms, and whose
eponymous, historically datable form is only one particular concretization
among others. The claim of parallelism signifies then that Malebranche, although
an avowed Cartesian who uses philosophical tools that have nothing to do with
those of the Manichaeans, had developed the same tendencies (or succumbed to
the same temptations) as were present in Mani almost two thousand years earlier.
Of course, I need not judge here whether it is good or bad to be a Man-
ichaean, that is, to determine whether Arnauld and Fenelon are right to see their
interpretation as a critique. But their interpolation helps to clarify the scope of
Malebranche's theodicy, and to make more precise the place it occupies among
the different theodicies of the seventeenth century.
3.2. Between Leibniz and Macbeth
The second line of interpretation approaches the theodicy of Malebranche in a
more internal manner. It has to do with the understanding of Malebranche's
project. At the same time that he gives a positive ontological status to evil, Mal-
ebranche refuses to affirm that physical suffering is always justifiable, that is,
meaningful, once again breaking with the conclusions of classical theodicy.
From Augustine to Leibniz, the theme of the order of the world and the perfec-
tion of creation had the implication that justifications for physical evil had to be
found: a pain is a punishment (causal justification) or an ordeal which prepares
something better (final justification). In this context, and to revive an expres-
sion used by Malebranche, the 'physical' conforms perfectly with the 'moral.'
One can say there is a bijective correspondence between the order of pain and
the order of meaning. Leibniz is a good example of such a position:
Physical evil, that is sorrows, sufferings, miseries, will be less troublesome to
explain, since they are results of moral evil. Poena est malum passionis, quod
infllgitur ob malum actionis, according to Grotius. One suffers because one has
acted; one suffers evil because one does evil: nostrorum causa malorum nos
sumus. It is true that one often suffers through the evil actions of others; but when
one has no part in the offence, one must look upon it as certainty that these suffer-
ings prepare us a greater happiness. (Theodicy, sec. 241)
Malebranche diverges from these conclusions. It is in the best of worlds that
the two orders correspond perfectly. An instance of suffering would always be
either a punishment or a moment to be followed by something better; and, in a
similar way, it may be thought, an instance of happiness would always be a rec-
ompense, or a moment to be followed by something worse. For Malebranche,
things generally go that way. But since the world, considered in itself, is not as
perfectly organized as it could have been, things do not always go that way.
Malebranche certainly does not occupy a position radically opposed to that of
Augustine and Leibniz. Since our world is not, after all, the worst of all possible
worlds, it can be thought to be globally organized; that is, the majority of events
that constitute it happen in the ordered course of an individual or collective his-
tory. But as the immanent organization of the world is partially sacrificed to the
simplicity of the divine ways, there sometimes occur those events that Male-
branche calls 'regrettable and useless' (Meditations chretiennes V H , 15/OC 10,
p. 75; Traite de morale i, HOC 11, p. 26): 'the plague affects the good and the
wicked indifferently ... one who goes to the aid of a poor person is destroyed in
the ruins, he who seeks vengeance finds no resistance' (Reponse au livre de
Monsieur Arnauld ... OC 6, p. 40). These are the events that are good for noth-
ing and mean nothing, that are like a residue, tragic for us, of a creation locally
'neglected.'
31
That is, they cannot be given an immanent justification by virtue
of the order in which they occur.
Malebranche therefore tries to occupy an intermediate position. It is not the
position of those who affirm that all is good and meaningful. Nor is it the posi-
tion of those who abandon the course of the world and our lives to a sovereign
chance, seeing there, like Macbeth, 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing.' Malebranche tries to build a system which postulates
a meaningful global orientation of the world and our lives, but also maintains
there, like 'gaps of intelligibility,' spasms of meaninglessness in which there is
nothing for us to look forward to, nothing to gain, nothing to understand.
Between Macbeth and Leibniz, Malebranche thus outlines a system of history
(personal or collective) which remains Christian even though it does not present
these histories as ordained totalities in which all events are integrated and justi-
fied in some way. Since certain events in these histories are lacking in imma-
nent justification, Malebranche can conceive, at the level of the world, precisely
what we moderns call the absurd or the unjustifiable.
32
4. Conclusion: Malebranche's Philosophical Courage
What, then, is Malebranche's theodicy? It is one of the few theodicies which in
certain cases allows us, when suffering, to say without nuance or qualification,
'It's evil.' Moreover, and paradoxically, this thinker, famous as a 'metaphysi-
cian,' is perhaps the only Cartesian who gives a full ontological value to the
sensation of pain. According to Malebranche, one can go from the affirmation
94 Denis Moreau
'this seems evil to me' to the affirmation 'it is evil.' So, this unusual theodicy
appears to be almost a phenomenological one.
I speak of 'philosophical courage' because it seems to me that Malebranche,
in developing his theodicy, deliberately decides to confront the criticism of his
contemporaries (Arnauld, Fenelon, Bossuet), and some theoretical problems
which eventually make his whole system precarious. Arnauld's criticisms about
miracles provide a good example of these difficulties. Arnauld argues that when
one affirms, as Malebranche does, that the laws that govern the universe have
been chosen by God as the best ones because they are the most general possible,
it is extremely difficult to understand how miracles are possible, that is, how
there can be exceptions to these laws.
33
Malebranche is sensitive to this objec-
tion and tries to respond to it, even if he is obviously in a bad position, theoreti-
cally speaking. After 1685, he explains that God permits a miracle, that is, acts
by a particular volition, when the global perfection of the compound of work
and ways is so threatened by an imperfection in the work that it would be better
for God in this case to abandon generality of ways in order to increase the per-
fection of the work and maintain the optimal perfection of the whole.
34
Arnauld
then asks why, if God is able to act by particular volitions, he does not always
do so.
35
Malebranche, who manifestly does not want a return to particular voli-
tions, responds in a series of defences that insist once again on the generality of
the divine ways. 'I claim that it is very rare for God to act by particular voli-
tions' (Rep. Refl. I, 6/OC 8, p. 661). Arnauld then returns to his first accusation:
Malebranche indeed does make miracles impossible.
Each of Arnauld's remarks thus leads Malebranche to accept an apparently
unimportant correction of his theory of the generality of the divine ways. But
these corrections, apparently harmless at first glance, in fact imply, if all the
consequences are drawn out, a modification of the Malebranchian conception
of divine action. And this modification, in turn, seems to require abandoning
the principle of the simplicity of ways, re-establishing the principle of particular
divine volitions, and, in the last resort, abandoning the ideas of immanent disor-
der and the reality of evil. In the texts of the polemic with Arnauld, Male-
branche thus seems to oscillate between the reformulations with which he
parries Arnauld's attacks, with all their structural implications, and the will not
to deviate from his initial view.
36
Malebranche was not unable to see these difficulties, if only because his
adversaries reminded him of them relentlessly. But, all the same, he never
abandoned the theme of the simplicity of ways. This painful situation for the
Oratorian, and his obstinate refusal to escape from it, can be interpreted in two
ways. First, we can consider Malebranchism as logically inconsistent and philo-
sophically insufficient. This is what Arnauld, Fenelon, and, with a little less
aggressiveness, Leibniz did. In this case, Malebranche is more blind and mulish
than courageous. We have to renounce his theodicy, and come back to the
serene coherence of a more classical account. Or, second, we can consider Mal-
ebranche's obstinacy as the expression of the fruitful audacity of a thinker who
forces himself out of his intellectual tradition, and who tries to develop his orig-
inal intuition (the positivity of evil and disorder) by creating new principles and
concepts. If one appreciates Malebranche's courage and judges that he was
able, in spite of all the difficulties, to carry his project off, one must then insist
on the atypical character of his theodicy, to my knowledge without equivalent
among the 'great rationalists' of the seventeenth century. So interpreted, Male-
branche's theodicy does not seem to be characteristic of 'early modern philoso-
phy.' The Oratorian seems more like a precursor of the thinkers who succeeded
him, above all Voltaire, with his challenge to the Leibnizian theme of the best of
all possible worlds and his affirmation of the reality of disorder in Candide.
36
Malebranche also anticipates Kant, since the theme of 'worse than nothingness'
prepares the way for Kant's introduction of the concept of negative size in 1763.
Among more recent thinkers, Malebranche can be seen as anticipating Simone
Weil and Hans Jonas, whose reflections resemble Malebranche's view that in
the face of evil, God is 'so to speak, impotent.'
37
Notes
This essay is a completely revised version of an article which appeared in French under
the title 'Malebranche, le desordre et le mal physique: et noluit consolari,' in the collec-
tion La legerete de I'etre: Etudes sur Malebranche, ed. B. Pinchard (Paris: Vrin, 1998). I
wish to express my warm thanks to Michael Latzer and Elmar Kremer for their generous
help in the translation of this paper.
1 All references to Malebranche are to the Oeuvres completes de Malebranche (desig-
nated by OQ, ed. Andre Robinet, 20 vols (Paris: Vrin-CNRS 1958-70). I use the
following abbreviations: TNG = Treatise on Nature and Grace (OC 5); Dialogues =
Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion (OC 12); Rep. Refl. = Reponse au Livre i des
Reflexions philosophiques et theologiques de Monsieur Arnauld (OC 8).
2 For more details, see F. Alquie, Le Cartesianisme de Malebranche (Paris: Vrin,
1974), pp. 243-99, 307-24 and 419-28; G. Dreyfus, La volonte selon Malebranche
(Paris: Vrin, 1958), pp. 11-118; H. Gouhier, La philosophic de Malebranche et son
experience religieuse (Paris: Vrin, 1926), pp. 40-93; M. Gueroult, Malebranche
(Paris: Aubier, 1955-9), vol. 2, pp. 137-207; P. Riley, The General Will before
Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 64-137; A. Robinet,
96 Denis Moreau
Systeme et existence dans I'oeuvre de Malebranche (Paris: Vrin, 1965), pp. 17-44
and 68-113.
3 See Dialogues ix, 10/0C 12, pp. 213-14: 'God wills that his work honor him ... But
note that God does not will that his ways dishonour him ... God wills that his action
as well as his work bear the character of his attributes. Not content that the universe
honours him by its excellence and beauty, he also wills that his ways glorify him.'
4 See TNG i, 13/OC 5, p. 28: 'An excellent craftsman must proportion his action to his
work: he does not do by very complex means that which he can execute by more
simple ones ... It follows from this that God, who discovers among the infinite trea-
sures of his wisdom an infinitude of possible worlds ... determines himself to create
that which could be produced and conserved by the most simple laws, or which must
be the most perfect, relative to the simplicity of ways necessary for its production or
conservation.' The beginning of this text could make one think that Malebranche
posits a given and invariant work for which God seeks the simplest ways of produc-
tion. The later texts (see p. 83) make it more explicit that the perfection of the work is
subject to variation. Moreover, it is not easy to understand what Malebranche means
by 'simplicity' of ways: if these 'ways' are identified with laws of the world, it could
be said first off that these laws are 'simple' because not numerous from the point of
view of their quantity, universal from the point of view of their extension, and con-
stant from the point of view of their application (see, in this sense, TNG i, 19/OC 5,
p. 33; and me Eclaircissement 6/OC 5, p. 180). The same difficulty is encountered in
defining the meaning of 'generality' in the expression 'general volitions.' See the
discussion on this point in S. Nadler, 'Occasionalism and General Will in Male-
branche,' Journal of the History of Philosophy 31 (1993): 31-47.
5 See also in this sense Rep. Refl. i, HOC 8, pp. 671-4: God 'ought not always form
[the design] which could be executed by the most simple ways. For it is evident that
he ought also to have regard for the greatness and the beauty of the design. Also he
ought not form the design of the most beautiful work which he can, absolutely speak-
ing: for he ought to have regard for the simplicity of ways. But he ought always to
form the design of the most beautiful work which he can execute by the most simple
ways...'
6 If x stands for the perfection of the work and y for that of the ways, then for both sets
of terms 2x + y = 18; but in that case, the maximal value of the total perfection is
obtained by x = 0 and y = 18, and this is certainly not the outcome that Malebranche
wants. If a multiplicative law is sought, it is verifiable that (x 5)y = 6, so that with
x > 5, the best possibility of summation is effectively obtained by x - y = 6.
7 This is the interpretation of G. Rodis-Lewis, Malebranche (Paris: PUF, 1963),
pp. 307-8.
8 Leibniz had read the Traite de la nature et de la grace when he composed the
Discourse on Metaphysics during 1685-6. On the similarities of the beginning of
these texts, see the Comparative Table of Sequences of Texts of the Traite de la
nature et de la grace and the Discours de metaphysique made by A. Robinet in Mal-
ebranche et Leibniz, relationspersonnelles (Paris: Vrin, 1955), p. 140; and G. le Roy,
note 2, p. 208, of his edition of the Discours de metaphysique, 5th ed. (Paris: Vrin,
1988). However, this hypothesis of a Malebranchian inspiration of the Discourse on
Metaphysics must be qualified. The Confessio Philosophi (1673) already contains
the great principles of the theodicy that will be expounded in the Discourse. Leibniz,
moreover, was anxious to clarify this subject in sec. 211 of the Theodicy; and the
subsequent correspondence between the two authors (given in Robinet, cited above)
shows clearly their disagreement, even if Leibniz tries to minimize it with his cus-
tomary irenic civility. (See also the attempted reconciliation proposed in Theodicy,
sec. 208.)
9 See Leibniz, letter to Malebranche of January 1712 (Relations personnelles, p. 418):
'when I consider the work of God, I consider these ways as a part of the work, and
simplicity joined to fecundity of ways forms a part of the excellence of the work.'
10 For more precise comparisons of these two theodicies, see S. Nadler 'Choosing a
Theodicy: The Leibniz-Malebranche-Arnauld Connection,' Journal of the History of
Ideas 55 (1994): 573-89, and 'Tange monies et fumigabunt: Arnauld face aux theod-
icees de Malebranche et Leibniz,' in Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694) philosophe,
ecrivain, theologien (Paris: Chroniques de Port-Royal-Bibliotheque Mazarine,
1995), pp. 323-34; and J. Jalabert, 'Leibniz et Malebranche,' Les Etudes
philosophiques (1981): 279-92.
11 See Rep. Refl. \, HOC 8, p. 651: 'God wills in particular everything which conforms
to order, everything which perfects his work.'
12 See TNG, me Eclaircissement, 6/OC 5, p. 180; and Rep. Refl. I, HOC 8, p. 655.
13 See Rep. Refl. \, HOC 8, p. 655: 'Furthermore to will simply and to do are not the
same thing in God. But to will to do and to do are the same thing in God.' See also
Rep. Refl. i, 1/0C8, p. 651.
14 In the republication of 1712, Malebranche adds an important clarification: 'God's
wisdom renders him in a sense [pour ainsi dire] impotent.'
15 This is why I will sometimes speak of 'Augustino-Thomism.' For Saint Thomas, I
have used the following: Summa Theologiae la, quest. 47 and 48; Summa contra
Gentiles HI, ch. 5 to ch. 9; De Malo; and the Compendium Theologiae, ch. 114 to
120.
16 See Augustine, Confessions vn, 12; City ofGodxn, 5; Enchiridion, iv, 12.
17 The microfiche index of the Oeuvres de Malebranche (Paris, Vrin, 1990), fiche 8,
col. 12, indicates eleven occurrences of the term.
18 Malebranche often uses this expression (microfiche 27, col. 8, shows twelve occur-
rences), but to my knowledge it only serves to describe the state in which the sinner
finds himself. However, it seems to me that this expression could be applied, without
98 Denis Moreau
being unf ait hf ul to the thought of the Oratorian, to physical evils insofar as they are
disfigurements of creation.
19 See, for example, Confessions vn, 12 and 13; De genesi ad litteram iv, 12;
Enchiridion in, cited by Saint Thomas in the Summa Theologiae la, quest. 25, art. 6.
20 For these comparisons, see, for example, De ordine i, 2, and n, 4; De musica vi, 11.
21 This is the second Augustinian sense of the comparison between the world and a
picture or a mosaic, if it is considered from the point of view of those who regard it.
See, for example, De ordine i, 2.
22 This remark holds true of the modern commentators, with the exception of H.
Gouhier (La philosophie de Malebranche, ch. 3), M. Gueroult (Malebranche, vol. 3,
pp. 235-40, and 399-404), and more recently, A.G. Black ('Malebranche's
Theodicy,' Journal of the History of Philosophy 35 [1997]: 27^4). For their part,
contemporary readers of Malebranche (Arnauld, Fenelon, Bossuet) better perceived
this specificity of the theodicy of the Oratorian.
23 This has to do, no doubt, with the 'great' anti-Malebranchian text of Arnauld, pub-
lished in 1685-6 and entirely directed against the Traite de la nature et de la grace. It
is found in volume 39, pp. 155-856, of the Oeuvres d'Arnauld, called the 'Edition de
Lausanne,' 43 volumes (Paris and Lausanne: Sigismond d'Arnay, 1775-83). I have
studied the refutation of the Malebranchian theodicy proposed in this work in detail
in Deux cartesiens (Paris: Vrin, 1999), especially chapters 7 and 8.
24 The date of the redaction of this text, which was not published in Fenelon's lifetime,
is uncertain (1687?). It is found in Oeuvres philosophiques de Fenelon (Paris: Char-
pentier, 1843). On Fenelon and Malebranche, see H. Gouhier, Fenelon philosophe
(Paris: Vrin, 1977), pp. 33^10; F. Bouillier, Histoire de la philosophie cartesienne,
3rd ed., 2 vols (Paris: Delagrave, 1868), vol. 2, ch. 14; A.R. Desautels, 'Fenelon
critique de Malebranche: En marge de Malebranche et le quietisme du P. de
Montcheuil,' Revue thomiste 53 (1953): 347-66; and Riley, The General Will before
Rousseau, pp. 74-9. The criticisms of Fenelon are often very close to those of
Arnauld.
25 Reflexions philosophiques et theologiques i, ch. 6, pp. 225-6. See also, in the same
sense, ch. 2, p. 203.
26 Refutation du systeme du Pere Malebranche, ch. 3, p. 309. The continuation of the
text goes back to the Malebranchian limitation of divine power.
27 Ibid., ch. 21, p. 402.
28 For the (contemporary) characterization of the doctrine of Mani, I am indebted to the
works of H.C. Puech, Le manicheisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine (Paris: S.A.E.P,
1949) and Le manicheisme, vol. 2 of 1'Histoire des religions de la 'Bibliotheque de la
ple"iade' (Paris: Gallimard, 1972; reprint, Paris: Gallimard, 'Folio' collection, 1999);
and M. Tardieu, Le manicheisme (Paris: PUF, 1981).
29 It is interesting to note, however, that this accusation of 'Manichaeism,' or some-
thing like it ('Marcionism'), is frequently levelled against Malebranche. But one
must recognize the ease with which thinkers of the time recognized the seeds of her-
esies in the doctrines of their adversaries. In the Preface of the Dialogues on Meta-
physics and Religion (OC 12, p. 21), Malebranche reports that Faydit had compared
him to the 'Marcionites, Appeletians, and Valentinians'; finally, an anonymous Dic-
tionary of Heresies (Paris: Nyon-Barrois-Didot, 1762), vol. n, pp. 319-21, again
mentions the name of Malebranche, although to vindicate him as an opponent of
Bayle, in the article 'Manicheisme.' For a contemporary comparison of Malebranche
with a gnostic type of position, see N. Depraz, 'De la phenomenologie de la percep-
tion a la gnose transcendantale,' in La legerete de I'etre: Etudes sur Malebranche,
ed. B. Pinchard (Paris: Vrin, 1998), pp. 219-33.
30 We recall that Arnauld translated the De vera religione of Augustine (Oeuvres
d'Arnauld, vol. 11), where several passages are to be found on the Manichaeans, who
'claim that evil is a substance' (ch. 20). Book xn of the History of the Varieties of
Protestant Churches, by Bossuet (text of 1688, volume xiv of the Oeuvres com-
pletes, 31 vols [Paris: Vives, 1862-6]), constitutes a good example of what a theolo-
gian at the end of the seventeenth century could know and think about Manichaeism.
(Arnauld valued this text of Bossuet. See the letter to Du Vaucel, 20 October 1690,
Oeuvres d'Arnauld, vol. 3, p. 310.)
31 This frightening term is utilized in the xve Eclaircissement of the Recherche de la
verite (OC 3, p. 219): the Oratorian recognizes that when a house collapses on a good
man it is 'a great evil.' He explains that since 'God does not multiply his volitions to
remedy real or apparent disorders which are the necessary consequence of natural
laws ... he ought to neglect little things.' The term is equally applied to the order of
grace in TNG n, 17 additions/OC5, p. 77.
32 It could be objected here that my reading is too narrowly 'philosophical,' and that it
neglects the fundamental theological given of original sin: is it not the initial 'fault'
which justifies those among our present sorrows which have no other justification?
Certainly it could be thought to be so for most Augustinians; but again, things are
more complex for Malebranche. To be sure, for the Oratorian certain physical suffer-
ings are the result of the confusion introduced by sin into the relations between God,
the soul, and the body (see the Preface of the Recherche de la verite), and one could
therefore see in these sufferings punishments or trials inflicted on man in the post-
lapsarian state (see, in this sense, Meditations chretiennes vn 12, p. 73, and Dia-
logues xn, 11-15). But if the place of the unjustifiable could thus be 'reduced' in the
world as Malebranche sees it, it cannot be suppressed, for all that. Once the world
was created, and before sin, God acted, in fact, by general volitions. If Adam had not
sinned, one of his descendants could therefore have been mutilated by a stone pushed
by a blast of wind.
33 This critique can be found developed in the text entitled Dissertation ... sur la
100 Denis Moreau
maniere dont Dieu a fait des miracles ..., vol. 39, pp. 673-741, of the Oeuvres
d'Arnauld.
34 This argument is developed for the first time, in a very discreet manner, in the
Reponse a une dissertation de Monsieur ArnauId (1685), ch. 3, and abridged in
Dialogues xn, \2IOC 12, p. 293.
35 In 1685-6, in the Reflexions philosophiques et theologiques...
36 A comparable analysis could be made of the theme of providence. The conception of
providence in the Oratorian's theodicy does not seem to be the classical conception,
and Arnauld opposes it on this ground. On the tortuous debates between Arnauld and
Malebranche concerning miracles and providence, which I have briefly sketched
here, see my Deux cartesiens, chapters 8 and 9, and section 4.2 of my article The
Malebranche-Arnauld Debate,' in The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, ed.
S. Nadler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
37 The influence of Malebranche on Voltaire has already been more or less established.
See, for example, J. Deprun, 'Le dictionnaire philosophique et Malebranche,' in
Annales de lafaculte des lettres d'Aix en Provence 40 (1966): pp. 73-8; E.D. James,
'Voltaire and Malebranche: From Sensationalism to "tout en Dieu,'" in Modern Lan-
guage Review 75 (1980): 282-90; and I.O. Wade, The Intellectual Development of
Voltaire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 711-19.
38 Concerning Simone Weil, see especially the beginning of the Lettre a un religieux
(Paris: Gallimard, 1951), and the chapters 'Le mal,' 'La croix,' and 'La distance
entre le necessaire et le bien' from La pesanteur et la grace (Paris: Plon, 1947); on
Hans Jonas, Der Gottesbegriffnach Auschwitz (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main,
1984), especially the end of the text devoted to a critical examination of the 'classical
concept' of divine omnipotence.
Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil
D. ANTHONY LARIVIERE AND THOMAS M. LENNON
1. Introduction: Conceptions of God and the World
The problem of evil is generally regarded as a philosophical problem, that is, as
one that arises independently of religious faith. It was Epicurus, after all, who
gave the problem its classic formulation. It is the Christian conception of God,
however, that gives the problem its greatest urgency, but with the result of
restricting its interest, at least for some. Motivation for investigating the prob-
lem can be had by regarding it as dealing less with the conception of God,
Christian or otherwise, than with conceptions of the world. That is, talk about
God is more widely relevant when understood as talk about the world.
For Descartes, it is divine power that is most prominent. God is omnipotent
even to the point that he is the 'total and efficient' cause of the eternal truths. On
this conception of God, the model for understanding the world is political.
Regal metaphors abound as Descartes construes the relation between God and
creation as that between a king and his realm.
1
To use the technical language of
theology, nothing has absolute necessity; the only necessity is ordained. The
upshot is a perhaps surprising empiricism at a very deep level that was played
out by such Cartesians as Desgabets and Regis.
2
Only experience can disclose
the content and extent of royal decrees.
For Leibniz, these Cartesians unwittingly destroy God's love and glory by
making him equally praiseworthy for whatever he does. God would be a despot,
for his power alone would define his justice.
3
Instead, it is divine wisdom that
predominates for Leibniz. This is to say that the world is rational and in princi-
ple knowable a priori. The drift is toward Spinozism, the view that the world is
nm
102 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon
necessary in all its features. The struggle between the Cartesian and Leibnizian
conceptions is played out most notably in Malebranche, without notable resolu-
tion. But there is a third position.
For Bayle, the most prominent divine attribute is goodness: 'It is manifest to
anyone who reasons, that God is a most perfect being, and that of all perfec-
tions, none is more essential to him than goodness, holiness and justice.' Bayle,
too, rejects the Cartesian position, but for reasons rather different from the
philosophical reasons of Leibniz: 'if you deprive [God of this sort of perfection]
to make him a law-giver who forbids men to sin, and then punishes them for it,
you make him a Being in whom men cannot put their trust - a deceitful, mali-
cious, unjust and cruel Being: he can longer be an object of worship ... when an
object is dreaded only because it has the power and will of doing harm, and
exercises that power cruelly and unmercifully, it must needs be hated and
detested: this can be no religious worship.'
4
A condition even for adorability of
God is a moral relation to him. And it is in primarily moral terms that Bayle
understands the world.
Elizabeth Labrousse, the doyenne of Bayle scholarship, makes two important
points in the course of her discussion of the problem of evil. The moral outlook
of Bayle emphasizes these points and shows how they are related. First, the con-
cept of good is for Bayle univocal. No analogical account from him, which
would so isolate the transcendent God that dialogue with him would become
impossible. Thus, 'it must not be claimed that the goodness of the infinite being
is not subject to the same rules as the goodness of the creature; for if there is in
God an attribute that can be termed goodness, the characteristics of goodness in
general must belong to it.'
5
The second point is Bayle's rejection of the neo-Plotinian account of evil in
terms of plenitude and the best of all possible worlds. This is his rejection
before the fact of Leibniz's theodicy: 'God could have made things otherwise
than he has made them in a hundred different ways, all worthy of his infinite
perfection; for without that he would have had no freedom and would not have
differed from the God of the Stoics, chained by an inevitable destiny, a dogma
which is hardly better than Spinozism.'
6
The failure of the neo-Plotinian
account is that it does not recognize the moral perspective of individual people.
Here is how Labrousse puts it: 'It is legitimate to imagine things from the point
of view of the totality when considering the machine of the universe, and thus to
admire unreservedly the simplicity and fecundity of the laws governing exten-
sion, because inert matter is indifferent to the perspective chosen to describe it
... In the case of a conscious being, on the other hand, his own point of view
remains privileged since it constitutes for him an ultimate and irreducible expe-
rience. This is why, since moral values are the same for man and God, man, to
Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil 103
the extent that he is not resigned to the most paralyzing fideism, has the right to
struggle with God and to demand of Him an account of the misery [malheur] of
existence.'
7
The struggle and demand are these: if 'good' applies to man and to God
univocally, and if God could have created other worlds than this one, then we
can argue with him as did the prophets over what he does. A deep-seated fear
for Bayle, and the fundamental reason why the problem of evil must be in some
sense resolved, is that God might not be good, and that the horrible lament of
Christ reported by Matthew 26:24 (also Mark 14:21) may not be true just of
Judas but of everyone: better for him never to have been. This is no abstract
issue for Bayle; it is his experience of not just his own life but life in general.
8
2. The Dualist Response: Manichaeism
Bayle's Dictionary is the richest source of his thought concerning the problem
of evil, despite the fact that his examination of Bishop King's thought on the
matter in the Reponse aux questions d'un provincial forms perhaps the longest
continuous discussion of the issue. The Dictionary provides Bayle with the
opportunity to address the problem from different perspectives and in different
contexts, something which is not true of the extended discussion in the
Reponse. Perhaps the most important of these contexts is Bayle's treatment of a
number of heresies which might all be loosely styled 'Manichaean.' These
heretical groups - Marcionites and Paulicians particularly - though they may
not have had any historical connection to the Manichees, nevertheless share
with them the view that the world as it exists is best accounted for on the
hypothesis of two, coeval powers, one good, one evil. While engaged in the task
of assessing the truth or falsity of the many errors and immoralities with which
these heretical groups had been charged,
9
Bayle examines the usefulness of this
'dualism' as a response to the problem of evil. As a member himself of a minor-
ity religious sect branded heretical by the majority, Bayle would have been par-
ticularly sensitive to attempts on the part of orthodox religionists to portray the
heterodox as not only mistaken, but pernicious and immoral as well. However,
as one who had both converted and reverted, from Protestantism to Catholicism
and back, Bayle would have had a deeper appreciation than many of his con-
temporaries of the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments which motivate
the conscious adoption of a religious view. He would have been sensitive as
well to the certainty and doubt which accompany religious belief. It should
come as no surprise, then, both that heresy and heterodoxy are favourite sub-
jects of the Dictionary, and that Bayle uses his discussion of these to examine
the intellectual source of the attachment to these erroneous doctrines.
The linchpin of this discussion is, of course, the 'Manichees' entry. The ele-
ments which plunged Bayle into controversy in his own time, and which have
since made him an enigma to many, appear very early in the entry. While he
expresses what must have been an approved sentiment - '[The Manichees]
taught such doctrines, as ought to inspire us with the greatest horror' - he fol-
lows this immediately with a judgment that must have seemed equally unortho-
dox: Their weakness did not consist, as at first it may seem, in their doctrine of
two principles, one good, and the other bad; but in the particular explications
they gave of it, and in the practical consequences they drew from it.'
10
It was the
position of many ecclesiastical writers that heresy, if not demonstrably false,
was inherently weak and incapable of standing up to competition from the true
religion.
11
But Bayle's position is the negation of this one. Not only is it the
case that Manichaean dualism is a more compelling doctrine than it is given
credit for being, but '[i]t was a happy thing, that St. Augustine, who understood
so well all the arts of controversy, abandoned the Manichean heresy; for he
would have removed its grossest errors and framed such a system, as, by his
management, would have puzzled the Orthodox.'
12
What is compelling about
the doctrine is how neatly it accounts for the existence of moral evil. This is a
failing, on the other hand, of the orthodox view, as Bayle remarks in a pretended
dialogue between Melissus and Zoroaster: 'since the principal character of a
good system is to account for what experience teaches us, and that the bare
incapacity of explaining it, is a proof that an hypothesis is not good ... you [i.e.,
Melissus] must grant, that I [i.e., Zoroaster] have hit the mark, by admitting two
principles, and that you have not hit it, by admitting but one.'
13
It seems, there-
fore, that on rational grounds alone, the orthodox view and the heretical view
are at a standoff: a priori reasons favour the orthodox and a posteriori reasons
favour the Manichees. Further, as Bayle argues, 'every system requires these
two things to make it good; one, that the ideas of it be distinct; the other that it
accounts for what experience teaches us.'
14
If both kinds of reason are rationally
required, and the orthodox view can lay claim to only one of them, it seems that
there are no rational grounds to favour that view over its heretical competitor.
No wonder, then, that, historically, many were horrified by Bayle's discussion.
While it is clear how Bayle's discussion contradicts the orthodox position on
heresy, we should not see Bayle as attempting to revive the cause of this or any
other heresy. His commitment to the truth of his religion is unwavering. It is just
that, for Bayle, a purely rational defence of the orthodox view is fruitless. Rea-
son 'can only discover to man his ignorance and weakness'; 'it is a principle of
destruction, and not of edification; it is only fit to start doubts, and to turn itself
all manner of ways, to perpetuate a dispute.'
15
It cannot, in the end, provide a
solution to the problem of moral evil. For this 'it is necessary to have recourse
to revelation'
16
; in scripture 'we find what is sufficient to refute unanswerably
the hypothesis of two principles, and all the objections of Zoroaster.'
17
In partic-
ular, the use of the existence of moral evil as an argument against an infinitely
wise and good God is obviated by revelation: 'Let anyone tell us with a pomp-
ous shew of arguments, that it was not possible that moral evil should introduce
itself into the world by the work of a principle infinitely good and holy; we shall
answer, that this was nevertheless done, consequently that it is very possible.'
18
The emphasis here is on scriptural revelation, for that is what shows that the
goodness of God is compatible with the existence of moral evil, despite the
'pompous shew of arguments' which the problem of evil engenders. This is the
theme which runs through all of Bayle's discussion in the Dictionary; it forms
the core of his approach in nearly every article where the issue arises, and it
explains why Bayle so systematically undermines every proposed solution to
the problem of evil.
In the Marcionites entry, for instance, Bayle examines an argument that
claims to show the compatibility of God's goodness with evil by claiming that
human free will constrains God's ability to prevent evil. Bayle claims that there
are several mistakes in this argument. Chief among these mistakes is this: that it
is part of the nature of a finite, created being that it be free to sin. But 'a creature
does not become a God, because it is determined to good, and is deprived of
that which you call free will.'
19
What shows this is the orthodox belief that the
blessed in heaven are incapable of sin in virtue of a necessary goodness, and yet
their love of God in this state (which necessitates their goodness) is not of the
same order as that of a slave who is compelled or coerced into loving his master.
Thus no argument which appeals to the notion of human free will, will solve the
apparent dilemma. To take another example, in the Paulicians entry it is argued
that evil is necessary because it is necessary for wisdom and thus for virtue;
Bayle points out that this is refuted by the nature of God himself. Another argu-
ment he examines is that good would appear unattractive without its opposite,
evil. But this, he thinks, depends on a specious principle - that unmixed or sim-
ple properties cannot by themselves or in isolation be the objects of cognition or
perception. The fact that one can imagine, or even have experienced, for exam-
ple, a single shade of blue occupying the whole of one's visual field, is enough
to show that the principle is false. Yet another argument is that finite, created,
material things necessarily involve evil. Bayle refutes this argument by pointing
out that what is created truly ex nihilo cannot act as a constraint on the power of
its creator.
20
The failure of these arguments to provide a solution points in only one direc-
tion: 'Revelation is the only magazine of the arguments, with which we must
oppose these people: it is by this means only, that we are able to refute the pre-
tended eternity of an ill principle.'
21
The theme is even more forcefully argued
in the Paulicians entry: 'we must not engage with the Manichees, till we have
before all things laid down the doctrine of the exaltation of faith, and the abas-
ing of reason';
22
and later: 'We must humbly acknowledge that Philosophy is
here at a stand, and that it's [sic] weakness ought to lead us to the light of reve-
lation, where we shall find a sure and stedfast anchor';
23
and later again: 'The
doctrine which the Manichees oppose, ought to be looked upon by the ortho-
dox, as a truth in fact, clearly revealed and since it must at last be confessed,
that the causes and reasons of it cannot be apprehended, it is better to own it
from the beginning, and stop there, and look upon the objections of Philoso-
phers as a vain wrangling, and oppose nothing to them but silence, together with
the shield of faith.'
24
The aim, therefore, of Bayle's treatment of the problem of
evil is to show that no solution to it is possible, at least not if we construe 'solu-
tion' as requiring the rational demonstration of how evil can exist in harmony
with God's goodness. If we appeal 'only to philosophical ideas,' then 'the best
answer that can be naturally returned to the question, Why did God permit that
men should sin? is this, I do not know, I only believe that he had some reasons
for it very worthy of his infinite wisdom, but they are incomprehensible to
me.'
25
Dismay with Bayle's approach led the Walloon Church of Rotterdam to
require him to provide an 'explanation' of his remarks on the Manichees, Mar-
cionites, and Paulicians.
26
This explanation involves for the most part only a
reiteration of the claims made in the earlier remarks. New, however, is a defence
of the approach: Bayle's strategy is to show that not only are the faithful at a
disadvantage in a philosophical dispute concerning evil (a claim already made
in the remarks), but that there is a real advantage to be gained by refusing to
engage in such dispute. His first attempt at such a defence is a weak one: 'It
would be against the nature of things, for [the mysteries of the gospel] to come
off victorious from [the test of philosophical disputes], their essential character
is to be the objects of faith, and not of science: they would be no longer myster-
ies, if reason could solve all the difficulties of them.'
27
It is clearly not much of
a defence of religious mysteries to claim that they would cease to be mysteries
if they were amenable to rational defence, for what is at issue is not their status
as mysteries but their content. Yet Bayle's general defence seems to gain force
the deeper he proceeds into it, in the way that a country preacher might crank up
his fervour in the course of his sermon. The defence provided later in the expla-
nation is altogether more sophisticated and far more interesting, for it involves
clarifying the difference between faith and reason. The difference, says Bayle,
'betwixt the faith of a Christian and the science of a Philosopher' is this: 'this
faith produces a complete certainty, but its object still remains inevident; sci-
ence, on the contrary, at once produces the evidence of the object, and a com-
plete certainty of persuasion.'
28
Notice that the difference is cashed out, not, as
is usually the case, as a difference in how belief is produced (i.e., by evidence as
opposed to by revelation), but in the kind of belief that results. Granted, the
result is a belief which is immune to rational criticism, but unlike what might be
thought of as the standard distinction, a reason can be offered for this immunity
which is not reducible to obstinacy or blindness: 'as the highest degree of
evidence has this property, that it cannot be proved, the lowest degree of in-
evidence has this destiny, that it cannot be attacked.'
29
Just as self-evidence is a
virtue and not a vice of fundamental principles, so is immunity to rational criti-
cism a virtue and not a vice of religious belief.
3. The Rational Solution: Socinianism
Unlike Manichaeism, Socinianism was, or at least can be made out to have
been, an attempted solution to the problem of evil. The denial of divine fore-
knowledge by the Socinians cannot have been motivated by any other reason.
Moreover, the denial was one that was argued from a plausibly Christian per-
spective. To be sure, they were regarded by virtually everyone as wildly hereti-
cal; certainly Bayle took them to be anti-Christian.
30
Still, the God of Abraham
and Isaac was one who constantly showed surprise in dealing with his chosen
people. Indeed, such a possibility may be required by what Bayle himself takes
to be the dialogical relation between us and God. How could God have argued
in good faith with his prophets?
Alas, it is very difficult to define the term 'Socinianism' in a way that
remains informative and yet captures its use in this period. For it functioned pri-
marily as a term of abuse, applied to anyone perceived not to assign faith its
proper place. Just as anyone who did not have a proper conception of God
was viewed as an atheist, so anyone who did not carve out the domain of faith to
specification was a Socinian. Nonetheless, a core of doctrine can be picked out,
beginning with Socinus himself, on whom Bayle of course has an article in the
Dictionary.
31
A not irrelevant curiosity is that Socinus is still another of the
Bayle surrogates to be found there: individuals driven from their native land for
religious reasons of conscience. It will be useful to begin with a brief account of
the biography of this colourful character.
Faustus Socinus was born Fausto Sozzini in Sienna in 1539. Like Peter
Waldo four centuries earlier, he spent at least a brief period as a merchant in
Lyons, where he seems to have received letters from his uncle Lelio filled with
heterodox theological views. He returned to Italy and spent twelve years in the
Florentine court under Cosimo i. But he became convinced that, apart from the-
ology, he was wasting his time. Eventually, he was forced by his heterodox
views to leave Italy for Switzerland, where between 1574 and 1578 he produced
two of his most important works, on Christ the Redeemer and the condition of
man before the fall. He then spent time in Transylvania, embroiled in theologi-
cal disputes, before reaching Poland, the so-called 'asylum and refuge of here-
tics.' In Poland, he was a fellow-traveller of the Unitarians, known as the Polish
Brethren, eventually becoming their effective leader. His writing continued,
with works on the authority of Scripture and other topics. On two occasions, he
nearly lost his life because of his views, once at the hands of an angry mob of
students. Ultimately, he found protection among certain sympathetic members
of the Polish nobility. He died in Luslawice, in 1604.
Bayle and Socinus clearly have different versions of what is called the Chris-
tian anthropology. Basically, this is to say that they have different historical
accounts of human nature. As a result of this difference, they have very different
moral and political views. Bayle's views are relatively well known. He is, if you
will, a law and order conservative, who even as a refugee in Holland after the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes advocated strict obedience to Louis xi v as the
only hope of Huguenot security. Other refugees like Jurieu were attempting to
foment revolution, but Bayle's position was argued on recognizably Calvinist
grounds. He is an anti-rationalist pessimist who finds original sin utterly cor-
rupting and therefore the need for Redemption satisfiable by no less than God
himself. He therefore accepts the divinity of Christ, and, rather by default, the
Trinity. Such is the Redemption in his Calvinist eyes that individual salvation,
or the lack of it, is predestined, and the individual will is regarded as, if not
stripped of freedom, at least deprived of any efficaciousness.
Socinus is a pacifist anarchist,
32
whose optimism is grounded in a denial of
original sin as contrary to reason, the only rule of religious faith.
33
With no orig-
inal sin, there is no need to regard Christ as other than figuratively divine (thus
viewing Christ in the way that the Calvinists view the Eucharist). The role of
Christ is not to atone for sin, but to set an example of how to be saved. He has spe-
cial knowledge, immortality, and power, though not omnipotence, which belongs
only to God. Although the Redemption is thus dramatically recast, the Resurrec-
tion of Christ is needed to prove the truth of his teaching, which is required for
salvation. (The anti-Trinitarianism is completed by taking the Holy Spirit to be,
not a person, but the power of God.) Since Christ is not the Redeemer of tradi-
tional theology, grace ceases to play a role and free will emerges as paramount.
Again on grounds of reason alone, divine foreknowledge is denied. God's fore-
knowledge of future contingents would make him a Deus otiosus and remove
from him care for his people and real direction of the world.
Salvation is by faith alone, but this Pauline slogan is given a meaning very
different from Bayle's Calvinist understanding of it. Faith is conceived by Soci-
nus in rather Pelagian terms as a matter of free choice to lead the moral life, that
is, to obey God's commands, that is, to live in the imitation of Christ. Though
perfectly in agreement with reason, God's commands are too difficult for us;
certitude about an eternal reward, and not just conviction, is required, which is a
grace. This grace is granted to those and those only, who, made aware of the
reward, not only accept that it is true, but also prepare to reject wickedness and
be wholly obedient to God's commandments, and then persist in their pious
purpose.'
34
The necessary certitude is based in confidence (fiducia, confidencid)
that God will make good on his promises of reward. Though described as a
grace, this certitude seems open to all as a matter of will, since the 'substance
and form' of justification by faith is obedience: we freely will to follow reason
in acting justly. This obedience, in fact, is just belief in the existence of God.
Those who love virtue easily believe in God.'
35
As for those who fail to love
virtue, they simply perish. Eternal damnation, hell-fire, etc., are just metaphors,
which, if taken literally, would mean that God makes mortal man immortal only
in order to punish him. This would be contrary to reason.
In his article on Socinus, Bayle shows himself most interested in the socio-
political history of Socinianism. His longest remark details the accusation of
Socinianism lodged against Arnauld by Jurieu, which Bayle finds preposter-
ous.
36
He is also very interested in the question of the likely spread of the views
of the Socinians, whether persecution helps their chances, and whether their
anarcho-pacifist views hurt them.
37
Another question treated at length is the
reception given Socinianism in Holland, which was surprisingly unfriendly and
intolerant.
38
Only in bits and pieces does Bayle's view of the Socinian doctrine
itself emerge: '... the Socinians destroyed all Christianity, the resurrection of the
dead, the hopes of eternal life';
39
The eternity of matter, God's extension, the
limitation of this extension, and of Divine foreknowledge, and of hell torments,
are Socinian doctrines.'
40
As it happens, the longest of these bits concerns the problem of evil: T shall
observe, by the bye, that nothing has proved more prejudicial to the Socinians
than a certain doctrine which they have thought very proper to remove the great-
est difficulty a Philosopher can find in our Theology. A thinking man, who only
consults his reason, and the bright idea of infinite goodness, which, morally
speaking, makes up the principal character of the divine nature, will be offended
at what we read in Scripture concerning the eternity of hell torments.' As he
does elsewhere, Bayle here insists on divine goodness, confirmed, he thinks, by
both faith and reason:
And therefore so long as a man shall adhere to his natural reason, and not humbly
submit to some passages in the gospel, he will look with abhorrence upon that doc-
trine of the infinite torments and punishments of the whole human race, except
only a few. The Socinians, relying too much on reason, have limited those tor-
ments, so much the more carefully because they considered that men would be
made to suffer only for suffering's sake, since no advantage would accrue from
those torments to the sufferers or the spectators - a thing never done by any well
mtentioned legislature. They hoped to bring over to Christianity by that means
those, who are offended by a notion that seems little consistent with the supreme
goodness. But those Heretics were not aware that this very thing would make them
more odious, and more unworthy of toleration than all their other tenets. After all,
few people are offended with the doctrine concerning the eternal duration of hell
torments.
41
Although he does not say so in this article, Bayle agrees with Socinus and his
followers on two very important points. He agrees, first, that the denial of divine
foreknowledge, of eternal damnation, etc., is as well as one can do rationally
with respect to the problem of evil. (Although this is not to say that Bayle thinks
the problem is thereby solved. As he makes clear in the Paulicians article, God
should have been able to predict on the basis of her thoughts that Eve was about
to sin, and certainly, after her sin, that Adam would do the same.) An indication
of this is to be found in Bayle's criticism of the attempt by King to j ustify God's
alleged creation of human freedom of indifference, given the prospect of the ill
use of it. King attempts to exculpate God by describing the ill use of freedom as
merely possible. Bayle responds with a typical example: imagine a group of
mothers who allow their daughters to attend a ball unchaperoned; the woman
whose daughter is seduced may be excused if the daughter was thought to be
strong enough to withstand the seduction, but not if she was inexperienced. 'A
Socinian, who sees in this a rather delicate objection, can nonetheless say that
the success of the temptation was uncertain and the hopes false.' King cannot
say this, of course, because he does not deny God's foreknowledge.
42
The temp-
tation is great, however, to make some such denial, as Bayle argues in the
Explanation of what he said about the Manichees: 'Those who engage in dis-
putes with the Socinians, and take new roads, seldom fail to lose their way.' The
only way to deal with them is by insisting on the very truths of faith that they
deny. He points out 'how impossible it is to confute the Philosophical objec-
tions of the Socinians; and since they acknowledge the scripture, they ought
immediately to be attacked by it. This is the weak side of their defence; the
other is the strong side.'
43
A second point on which Bayle agrees with Socinus and his followers is that
the significance of Christ has to be understood in moral terms. The logic is as
follows. A redemption that merely atoned for sin would be a metaphysical stunt
utterly at odds with divine omnipotence. The absolution of original sin is an end
that is readily achievable with a greater economy of means. Instead, there had to
be something that could have been achieved only by the sort of life that Christ
led, and that was his moral example. Nor is the point of this example merely to
bring about a certain kind of behaviour, for that too could have been brought
about by the omnipotent deity in a more rational fashion.
What is the example of Christ? For the Socinians, it is encapsulated by the
sermon on the mount: poverty, hunger, simplicity, charity, loving enemies, turn-
ing the other cheek. Bayle has a different take; it is the message of toleration,
which for him guarantees the fundamental moral principle of conscience. If this
moral seems rather too deistic and rationalist, too much of the eighteenth cen-
tury for our Calvinist author, recall that his doctrine of toleration was perhaps
the most obvious sense in which he proved to be the so-called 'arsenal of the
Enlightenment.' In any case, Bayle himself thought of toleration in explicitly
evangelical terms. He was at greatest length in his defence of toleration to show
that it was not upset by Luke 14:23. This is the text containing the words of the
rich man whose dinner invitations were ignored and who instructed his servants
as follows: compel them to enter. It was the text that became the basis for forced
conversions. Despite this literal interpretation advanced by Augustine, Bayle
insisted on a figurative interpretation compatible with the inviolable status of
conscience.
None of this, however, is to be found in the article on Socinus. For the
connection between Socinianism and Bayle's conception of the autonomy of
conscience, one must look to still another article, this one on Stancarus.
4. The Moral Solution
Francis Stancarus is still another Bayle surrogate, whose career anticipates not
only Bayle's but Socinus's, as well. He too was born in Italy, in Mantua, in
1501, whence, likely for reasons of heterodoxy, he too removed to Poland, hav-
ing also first spent time in Switzerland and Transylvania, among other places.
These included Konigsberg, where he had an important debate with the Luthe-
ran Andreas Ossiander. He was made professor of Hebrew in Cracow in 1550,
but was dismissed and imprisoned on allegations of heterodoxy. He was called
upon by some Polish nobility to reform the Church, which he undertook with
respect to iconolatry and the communion rite. He was condemned from Geneva,
however, in the person of Theodore Beza, although Stancarus also exchanged
charges of heresy with Calvin himself. He died in Stobitz in 1574.
44
Stancarus's dispute with Ossiander will make the connection of interest here.
Here is Bayle's account of it: Ossiander stands accused of Arianism. How so?
According to Ossiander, Christ is the redeemer or mediator insofar as he is God;
but 'if Christ is our mediator as he is God, he is inferior to his Father as to the
divine nature; and therefore he is not coessential with God the Father, and con-
sequently those who say that he is Mediator as he is God, revive the heresy of
the Arians.' The historical upshot, according to Bayle, was the rise of Socinian-
ism: '[The erstwhile Calvinist] Blandrata, and some others, who had fled from
Geneva for some errors concerning the Trinity, took advantage of Stancarus's
objections, and pretended that since his adversaries could not resolve them, it
was necessary to think of another system. This gave birth to Tritheism, and Ari-
anism in Poland, and at last to Socinianism.'
45
Before moving on with Stancarus's story in the body of the article, Bayle
laconically comments that this accidental assistance to Arianism is 'a subject that
might afford many reflexions.' Naturally there is a footnote remark that gives his
reflections. He begins with 'the complaints that some make against learning.
Were it not better to suppress the universities than to maintain so many professors
in all the faculties? They are the men, who give birth to Heresies, or bring up
those who spread and multiply erroneous doctrines. The people, that is, all those
who are not called to explain matters of religion, preserve the faith, imparted to
them, sound and undefiled.'
46
The unschooled just believe, without making a
fuss. But the learned generate schism upon schism because of their insistence on
being both right and different. Not only are the doctors unwilling to take a posi-
tion that is anything less than diametrically opposed to their opponents, but they
do so on questions formulated in terms of no real significance. 'How many dis-
orders might have been avoided in the world, if men had been contented to dis-
pute about things necessary to salvation?' Stancarus and Ossiander would not
have exchanged two pages. The obvious drift is toward a simple fideism that is
often attributed to Bayle, but his text takes a typically unexpected turn. For he
replies to the complaints, in a fashion that deserves citation in full:
I shall answer all these complaints in a few words. It is a most certain maxim that
good things ought not to be suppressed, because some make ill use of them; and
therefore since the improving of one's mind is very worthy of man, and the
appointing of matters for that end is a good thing, it ought not to be abolished under
pretence, that some learned men make an ill use of their knowledge to raise Theo-
logical disputes. To which I add, that the ill consequences of ignorance are still
more to be feared. Ignorance would not prevent divisions; some men less ignorant
than others, though they had never been in a university, would be so presumptuous
and vain as to sow new doctrines, and might establish them more easily, because
their hearers would be silly and ignorant.
The connection here with Bayle's concern for toleration is obvious. Yet the
point that ought not to be lost sight of is that dispute, which according to Bayle
derives largely from the desire for philosophical novelty, distracts one from
consideration of the moral life, which is a necessary (if not sufficient) condition
for salvation.
For Bayle, chief among these disputes is the problem of evil, as is evidenced
by the considerable space Bayle devotes to consideration both of the problem
and the many heresies it engenders. This is not to say, however, that Bayle takes
heresy and the response to it to be a minor or niggling problem, or the heretic
himself never to be at fault.
47
Rather, Bayle should be seen as arguing that error
is a necessary consequence of the philosophical examination of religious mys-
teries, but that the examination of things is a virtue in itself, and therefore that
there is virtue in the personal attempt to find accommodation with the difficul-
ties which the world presents to those with religious faith. The moral solution to
the problem of evil, then, is that there is no solution, properly so called. There
is, on the other hand, the virtue of the autonomous conscience which wrestles
with the pragmatic difficulties of religious faith, sincerely and with integrity,
even though this makes possible error and thus heresy. The upshot of the inabil-
ity to present a rational solution to the problem of moral evil is the recognition
of the value of the autonomous conscience, not indeed in terms of what it brings
about, but in terms of its exercise.
5. Conclusion
Investigating Bayle's views on the problem of evil, we were led to say some-
thing of the lives of Socinus and Stencarus. The most important life in this con-
nection is, of course, Bayle's own, which was rather a living hell. Physically, he
was plagued by migraine, tuberculosis, and general ill health. Worse was his
moral situation. Because of his reversion to Protestantism, Bayle spent his
entire adult life as an exile from his birthplace, and most of that time in cold and
dank Holland. From there, huddled with the community of his co-religionists,
he followed the horrors of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which
famously saw the dragooning, but no less certainly the execution, imprison-
ment, torture, and disenfranchisement, of the flock left behind in France - the
'blood and iron,' for that described 'how it was in the all Catholic France.'
48
Now, the logical problem of evil would arise even if the world were such that
the worst sinner in history were to suffer the least pain for the shortest time pos-
sible. But in such a world it would be a curiosity of hardly passing interest. In
Bayle's world it had a poignancy found in no other thinker. The contrast with
Leibniz in this regard is striking, as Leibniz himself noticed. For him, the proof
that life is not only the best possible but also good is that, without knowledge of
a life to come, those about to die would be happy to live the same life again (as
long as it had a bit of diversity, he says). Not so for Bayle, for whom it is a real
and constant question whether for everyone it would be better never to have
been. Leibniz quotes him in the Manichaean article: 'Man is wicked and miser-
able; there are everywhere prisons and hospitals; history is simply a collection
of the crimes and calamities of the human race.' Leibniz continues: '... there is
exaggeration in that: there is incomparably more good than evil in the life of
men, as there are more houses than prisons. With regard to virtue and vice, a
certain mediocrity prevails. Machiavelli has already observed that there are very
few wicked and very few good men, and that this causes the failure of many
great enterprises.'
49
Imagine what consolation such thoughts (especially ex-
pressed with the ironical reference to Machiavelli) might have had for Bayle
when, for example, he learned in Holland of the death of his brother, who had
been thrown into a French prison because the authorities could not get at Bayle
himself for the publication of his Critique ofMaimbourg. His only consolation,
if that is what is was, lay then and always in religious faith.
Bayle is generally known as a fideist, and properly so, even on the basis of
the texts examined here. The rational attempts to resolve the problem of evil
inevitably end in heresy, spectacularly in the case of Socinus, but even in the
case of Ossiander. The premises that seem to generate the problem must be
accepted, without question, on the basis of faith. But that faith, as has often
been noted in the Bayle literature, is a tepid faith seemingly devoid of tradi-
tional content. Certainly, Bayle is no Bible-thumping fundamentalist given to
paroxysms of enthusiasm of the sort that one associates with fideism. (In fact,
this is a profile that better fits Bayle's opponent Jurieu, and this difference does
more than anything else to explain their opposition.) Instead, faith seems little
more than a recognition of the value of conscience and the corresponding virtue
of toleration. Christ's principal message seems to have been what was then
being called libertas philosophandi. However implausible this may be as an
account of Christianity, one can see how the would-be Christian fideist nonethe-
less became a hero to the Enlightenment.
More importantly, one can see why the benefits of the moral example of Christ
cannot be brought off by the metaphysical stunt of an omnipotent deity immedi-
ately causing them. Given his historical circumstances, Bayle would never have
put it in these terms, but what we are supposed to learn from Christ is toleration,
that is, the exercise of autonomy in recognition of the autonomy of others. And
this exercise only we can perform. But with this exercise necessarily comes the
possibility of evil. But how, it may be asked, does this account differ from the per-
formance of good on any account, for example, from the view that the exercise of
the will, at least in a certain way, is itself a good? Perhaps not at all. Bayle's antic-
ipation of Kant's categorical imperative has been noticed in the literature.
50
In
any case, as the value of such a will would not be the good that it brings about as
a means, so the value of toleration is not some truth that it might lead to. Both of
these results could be achieved by the metaphysical stunt. Although Bayle wor-
ries in the Stencarus article about the ill consequences brought about by the igno-
rant when toleration is suppressed, it is clear there and elsewhere that his real
concern is with autonomy for its own sake. If construing toleration and autonomy
in such terms smacks of a rationalist solution to the problem of evil, then we can
see once again why Bayle was a hero to the Enlightenment. But not all mystery
has thereby been eliminated. There remains the even deeper mystery of what it is
to be an autonomous being, human or divine.
51
Notes
1 See, for example, the letter to Mersenne, 15 April 1630, in The Philosophical Writ-
ings of Descartes, trans. J. Cottingham et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992), vol. 3, p. 23.
2 Thomas M. Lennon, The Cartesian Dialectic of Creation,' in The Cambridge His-
tory of Seventeenth Century Philosophy, ed. D. Garber and M. Ayers (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. pp. 250-6.
3 Thus, in saying that things are not good by virtue of any rule of goodness but solely
by virtue of the will of God, it seems to me that we unknowingly destroy all God's
love and all his glory. For why praise him if he would be equally praiseworthy in
doing the exact contrary? Where will his justice and wisdom reside if there remains
only a certain despotic power, if will holds the place of reason, and if, according to
the definition of tyrants, justice consists in whatever pleases the most powerful?'
(Discourse on Metaphysics 2, trans. R. Ariew and D. Garber, in G.W. Leibniz,
Philosophical Essays [Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989], p. 36).
4 Art. Paulicians, rem. i. The translations of the Dictionary are those of Pierre Des-
maizeaux (London, 1734-8). The Dictionary is standardly, and easily, referrred to
across editions by entry or article (art.) and remark (rem).
5 Reponse aux questions d'un provincial (RQP) n, Ixxxi; in Oeuvres diverses (OD)
(The Hague: 2nd ed., 1737) in, 663a; cited by Labrousse, Pierre Bayle (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1964), vol. 1, pp. 348-9. Thus Bayle rejects Jurieu's supra-lapsari-
anism, which he takes to be a form of Spinozism (Art. Paulicians, rem. i). It should
be noted that Labrousse has an inexplicable hesitation, or nuance, in her statement.
'Values are identical for God and man and we can speak here not only of analogy but
almost of univocity' (p. 349). Why just 'almost'?
6 Sup. au Comm. Phil. 24; OD n, 528a; Labrousse, 355. Leibniz and the Manichees
agree: God did the best he could (OD iv, 522). See also RQP n, Ixxviii; OD in, 657b:
'A science which discovers but a single plan, and a single way of executing that plan,
is it not very limited, even if it is infinite?'
7 Labrousse, 357.
8 In his criticism of King, Bayle takes up this very question in fairly abstract terms. Do
the damned prefer to be annihilated? The length at which Bayle develops his actual
counter-examples to King's position that the damned would prefer existence are,
typically, drawn from history, the Bible, classical literature, or from classical philos-
ophy (Seneca, Pliny, et al.). This is not some curious puzzle pursued for amusement's
sake. Bayle's fear is that he is among the living damned, with the result that he would
prefer never to have been.
9 For a study of the types of charges and the groups that were the target of them, see
Norman Conn, Europe's Inner Demons (Sussex: Sussex University Press, 1975).
10 Art. Manichees; iv, 90-1.
11 Bayle notes this in, for instance, the 'Arius' entry, when he says that many authors
'lay it down, as a general Maxim, that Obstinacy is the Character of Heresy' (rem. K,
i, 477b). A little later, he quotes Thomassin to the effect that truth 'alone is able to
govern reasonable Minds, and inspire them with Fortitude' (rem. K, i, 478a). Given
that heresy is manifestly false, only obstinacy can account for people's adherence
to it.
12 Art. Manichees; iv, 95-6.
13 Ibid., rem. D, 95a.
14 Ibid., 94a.
15 Ibid., 95b-96a.
16 Ibid., 94b.
17 Ibid., 96a.
18 Ibid. Bayle appeals to the modal principle Ab actu adpotentiam valet consequentia
(from the actual to the possible is a valid deduction). But the actuality appealed to
here is not the actual existence of evil (for this would validate the consequence only
that evil is possible); rather, the appeal is to the actual coexistence of an infinitely
good God and moral evil, an actuality which is not the object of empirical discovery
but of scriptural revelation.
19 Art. Marcionites, rem. F, iv 112b.
20 These arguments are examined elsewhere in the Dictionary as well, notably in the
Origen entry, where Bayle says of this last argument: 'But the having recourse to
this hypothesis, is only adopting part of the error of the Manichees; it is saving the
goodness of God at the expence [sic] of his power, and admitting that Matter is an
uncreated principle so essentially bad, that it is not in the power of God to rectify
its defects' (Art. Origen, rem. E, iv 419a).
Bayl e on the Moral Problem of Evil 117
21 Art. Marcionites, rem. F, iv, 113a.
22 Art. Paulicians, rem. E, iv, 516a.
23 Ibid., rem. H, 522a.
24 Ibid., rem. M, 527a.
25 Ibid., 525b.
26 Bayle did this despite the fact that he clearly thought that there was nothing innova-
tive about his approach; and it must be admitted that he had biblical authority to back
him up. See, for instance, Colossians 2:8 and 1 Timothy 6:20-1.
27 Explanation n, v, 816.
28 Ibid., 817. The Desmaizeaux translation is infelicitous here, for it is clear that by
'evidence' Bayle does not mean 'reasons which j ustify a given position' but rather as
the contrary of ' inevident,' that is, clearly apparent or manifest.
29 Ibid.
30 See his resume of Jurieu' s account of the Socinian conception of God (Explanation
n, Dictionary v, 824).
31 As wel l as on his father and his grandfather.
32 See Art. Socinus. For more, see the very welcome article 'Faustus Socinus,' in Jill
Raitt, ed. Shapers of Religious Traditions in Germany, Switzerland and Poland:
1560-1600 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 195-209.
33 A hundred years later, Pascal too argued that the transmission of sin is irrational
because impossible and unj ust. As a mystery, it is the 'most incomprehensible of all.'
But wi t hout it. according to Pascal, we would be totally incomprehensible to our-
selves (Pensees 247, ed. Lafuma).
34 Raitt, p. 203.
35 Ibid., p. 207.
36 Art. Socinus, rem. M, v, 175b-178b.
37 Ibid., rems G & H, v, 171a-173a.
38 Ibid., rems K & L, v, 173a-175b.
39 Elsewhere Bayle is more sympathetic to these Socinian inferences. The Socinians
deny hell as incompatible with divine goodness. But if some orthodox theologians
agree wit h Bishop King that annihilation is worse than hell, reasons Bayle, then the
Socinian conception of divine justice, accused of being lax, is in fact more rigorous
(/?0P;0Dm, 671a-672).
40 Art. Socinus, rems L & i, v, 174a, 173a.
41 Ibid., rem. L, v, 175a.
42 RQP, I xxxi i ; OD i n, 664.
43 Dictionary, Explanation H, v, 820.
44 The long article on Stancarus is one of the best examples in the Dictionary of what is
supposed to have motivated it: correction of errors in previous such dictionaries,
especially Moreri's. In a remark covering over two ful l pages, Bayle argues that
Moreri gets the position of Stancarus and Ossiander exactly reversed and winds up
accusing Stancarus of Arianism, which is what he was arguing as the reductio ad
absurdum of Ossiander's position. Moreri was misled by Gaulteris, who, according
to Bayle, is typical of Catholic writers of the time: 'I dare say that there are few
books that cast a greater blot upon the Church of Rome, than those which contain a
catalogue of the heresies of the xvth century ... their account of Stancarus shows
their ignorance more than any other; since, on the one hand, they ascribe to him a
heresy which he opposed, and wherewith he continually charged his adversaries;
and, on the other hand, the opinion, whereby he got many enemies among the Protes-
tants, is a doctrine which the Roman Catholics maintain against the Protestant
Divines.' Bayle then unearths Catholic sources for Stancarus's view that it is by his
human nature that Christ mediates. Nor is it just Catholics who ought to be favour-
able to Stancarus. 'Perhaps his doctrine would not appear so pernicious at this
present time; for since the objections of the Socinians have obliged some Protestant
Divines to say that Christ is not adorable as he is Mediator, one would think that they
believe he is not Mediator as he is God. He is certainly adorable as he is God; and
therefore if he ought not be worshipped as he is Mediator, it is because he is not
Mediator as he is God' (Art. Stancarus, rem. K, v, 231a-b).
45 Ibid., rem. G, v, 228a.
46 Ibid., rem. H, v, 229b.
47 It must be said, on the other hand, that Bayle's corrections to the historical record
concerning a great many heresies evidence the view that heresy is far less of a prob-
lem than the orthodox make it out to be. A good example is Nestorianism. See Ruth
Whelan, The Anatomy of Superstition: A Study of the Historical Theory and Practice
of Pierre Bayle (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1989), pp. 31-55.
48 Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique sous la regne de Louis le Grand (1686),
OD n, 336-54.
49 Theodicy, sees. 13, 148.
50 O. Abel, 'La suspension du jugement comme imperatif categorique,' in Pierre Bayle:
Lafoi dans le doute (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1995), pp. 107-29.
51 We are grateful to Sebastien Charles for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this
paper.
8
Leibniz and the 'Disciples of
Saint Augustine' on the Fate of
Infants Who Die Unbaptized
ELMAR J. KREMER
In the Theodicy, Leibniz discusses a great variety of theological positions. In
most cases, his approach is conciliatory and his criticism is couched in irenic
terms. This is not surprising because the Theodicy was part of a lifelong effort
to promote the reunification of the Christian churches. But Leibniz's criticism
of 'the disciples of Saint Augustine,' in other words, the Jansenists, is uncharac-
teristically harsh and dismissive.
1
Leibniz says that he agrees with some of what
the Jansenists say about necessity and contingency, but only 'provided that cer-
tain odious things, whether in expression or in the dogmas themselves, are set
aside' (Theodicy, sec. 280).
2
The Augustinian and Jansenist dogma that Leibniz found most odious was
that infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell. In a letter to Des Bosses
some two years before the publication of the Theodicy, Leibniz singles out this
doctrine among the 'harsh [dur]' doctrines of Augustine: 'I do not approve of...
the damnation of unbaptized infants, and of other harsh things in Augustine ...
even if in the past I praised Augustine, Arnauld, and Quesnel.'
3
In the Theodicy,
he says that the doctrine is 'of the most shocking harshness,' and rejects it on
the grounds that damning such infants to hell would be 'harsh and unjust' (sec.
93). Leibniz connects the Augustinian position on unbaptized infants with the
more general topic of original sin: 'Among the dogmas of the disciples of St.
Augustine, I cannot swallow [gouter] the damnation of infants who are not
reborn, or in general damnation arising from original sin alone' (sec. 280).
The dogma that infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell was rather
widely accepted in the seventeenth century. In 1662, the Congregationalist min-
ister Michael Wigglesworth published a theological poem entitled The Day of
120 Elmar J. Kremer
Doom, dramatizing the Augustinian position. In the poem, those who died in
infancy plead at the last judgment that they are innocent of any personal sin, but
God replies that they deserve punishment because
What you call old Adam's fall,
And only his trespass,
You call amiss to call it his,
both yours and his it was.
When the judgment is rendered, the poem continues,
They wring their hands, their caitiff hands
And gnash their teeth for terror;
They cry, they roar for anguish sore,
And gnaw their tongues for horror.
But get away without delay,
Christ pities not your cry:
Depart to Hell, there may you yell,
And roar eternally.
The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America reports that 'The Day of Doom
was extraordinarily successful in the colonies; one copy sold for every twenty
people in New England.'
4
But for most Christians, the doctrine is no longer a live option. Virtually
everyone who reads this paper will agree with Leibniz that the dogma of
Augustine, the Jansenists, and Wigglesworth is false. Nevertheless, the Augus-
tinian position and Leibniz's criticism of it are worth the continued attention of
scholars for both theological and philosophical reasons. Theologically, Leib-
niz's argument against Augustine and the Jansenists marks a break with the
Augustinian doctrine of original sin, which continues to be a live option for
many Christians. Philosophically, Leibniz's disagreement with the Augustinians
reflects a deep disagreement with the Augustinian conception of divine justice
and the Augustinian approach to the problem of evil.
1. Augustine and the Jansenists on Original Sin and the
Damnation of Infants Who Die Unbaptized
Augustine developed his position on the fate of infants who die unbaptized dur-
ing his controversy with the Pelagians.
5
According to Augustine, the Pelagians
claimed that 'a human being can, without grace, fulfil the divine commandments,
Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized 121
although with greater difficulty [than with the help of grace].'
6
The Pelagians
held this position partly because they denied the doctrine of original sin. Accord-
ing to that doctrine, human beings other than the first parents are born in a state
of disorder and culpability, caused by the sin of the original head of humankind.
7
According to Augustine, at least as interpreted by the Jansenists, it is because
human beings are born in this disordered state that it is impossible for them to ful-
fil all of the divine commandments without the aid of grace. They cannot fulfil
the commandment to love God with one's whole heart and above all other things
because part of the disordered state in which they are born is the absence of char-
ity. And they cannot perfectly fulfil any of the other commandments, for Augus-
tine held that to fulfil any commandment perfectly, it is necessary to conform to
the commandment out of the love of God above all other things.
At the same time, the Pelagians accepted the doctrine that one could enter
heaven only through the merits of Christ, and that these merits are normally
imparted through baptism. Hence they held that infants can and should be bap-
tized in order to be sanctified and to gain access to heaven, but do not need to be
baptized for the forgiveness of sin or in order to lead morally good lives. Some-
one who led a morally good life, but was not baptized, they held, would be
rewarded with an unending life of natural happiness, short of the bliss of union
with God in heaven.
Not surprisingly, Augustine's attack on the Pelagian position included a
defence of the doctrine of original sin. Augustine defends the doctrine in a num-
ber of ways. One defence, which he emphasizes and which is important for my
present topic, begins with the claim that anyone who is excluded from heaven is
ipso facto damned to hell. If this is right, then even the Pelagians are committed
to the conclusion that infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell. And if
infants are damned to hell, then they must be in a state of sin, for otherwise God
is unjust.
Augustine and the Jansenists thought that the gospel accounts of the last
judgment, in which people are divided into two groups, the saved and the
damned, with no mention of any third group, supported the crucial premise that
anyone excluded from heaven is ipso facto condemned to hell.8 But they also
speak as if the premise can be defended without appeal to Scripture. The possi-
bility of such a defence depends on what it means to say that someone is
damned to hell.
Sometimes Augustine and the Jansenists speak as if damnation to hell is
essentially the same thing as the loss of heaven. Thus Pascal says, 'Our true
happiness is to be in [God], and our sole evil is to be separated from him.'
9
They
held that deep within each human being there is a need for union with God, and
that a human being cannot be happy until this need is satisfied. Hence anyone
122 Elmar J. Kremer
permanently excluded from heaven is condemned never to be happy. On this
account, it is a tautology that anyone permanently excluded from heaven is
damned to hell. At other times, they indicate that hell necessarily includes
misery, as when Arnauld quotes Book 12, chapter 1 of The City of God: '[The
creature] is blessed by the possession of that whose loss makes it miserable.'
10
On this account, a rational defence of the claim that anyone excluded from
heaven is damned to hell would require the premise that anyone excluded from
heaven is miserable.
Augustine and the Jansenists also hold that those in hell, infants included,
undergo bodily or sensible suffering.
11
But Arnauld does not seem to think that
the question of bodily suffering is of great importance. For he cites with
approval a pronouncement of the theologians of the Sorbonne that the question
of whether infants will be subject to bodily suffering in hell is not decided and
that there is entire freedom of opinion regarding it.
12
Their position seems to be
that damnation to hell consists essentially in permanent exclusion from heaven,
knowledge that one is so excluded, and consequent misery.
Neither Augustine nor the Jansenists thought it absolutely impossible to enter
heaven without sacramental baptism. Indeed, several exceptions are mentioned
explicitly in the Gospels: Moses and Elijah, who are said to appear with Jesus
on the mountain at the transfiguration; the 'holy innocents' killed by Herod in
his attempt to do away with Jesus, who were accepted as martyrs; and the 'good
thief,' who was crucified beside Jesus, asked his forgiveness, and received the
assurance 'This day you will be with me in Paradise.' Another exception recog-
nized by Augustine and the Jansenists, along with all other Christians, are the
catechumens in the early Church who were martyred without having received
baptism. Such people, they held, were able to enter heaven because the merits
of Christ were imparted to them in an extraordinary way.
13
The position of
Augustine and the Jansenists can be put by saying that baptism is normally nec-
essary for the removal of original sin and for entry into heaven. Hence excep-
tions are rare, miraculous occurrences.
14
Armed with the premise that anyone who is excluded from heaven is damned
to hell, Augustine mounts an argument against the Pelagians:
1. Infants, like adults, can normally enter heaven only if they are baptized (as
even the Pelagians agree).
2. Anyone who cannot enter heaven is damned to hell.
Therefore:
3. Infants who die unbaptized are normally damned to hell.
4. It would be unj ust for an omnipotent God to damn an innocent being
to hell.
5. God is omnipotent and j ust.
Therefore:
6. Unbaptized infants are not innocent, but rather are in a state of sin.
15
7. Unbaptized infants are innocent of actual sin.
Therefore:
8. Unbaptized infants are in a state of sin that they did not enter by actually
sinning.
According to Scripture and the tradition of the Church, the present disordered
state of human life has its origin in the sin of the first head of the human race.
But the state of sin in which unbaptized infants are born is part of that disorder.
Augustine and his disciples conclude that unbaptized infants are born in a state
of sin that they inherit from Adam.
16
Another defence of the doctrine of original sin offered by Augustine against
the Pelagians begins as follows:
i. Christ died to save all human beings.
Therefore:
ii. Christ died to save infants.
iii. If Christ died to save infants, then infants are not innocent but rather are in a
state of sin.
Therefore:
iv. Infants are not innocent, but rather are in a state of sin.
Augustine puts more emphasis on the earlier argument that begins with (l)-(4),
perhaps because it gave him a dialectical advantage, since the Pelagians were
committed to (1).
But what do the Augustinians mean by an inherited state of sin? According to
Augustine, ' nothing is sin unless it is in the will.' So original sin is in the will:
'That which is called original sin in infants, who do not yet have the use of the
124 Elmar J. Kremer
will [adhuc non utantur arbitrio voluntatis], is without absurdity said to be vol-
untary, because it is contracted from the evil will of the first man, and has
become as it were hereditary.'
n
The Jansenists explained this notion as follows.
Before the fall, Adam loved God for his own sake and above all other things,
and loved creatures only because of their relation to God. But after the first sin,
Adam's will was habitually turned away from God and toward creatures. Fur-
thermore, among creatures, Adam then loved himself more than any other thing
and loved other things only in relation to himself. All of Adam's descendants
come into existence with their will in that same state.
18
The notion of a sinful condition, or state of sin, as opposed to an act of sinning,
is not entirely foreign to ordinary thought about the way in which human beings
deserve reward or punishment. Suppose that Professor Jones and Professor Smith
both commit the same wicked act, say, running down a colleague's reputation out
of jealousy. A week later, Jones has repented of his earlier sinful act, but Smith
has not. Both Jones and Smith deserve punishment for their act of calumny, but
Smith, unlike Jones, also deserves punishment for his continued acquiescence in
his calumny. Here we could say that Smith, and not Jones, continues in a sinful
condition or state of sin that was initiated by his act of calumny. On Arnauld's
account, every descendant of Adam comes into existence in a state of sin that is
related to Adam's actual sin in something like the way that Smith's continued
acquiescence in calumny is related to Smith's actual sin of calumny. The differ-
ence, of course, is that the state of original sin in Adam's descendant is initiated
by Adam's actual sin, not by the actual sin of the descendant.
According to Augustine, original sin brings with it a disorder of the other
appetites, which is called 'concupiscence.' Because of concupiscence, one is
often attracted to the objects of the lower appetites automatically and power-
fully, without relating them to God or to the moral law. This is most evident in
the sexual appetite. Sometimes Augustine seems to identify original sin with
concupiscence. But in these cases the Jansenists take him to be referring to con-
cupiscence together with the 'habitual consent' of the will to concupiscent
desire, which consent is present as long as the will is turned away from God.
19
The Council of Trent similarly distinguished between original sin proper and
concupiscence. The Council points out that after original sin has been removed
by baptism, concupiscence remains, and adds, 'The Apostle sometimes calls
[concupiscence] sin, but the holy council declares that the catholic church has
never understood it to be called sin in the sense of being truly and properly such
in those who have been reborn, but in the sense that it is the result of sin and
inclines to sin.'
20
Original sin, in contrast, is truly and properly sin. It is
described as 'that sin which is the death of the soul.'
For Augustine and the Jansenists, the doctrine of original sin is a mystery.
Indeed, Arnauld and Nicole list it together with the Trinity and the Incarnation
as a fundamental mystery of the Christian religion.
21
What they meant by a
mystery is a revealed truth such that human beings cannot comprehend it or see
how it is true. The Jansenists could accept Leibniz's statement that we can see
that mysteries are not self-contradictory, but cannot see how they are true:
It suffices that we have some analogical understanding of a mystery, such as the
Trinity or the Incarnation, in order that... we not pronounce words entirely devoid
of sense. But it is not necessary that the explanation go so far as one might hope,
that is, that it arrive at comprehension, and at the how. (Theodicy, D, 54)
What is incomprehensible about original sin, according to the Jansenists, is how
a state of sin can come to be in one person as a result of another person's actual
sin. Consider the following passage from Pascal:
Without doubt there is nothing that shocks our reason more than to say that the sin
of the first man has rendered culpable those who are so distant from that source that
they seem incapable of participating in it. This transmission seems not only impos-
sible, but indeed quite unjust. For is there anything more contrary to the rules of our
miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of volition, for a sin
which was committed six thousand years before the infant even existed, so little did
the infant take part in it? (Pensees, section vn, sec. 434)
What seems both impossible and unjust, according to Pascal, is not precisely
the damnation of infants, but rather the transmission of culpability from Adam
to his descendants. For the Jansenists, given that an infant is in a state of sin,
and has a perverse will in which the love of God has been replaced by a stub-
born self-love, it is not mysterious that the infant should be excluded from
heaven and hence damned to hell. Indeed, a person in that condition could not
possibly enter into union with God.
22
But even if the doctrine of original sin is
revealed, the transmission of culpability from Adam to the infant continues to
be mysterious. It continues to seem both impossible and unjust.
Augustine was also concerned to reconcile God's justice with the many evils
that affect infants in this life. As he puts the problem in a late letter to Saint Jer-
ome, 'God is good, God is just, God is omnipotent ... let the great sufferings,
therefore, which infant children experience be accounted for by some reason
compatible with justice.'
23
Among these sufferings, he mentions 'wasting dis-
ease, racking pain, the agonies of thirst and hunger, feebleness of limbs, priva-
tion of bodily senses, and vexing assaults of unclean spirits.' In his late, anti-
Pelagian writings Augustine says that the sufferings of infants in this life can be
126 Elmar J. Kremer
reconciled with the justice of God only by saying that they are punishment for
original sin. He had given a different account in his early On Free Choice of the
Will. There he says that the suffering of infants might be justified because it is a
school of virtue for their parents and the infants themselves receive recompense
in the life to come.
24
But in the letter to Jerome cited above, he explains that he
came to reject the earlier account on the grounds that it does not apply to infants
who die unbaptized and are consequently damned to hell, because for them
there is no recompense in the life to come.
25
This reasoning makes it clear that
Augustine holds the following principle of justice:
J: If a human being suffers an evil that is not just punishment for sin, then a
recompense is available later on to the one who suffered.
26
Other texts make it clear that Augustine does not limit (J) to suffering in a psy-
chological sense of the word. Rather, it applies to every evil that is passively
received by human beings. Consider the following text, quoted by Arnauld and
Nicole in Art of Thinking from Augustine's Contra Julianum:
Consider how many and how great are the evils that befall children, and how the
first years of their lives are filled with futility, suffering, illusions, and fears. Later,
when they have grown and even when they begin to serve God, error tempts them
in order to seduce them, labor and pain tempt them to weaken them, lust tempts
them to enflame them, grief tempts them to defeat them, and pride tempts them to
make them vain. Who could explain so easily all the different pains that weigh like
a yoke on Adam's children? The evidence of these miseries compelled pagan phi-
losophers, who had no knowledge or belief in the sin of our first father, to say that
we were born only to suffer the punishment we deserve from crimes committed in
another life ... But this opinion ... is rejected by the Apostle. What remains, then, if
not that the cause of these dreadful evils is either the injustice or impotence of God,
or the punishment of the first sin of humanity? But because God is neither unjust
nor impotent, there remains only what you are unwilling to acknowledge ... namely
that this yoke, so heavy, which the children of Adam are obliged to bear... would
not have existed if they had not deserved them by the offence that proceeds from
their origin.
27
Not all of the evils mentioned in this passage are instances of suffering. Thus
neither error, nor lust, nor pride is an example of suffering. So for Augustine, (J)
is not limited to suffering in a psychological sense of the word. It holds for all
the evils by which one is affected, as opposed to the evils one does.
The passage has an interesting implication regarding Augustine's position on
concupiscence. The temptations Augustine mentions are part of concupiscence.
So concupiscence must be a punishment for original sin. Yet, as I have men-
tioned, Augustine often treats concupiscence as part of original sin. How, then,
can concupiscence be a punishment for original sin? It seems that Augustine
uses the phrase 'original sin' to refer both to original sin proper, which is a state
of the will, and to original sin in a broader sense, which consists of this state of
the will and its immediate consequence, concupiscence.
28
2. Leibniz's Critique
Leibniz's basic objection to the Augustinian position is that it would be unjust
to condemn an infant to eternal suffering because infants are innocent: The
damnation of infants who die without actual sin and without being reborn
would truly be harsh and unjust; it would indeed be to damn the innocent' (sec.
93). In the Theodicy, Leibniz does not explain why he denies that an infant, who
is innocent of actual sin, could be in a state that would merit damnation to hell.
He simply says, 'I cannot swallow [gouter] the damnation of infants who are
not reborn, or in general damnation arising from original sin alone' (sec. 280).
He ignores the Augustinian position that human beings are not innocent at birth,
but rather are born in a state of sin that was initiated by Adam's sinful action.
He does not try to show that the position is logically incoherent. He simply
declares that it is shocking.
In a letter written in 1690 to the Landgrave Hessen-Rheinfels, Leibniz says
that he is not 'so ready [as Arnauld] to pronounce eternal damnation.' In partic-
ular, he complains about Arnauld's readiness to say that people to whom the
gospel has not been preached, and who are 'almost innocent,' are condemned to
hell. Then he adds:
One cannot escape by saying with M. Arnauld that we ought not form judgments
about God by means of our ideas of justice, for one must have an idea or notion of
justice when one says that God is just, otherwise that would be to attribute to Him
only a word. For my part, I believe that just as the Arithmetic and Geometry of God
are the same as those of human beings, excepting that God's is infinitely more
extensive, so also natural jurisprudence, in so far as it is demonstrative, and every
other truth, is the same in heaven as on earth.
29
It may seem that this letter provides the argument against the Augustinian posi-
tion that is lacking in the Theodicy. But the letter does not correctly represent
Arnauld's position. To be sure, Arnauld puts a great deal of emphasis on the
incomprehensibility of God's ways. But nowhere does he say that we cannot
128 Elmar J. Kremer
apply our idea of justice to God, or that God employs standards of justice differ-
ent than those employed by human beings. In a text written near the end of his
life, Arnauld says that one can attribute the virtue of justice, unlike the virtues
of chastity, sobriety, and obedience, to God because 'justice can be conceived
without any admixture of imperfection.'
30
He adds that it would be better to say
that God is justice rather than that God is just. In the same text, Arnauld says
that Jansen had too Platonic an idea of justice and that this led him to misinter-
pret Augustine's position that to act for the love of justice is to act for the love
of God. But it is clear that Jansen, too, thought that we could apply our idea of
justice to God.
But what of Pascal's statement that 'there [is nothing] more contrary to the
rules of our miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of voli-
tion'? Here it is important to recall that what seems 'impossible and unjust' to
Pascal is that such infants should be born in a state of sin that results from
Adam's actual sin. But whether this transmission of a state of sin is unjust
depends on whether it would be unjust for God to create human beings with
a fallen nature. When Pascal says that God's creating fallen human nature is
'contrary to the rules of our miserable justice,' he may mean no more than that
questions about God's justice in creating what he does create are beyond the
competence of human beings. Leibniz admits that God's mathematics is infi-
nitely more extensive than ours. Surely, the same is true of God's jurisprudence.
In sum, what Leibniz says in the above-mentioned letter does not strengthen his
basic case against Augustine and the Jansenists.
The Augustinians would no doubt also object that Leibniz's argument is
incompatible with any robust doctrine of original sin. Leibniz accepts the doc-
trine that a disposition to sin is transmitted from Adam to his descendants. But
Leibniz's assumption that infants are born innocent implies that there is not
present in them anything that could be called 'sin' except by way of causal anal-
ogy. Here Leibniz parts company with his most important Catholic predeces-
sors. As I have pointed out, Augustine and Aquinas held that there are two
elements in original sin, the loss of charity or the love of God above all other
things, and concupiscence. A similar position was taken by the Council of Trent
and defended by Bellarmine, whom Arnauld is fond of quoting on the subject.
Aquinas and Bellarmine, like Augustine, hold that the absence of original jus-
tice is a sort of culpability or fault (culpd) whose presence makes a person
deserve to be excluded from heaven. But Leibniz holds that an unbaptized
infant is innocent, and hence cannot say that an infant is in any way culpable. In
several passages, he suggests that original sin is nothing but a disposition to
actual sin. Thus he speaks of 'the disposition that constitutes [quifait] original
sin, and in which God foresees that the infant will sin as soon as it reaches the
age of reason' (sec. 94; cf. sec. 92). This is, in effect, to identify original sin
with concupiscence.
31
The fact that Leibniz's argument commits him to an unorthodox position
regarding the nature of original sin does not show that his argument is unsound.
But it does spoil his attempt to present his position as theologically acceptable
to almost all of the Christian denominations and theological factions - extrem-
ists, he would add, like the Jansenists, aside. Leibniz was a master at hiding the
theologically controversial aspects of his philosophy in the service of his efforts
to reunite the Christian churches. But his claim that it would be unjust to con-
demn infants who die unbaptized to hell because such infants are innocent com-
mits him to a position on original sin that would be unacceptable to many of the
churches he wanted to reunite.
Leibniz prefaces his criticism of Augustine and the Jansenists by placing a
restriction on his use of the terms 'damnation' and 'hell': 'When I speak here
about damnation and hell, I mean pain [douleurs] and not a simple privation of
supreme happiness; I mean poenam sensus, non damni' (sec. 92). The Scholas-
tic terminology is not helpful to a modern reader. A literal translation would be
'punishment of the senses, not the punishment of loss [of heaven].' I assume
that Leibniz intends 'douleurs' and 'poenam sensus' to refer to any sort of pain,
whether mental or bodily. Otherwise, his attack is limited to what the Augustin-
ians considered the least important part of their position.
So Leibniz holds that it would be unjust for God to impose suffering upon
infants who die unbaptized, but not that it would be unjust for him to exclude
such infants from heaven. Leibniz points out that there are important theologi-
cal authorities who seem to take the same position. He mentions some Scholas-
tics who 'instead of sending [infants] to the flames of hell, assigned them to a
special limbo, where they do not suffer, and are punished only by the privation
of the beatific vision' (sec. 92),
32
and, in particular, 'the venerable Thomas
Aquinas,' who held 'the doctrine of purely privative punishment of infants dead
without baptism.' Leibniz seems to have in mind Aquinas's position in the
Commentary on the Sentences, that infants who die unbaptized are punished
only in that 'they are separated from God with regard to that union which is
through glory' and suffer neither sensible pain nor spiritual affliction (In II
Sent., Dist. 33, Q. 2, a.2, ad 5).
But these citations also raise a difficult question about Leibniz's own posi-
tion, for all of the authorities cited take seriously the notion that being excluded
from heaven is a punishment or penalty - the poena damni. But if exclusion
from heaven is a punishment, the question arises, why Leibniz thinks that it is
j ust that infants who die unbaptized should be punished in this way.
It is not easy to interpret Leibniz's position on the poena damni, because it is
130 Elmar J. Kremer
not clear that he took the Christian idea of heaven seriously. For Christians,
heaven is a state of friendship and union with God that no creature can deserve
on account of his or her natural efforts. It is a supernatural good, available to
human beings only through the merits of Christ. In the texts in which Leibniz
gives his grand, summary account of the kingdom of God or the perfect republic
of which God is the monarch, the Christian idea of heaven plays no role. Leibniz
speaks simply of a society whose members are God and all rational creatures, and
in which every rational creature is rewarded or punished in proportion to his or
her virtue and contribution to the common good.
33
Nonetheless, in some texts
Leibniz does affirm the Christian doctrine of heaven. For example, in the 'Abrege
de la controverse' appended to the Theodicy, he says that even if more human
beings are lost than saved, there may not be more evil than good in human beings,
because 'through the divine Mediator, the blessed approach the divinity as
closely as is possible for a creature, and they make more progress in the good than
the damned would make by approaching the nature of the demons as closely as
possible' (Second Objection). Assuming, then, that a human being can enter
heaven only by sharing in the grace of Christ, and that unbaptized infants are per-
manently excluded from heaven, it seems clear that this exclusion is an evil.
But what sort of evil? Leibniz divides evils into three sorts: moral, physical,
and metaphysical (sec. 21). This classification is not explained at length. How-
ever, it is clear that the loss of heaven is not what Leibniz calls a moral evil. Nor
is it a 'physical evil,' for by this phrase Leibniz means suffering in a psycholog-
ical sense of the term. So it must be a mere metaphysical evil. Michael Latzer
has argued persuasively that Leibniz uses the phrase 'metaphysical evil' in an
inclusive way to stand for any kind of evil, considered as a privation of perfec-
tion.
34
A mere metaphysical evil would, then, be an evil that is neither a physi-
cal nor a moral evil. Leibniz offers an example of a mere metaphysical evil in a
letter quoted by Latzer:
'As for metaphysical evil (you say) I do not consider it an evil.' But if you admit
that there is metaphysical good, Sir, the privation of this good will be metaphysical
evil. When an intelligent being loses his understanding [bon sens] without any pain
and without sin - and therefore without any physical or moral evil - do you not
consider this as an evil?
35
The permanent exclusion of infants from heaven would be another instance of
mere metaphysical evil. And the same seems to be true of concupiscence, or
what Leibniz calls 'original sin.'
Now with regard to physical evil, Leibniz's accepts the principle of justice (J)
of Augustine and the Jansenists. Thus Leibniz says,
[Physical evil, that is,] pains, sufferings, miseries, are the consequence of moral
evil. Poena est malum passionis, quod infligitur ob malum actionis, according to
Grotius. We suffer because we have acted; we suffer evil because we have done
evil. It is true that we often suffer from the bad actions of others; but when one does
not take part in the crime, it is certain that the sufferings prepare the way for a
greater happiness.' (sec. 241)
But Leibniz does not accept (J) for mere metaphysical evils. So Leibniz's
restricted version of (J) allows him to hold that concupiscence and the loss of
heaven by infants who die unbaptized are evils visited upon human beings, but
not punishments that they deserve or evils that prepare the way for their greater
happiness. How, then, is God justified in permitting metaphysical evils to affect
unbaptized infants, evils for which they are not later compensated? Leibniz's
answer is that such evils are justified because without them the world would not
be the best of all possible worlds.
Here we can see that Leibniz disagreed not only with the Augustinian con-
ception of divine justice, but in a more general way with the Augustinian
approach to the problem of evil. Augustine's adherence to (J) for all evils that
afflict intelligent creatures is a consequence of his view that human beings dif-
fer from brute animals and other subhuman creatures in an important way. Sub-
human creatures may be created in order to contribute to the good of a higher
created thing. Thus Augustine says, 'Irrational animals [unlike human beings]
are given by God to serve creatures of a higher nature.'
36
And the final purpose
of every subhuman creature is to make its contribution to the beautiful tapestry
of nature. But the final purpose of human beings is to be united with God in
heaven. Whether or not a human being achieves that purpose is determined by
the state of his or her will at the time of death, and not by the good of any higher
creature.
37
Leibniz rejects this Augustinian distinction between the final end of humans
and of subhuman creatures. Part of this rejection is Leibniz's position on the
fate of infants who die unbaptized. Whether someone who dies as an infant
gains or loses heaven is determined, in Leibniz's view, by what is required in
order that this world be the best of all possible worlds.
38
Thus those who die in
infancy, like subhuman creatures, exist in order to contribute to the good of a
higher creature. For by a world, Leibniz means a collection of creatures, and a
collection of creatures is a creature. But it is not only those who die in infancy
who are created to serve the good of the best of all possible worlds. This is true
of every human being. Every human being, in Leibniz's view, is 'a kind of spir-
itual automaton' (sec. 52), and he or she is the sort of automaton that will end
up in heaven if and only if that serves to make this the best of all possible
132 Elmar J. Kremer
worlds. This is made clear in Leibniz's adaptation and extension of Valla's dia-
logue on free will, at the end of the Theodicy (sec. 406-17). One of the charac-
ters, Sextus, is presented by God, in the person of Jupiter, with the choice of
going to Rome to be crowned ruler and then dying as a sinner, or giving up the
crown and being saved from sin. Sextus finds it impossible to give up the crown.
Theodore, a servant of Jupiter, remarks that Sextus has only his perverse will to
blame for his unhappy end, but presses Jupiter to explain why he did not give
Sextus a different will. Theodore receives his answer in Athens, where the god-
dess Pallas gives him a vision of many possible worlds, arranged in a pyramid
which descends to infinity, each world more perfect than all those below it. He
is ravished by the vision of the world at the pinnacle, the most perfect of all pos-
sible worlds. It is, of course, the actual world, in which Sextus has a perverse
will and ends up badly. Theodore is told that Sextus's crime 'is useful for many
great things; he will give birth to a great empire ... But that is nothing compared
to the entirety of the world whose beauty you admire.' Theodore, good Leibniz-
ian that he is, is entirely satisfied by this answer, and returns with zeal to his role
as Jupiter's servant. In Leibniz's view, whether Sextus (or, by extension, any
other human being) dies a sinner or is saved depends on what is required for the
good of the world a whole; hence every human being is created to serve a higher
creature, namely, the world as a whole. Thus Leibniz gives up the Augustinian
distinction between God's reason for permitting the evils that affect subhuman
creatures, and his reasons for permitting the evils that affect intelligent crea-
tures, and thereby abandons the Augustinian approach to the problem of evil.
39
Notes
1 For purposes of this paper, 'the Jansenists' refers to Cornelius Jansen, Antoine
Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, and Pasquier Quesnel.
2 All references to the Theodicy can be found in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Essais de
theodicee (Paris: Flammarion, 1969). All translations of the Theodicy are my own.
3 To Des Bosses, 12 September 1708, Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz, ed. C.I. Gerhardt (Berlin: Weidmann, 1875-90; repr. Hildesheim:
Georg Olms, 1989), 11: 359.
4 Donald Hall, ed., The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 289.
5 See the article 'Pelagianisme,' by R. Hede and E. Amann, in the Dictionnaire de
theologie catholique, vol. 12, col. 675-715.
6 Liber de haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, Patrologiae Latino 42:47-8. Quoted by Hede
and Amann in col. 676.
7 I borrow this formulation from the article 'Peche originel,' by M. Jugie, in the Dic-
tionnaire de theologie catholique, vol. 12, col. 275:
The Church teaches that every human being, in virtue of a mysterious solidarity
that ties him to the first couple from whom he is descended, is born in a state of
disorder and fault [culpabilite}, caused in him by the fault of the head of human-
kind. The expression 'original sin' expresses this belief: it is used to signify either
the fault itself of our first parents or the state of disorder and sin which is conse-
quent upon that fault and extends to human nature as a whole.
It is difficult to translate culpabilite in this context. I have avoided 'guilt' because
original sin does not make one personally guilty, at least not on some theories of
original sin. Original sin does imply, however, that one is deserving of punishment.
8 Arnauld quotes Augustine's Sermon 14 on the words of the Apostle:
The Lord shall come to judge the living and the dead. He shall divide them into two
parts, says the Gospel. To those on the left he will say, 'Go you evil ones to the
eternal fire,' and to those on the right, 'Come blessed ones of my father, possess the
Kingdom which has been prepared for you since the beginning of the world.' He
calls one part the Kingdom, the other damnation with the devil. He did not leave
room between the two where you could put the infants. He who will not be on the
right, will certainly be on the left. Hence he will not go to the Kingdom. Without
any doubt he will go to the eternal fire. (Quoted in Apologiepour Monsieur L'Abbe
St. Cyran, in Oeuveres de Mesire Antoine Arnauld [Paris and Lausanne, 1775-83],
xxix: 264 [hereafter OA]; the gospel text is from Matthew 25:31)
9 Pensees, section vn, sec. 430. The same position is taken in the recent Catechism of
the Catholic Church'. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with
God and the blessed is called "hell"' (sec. 1033).
10 Seconde apologie pour Monsieur Jansenius, in OA xvn: 142. Elsewhere Arnauld
mentions other 'spiritual' punishments of those in hell: futile remorse for one's past
sins, and the torment of violent, unsatisfied passions (OA xxxi: 90).
11 Arnauld quotes a late letter (A.D. 415) from Augustine to Saint Jerome: 'Every soul
that leaves its body without the grace of the Mediator and without his sacrament, no
matter at what age, will be in suffering, and at the last judgment will take up its body
again so as to suffer' (Apologie pour Monsieur L'Abbe Saint Cyran, in OA xxix:
205). Arnauld cites the letter as the twenty-eighth letter to Saint Jerome. It can be
found in The Letters of St. Augustine, trans. Rev. J.C. Cunningham, O.P., in The
Works ofAurelius Augustine (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1871-6), vol. 2, pp. 295-
318. The above text is on p. 300.
12 Op. cit., 29:267. He appeals to this pronouncement while defending St-Cyran's
position that infants will suffer bodily pain in hell against the complaint that it is
heretical. Arnauld writes (in 1639) that the pronouncement of the Sorbonne was
'very recent.'
134 Elmar J. Kremer
13 Cf. the Council of Trent: 'The transition [from the state in which a person is born as
a child of the first Adam to the state of grace], once the gospel has been promulgated,
cannot take place without the waters of rebirth or the desire for them, as it is written:
"Unless a person is born again of water and the holy Spirit, he cannot enter the king-
dom of God'" (my italics; Council of Trent, session 6, 13 January 1547, in Decrees
of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J. [Washington, DC: George-
town University Press, 1990], vol. 2, p. 672). For Arnauld's acceptance of the notion
of baptism of desire, see Le renversement de la morale de Jesus Christ par les
erreurs des Calvinistes, touchant la justification, in OA xin: 203.
14 Cf. Arnauld, Instruction sur la grace, in OA x: 408.
15 Arnauld summarizes the argument, up to step (6), in Le renversement de la morale
de Jesus Christ par les erreurs des Calvinistes, touchant la justification, in OA xin:
458-9: 'One of the arguments used [by Augustine] to combat [the Pelagians'] impi-
ety is the indispensable need of infants to be baptized in order to be saved. This is
proved by the tradition of the Church, and by this word of Saint John, "Unless one is
reborn" etc. From this it is concluded that infants were in sin, because otherwise
it would not be just to exclude them from salvation because they had not received
baptism.' He cites Augustine's De correptione et gratia. All of Book vn of Arnauld's
work, entitled 'Refutation de ce qu'ils enseignent touchant le salut des enfants morts
sans bapteme' is relevant. It is directed against the Calvinist position that it is not
necessary to baptize the children of Christians.
16 In the twentieth century, the Catholic Church has expanded the teaching that one can
enter heaven without sacramental baptism. An important step in this direction was
Pope Pius xn's 'Letter to the Archbishop of Boston' in 1949. After quoting the
teaching of the Council of Trent that the desire for baptism can replace actual
baptism, Pius says, This wish [votum] need not always be explicit, as in the case of
catechumens, but where a man labours under invincible ignorance God also accepts
an implicit wish, as it is called, for it is contained in that good disposition of the soul
whereby a man wishes to conform his will to the will of God.' At the same time, the
Church has come to view baptism as the normal means of sanctification only in the
sense that it is the only means of which the Church can claim to have definite knowl-
edge. These developments call into the question the common assumption of August-
ine and the Pelagians (as well as the Jansenists) that, with rare exceptions, one can
gain entry to heaven only through sacramental baptism.
17 Retractationes, I, xv, 2; Patrologiae Latina 32, col. 60?
18 Arnauld puts the position concisely, while arguing that inability to avoid sin which
arises from original sin does not diminish a sinner's guilt:
It is not difficult to see this in Adam, after he turns his love from the creator and
toward himself. For if he sticks stubbornly in this love, and so cannot be con-
verted because he loves himself too much ... who will fail to conclude that his
impotence increases his sin, rather than diminishing it? It is more difficul t to
understand this in his descendants, because we think of original sin as something
quite remote from them. But if we attend to the fact that through the original fall
there is transmitted to them that stubborn love of themselves and of creatures
which, according to a just though hidden judgment of God, is something depraved
and vicious in them, we understand more easily that if something flows from that
corrupt source, the fact that it is in some way necessary does not make it harm-
less, but rather the fact that it is voluntary makes it deserving of punishment
[culpandum]. For that necessity brings about nothing other than a corrupt and
depraved will. (Dissertatio Theologica Quadripartita, in OA xx: 273)
19 Thus Jansen says, 'When Augustine teaches that libido or concupiscence is original
sin, he is speaking of concupiscence as including the guilty state [reatum] for which
the soul is answerable [rea] before God' (Cornelius Jansen, Augustinus [Rothmagi:
Johannis Berthelin, 1643], p. 77). And Nicole says:
Concupiscence is the matter of original sin. But the form of original sin [le
formel} is the domination of concupiscence, or better the habitual consent of the
soul to concupiscence, by which the soul prefers the creature to God. This consent
includes the turning away from God and the privation of original justice. (Quoted
from Nicole's Instruction sur le symbole, i, p. 236, in Jean Laporte, La doctrine
de la grace chezArnauld [Paris: Vrin, 1922], p. 107)
20 Session 5; Tanner, 2:667.
21 La petite perpetuite de lafoi..., in OA xn: 116.
22 Cf. The Council of Trent, 'Decree on Original Sin'; Tanner, 2:666: 'If any says
that recently born babies ... incur no trace of the original sin of Adam needing to
be cleansed by the water of rebirth for them to obtain eternal life ... let him be
anathema.'
23 Letter CLX VI to Jerome (A.D. 415), in Letters of St. Augustine, trans. J.C. Cunning-
ham, in The Works of Aurelius Augustine, vol. 13, p. 309.
24 'Who knows what is in store for these children, whose suffering melts the hearts of their
elders as it cultivates their faith and tests their mercy? Who knows what reward God
has prepared for them in the hidden depths of his judgements?' (On Free Choice of the
Will, trans. Thomas William [Indianopolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1993], p. 117).
25 'What may be called the chief prop of my [earlier] defence is in the sentence, "More-
over, who knows what may be given to the l ittl e children ... Who knows what good
recompense God may, in the secret of His judgments, reserve for these little ones?" I
see that this is not an unwarranted conjecture in the case of infants who, in any way,
suffer (though they know it not) for the sake of Christ [for example, the infants who
were killed by Herod in his attempt to kill Jesus] and in the cause of true religion,
and of infants who have already been made partakers of the sacrament of Christ...
But since the question can not be ful l y solved, unless the answer include also the
136 Elmar J. Kremer
case of those who, without having received the sacrament of Christian fellowship, die
in infancy after enduring the most painful sufferings, what recompense can be con-
ceived of in their case, seeing that, besides all that they suffer in this life, perdition
awaits them in the life to come?' (Letter CLX V I to Jerome (A.D. 415), in Letters of
St. Augustine, trans. J.C. Cunningham, in The Works ofAurelius Augustine, vol. 13,
p. 312). There is an explicit reference to Herod in the part of On Free Choice of the
Will on which Augustine is commenting.
26 The same is presumably true of angels. I have worded (J) in such a way as to allow
for cases like that of Job in which the one who suffers actually obtains the recom-
pense only if he or she freely responds in the right way to the suffering.
27 Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, Logic or the Art of Thinking, trans, and ed.
Jill V ance Buroker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Part in, ch. 15,
pp. 177-8. The passage from Augustine is quoted from Contra Julianum, Book iv,
ch. 16; Patrologiae Latina 10:782.
28 Cf. Aquinas, The whole order of original justice arises from the fact that the will of
man is subject to God. The subjection was first and principally through the will, to
which it belongs to move all the other parts [of the soul] to the end ... Whence from
the aversion of the will from God there followed the disorder in all the other powers
of the soul. So then the privation of original justice ... is formally in original sin;
but all the other disorder of the powers of the soul is related to original sin as if
materially' (Summa Theologiae, lanae, 82, 3).
29 Leibniz to the Landgrave, 4-14 September 1690, in Gaston Grua, G. W. Leibniz:
Textes inedits (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), vol. i, pp. 238-9. The
text is cited by Patrick Riley in Leibniz' Universal Jurisprudence (Cambridge: Har-
vard University Press, 1996), p. 15.
30 Regies du bon sens, 40:238.
31 He takes a similar position in an undated 'Lettre de Monsieur Leibniz a un ami sur le
peche originel,' in Opera Omnia, ed. Luis Dutens (Geneva: Tournes, 1768), vol. 1, p.
27. There he says that original sin is 'what the philosophers call a habitus innatus,"
and adds: 'So man in the sate of fallen nature has the disposition to be easily affected
only by confused sensations of sensible goods and evils, until such time as one is
corrected by experience or instruction.' This statement suggests that original sin is a
disposition that may be removed by experience and instruction, and does not need to
be removed by baptism.
32 The Latin term 'limbus' was used for the border of a cloak or vestment. The expres-
sion 'limbus puerorum' is found in Albert the Great, but not in Aquinas. See 'limbes'
in the Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, 9:761.
33 See The Ultimate Origination of Things, in G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays,
trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (I ndianapolis: Hackett, 1989), p. 154. See also
the Monadology, sec. 84, and Principles of Nature and Grace, sec. 15.
34 Michael Latzer, 'Leibniz's Conception of Metaphysical Evil,' Journal of the History
of Ideas 55 (1994): 1-15. See especially p. 8, at which Latzer quotes the Theodicy,
sec. 263:
On consideration of the metaphysical good and evil which is in all substances,
whether endowed with or devoid of intelligence, and which, taken in such scope,
would include physical good and moral good, one must say that the universe, such
as it is, is the best of all systems.
35 Latzer, p. 9. The letter is from Leibniz to Bourguet in December 1714 (Gerhardt,
3:574). In the Theodicy, Leibniz offers 'monsters' and 'irregularities' in the universe
such as geological upheavals, sunspots, and comets (sec. 242-9).
36 Letter to Jerome, A .D. 415, cited in note 22 above, p. 309.
37 A quinas holds a similar position. Thus, in his commentary on Romans, chapter 8,
lectio 6, he says:
The good of the whole world is willed by God for its own sake, and all the parts of
the world are ordered to this [end]... But whatever happens with regard to the
noblest parts is ordered only to the good of those parts themselves, because care is
taken of them for their own sake, and for their sake care is taken of other things ...
But among the best of all the parts of the worlds are God's saints ... He takes care
of them in such a way that he doesn't allow any evil for them which he doesn't
turn into their good. (Quoted by Eleanor Stump, 'A quinas on the Suffering of
Job,' in Daniel Howard-Snyder, ed., The Evidential Argument from Evil [Bloom-
ington: Indiana University Press, 1996], pp. 51-2)
In the Summa Theologiae, he takes an even stronger position: The good of the uni-
verse is greater than the particular good of one thing, if both are in the same genus.
But the supernatural good [bonum gratiae] of one [human] being is greater than the
natural good of the entire universe' (la-IIae, 113, 9, ad 2).
38 It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say: The place of someone who dies as an
infant in Leibniz's 'Kingdom of God' is determined by what is required in order that
this world be the best of all possible worlds.
39 I would like to thank Bernard Katz, Samantha Thompson, and Tobin Woodruff for
their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of
Theodicy
DONALD RUTHERFORD
Theodicy is usually conceived as a branch of apologetics: a quasi-legal defence
of the justice of divine action, or of the consistency of God's perfection with his
creation of a world containing physical and moral evil.
1
This is the sense given
to it in the title of the Latin summary of Leibniz's Theodicy: 'The Case of God
Defended through His Justice, Reconciled with His Other Perfections and All
His Actions [Causa dei asserta per justitiam ejus, cum caeteris ejus perfectioni-
bus, cunctisque actionibus conciliatam]' (G vi 437). The significance of theod-
icy, however, reaches beyond the domain of theology proper. Leibniz holds that
the knowledge of God's justice also has important implications for human hap-
piness, indeed, that one cannot be fully happy without understanding one's
existence in relation to the justice of God's action. This point is highlighted in
the opening sentence of Causa dei: The apologetic examination of God's case
concerns not only divine glory but also our advantage [utilitatem], in order that
we may honour his greatness, i.e., his power and wisdom, and love both his
goodness and the justice and holiness which derive from it, and imitate these as
much as is in our power' (G vi 439).
The advantage accruing to those who possess a proper understanding of
divine justice is suggested in Theodicy, sec. 177. There Leibniz singles out three
'dogmas' that contradict the basic principles of his theodicy: that the nature of
justice is arbitrary; that it is fixed, but it is not certain that God observes it; and
that the justice we know is not that which God observes. These dogmas, he
writes, 'destroy the confidence in God that gives us tranquility, and the love of
God that makes for our happiness' (G vi 220/H 237). Broadly speaking, then,
Leibniz sees theodicy as offering two types of benefits. First, in understanding
12
Leibniz and the Stoics 139
God's justice, we acquire confidence in the Tightness of all his actions. With this
confidence, we are insulated from the disturbing effects of worldly evil; or if we
are disturbed, we have the means of recovering our tranquility through reflec-
tion on the nature of divine justice. Second, theodicy is an essential step toward
our highest happiness. In comprehending the justice of God's action, we acquire
our fullest knowledge of the unity of the divine perfections of power, knowl-
edge, and goodness, and this knowledge itself and our consequent love of God
is, for Leibniz, the source of true happiness.
The first of these benefits is the one most closely associated with the tradi-
tional idea of consolatio. In understanding the larger context in which God
exercises his justice, we are aided in dealing with loss, grief, pain, and alien-
ation - circumstances that reflect our limited power and vulnerability to fortune.
Leibniz's theodicy does not pretend to console by speaking directly to our emo-
tional suffering. Its point is best expressed in a remark Leibniz makes in the
essay 'On Destiny': 'with the eyes of the understanding we are able to occupy a
point of view that the eyes of the body do not and cannot occupy' (G vn 120/W
572). This change of point of view supplies the basis for what can be described
as a 'philosophical consolation.' In comprehending the underlying order of the
universe and God's role as its governor, the effect of troubling emotions is min-
imized, both because we correct the false beliefs on which they depend and
because, while we understand, we are no longer affected in the same way by
such emotions.
Approaching Leibniz's theodicy in this way, we move its centre outside the
sphere of seventeenth-century debates about 'the goodness of God, the freedom
of man, and the origin of evil.' Of course, the Theodicy is explicitly a contribu-
tion to contemporary discussions of these issues, most directly the opinions of
Bayle; but it is also the basis of a larger philosophical project whose goals owe
as much to ancient Greek philosophy as to Christianity. Leibniz maintained that
in ethics and metaphysics he found his greatest satisfaction in Plato.
3
In connec-
tion with theodicy, however, he makes some of his most intriguing comments in
comparing his views with those of the Stoics, who similarly stress the impor-
tance of understanding, and fulfilling, our role as rational beings within a uni-
verse ordered by a providential deity. For Seneca, at least, this includes an open
confrontation with the theodicy problem:
You have asked me, Lucilius, why, if a providence rules the world, it still happens
that many evils befall good men. This would be more fittingly answered in the
course of a work in which we prove that a providence presides over the universe,
and that god concerns himself with us. But since it is your wish that a part be
severed from the whole, and that I refute a single objection while the main question
2
140 Donald Rutherford
is left untouched, I shall do so; the task is not difficult -1 shall be pleading the case
of the gods [causam deorum agam].
4
Leibniz's relationship to Stoic thought is complex. It includes his acquaintance
with and reaction to the ancient Stoics themselves, Greek and Roman; to Justus
Lipsius and sixteenth-century Christian Neostoicism; and to Stoic currents in the
writings of Descartes and Spinoza, whom he described as the leaders of the 'sect
of the new Stoics.'
5
In what follows, I shall be concerned primarily with ancient
Stoicism, insofar as it is the object of Leibniz's criticism. No attempt will be
made to give a complete account of the views of the Stoics themselves. My aim
is limited to understanding what Leibniz sees as the essential differences between
his position and that of the Stoics on the topic of theodicy. In pursuing this ques-
tion, I believe, one cannot help recognizing a significant affinity between their
conceptions of a theologically grounded ethics - an affinity which serves to illu-
minate the full scope of Leibniz's theodicy. In the end, I shall suggest that while
important differences can be found between the views of Leibniz and the Stoics,
these differences mask a deeper unity of philosophical outlook which Leibniz has
difficulty reconciling with the premise of his Christianity.
In the Theodicy, Leibniz goes out of his way to rebut the charge, raised by Plu-
tarch and later by Bayle, that the Stoics are committed to a fatal necessity con-
cerning all things. 'Chrysippus and even his master Cleanthes were on that
point more reasonable than is supposed,' Leibniz writes, for they defended only
the hypothetical necessity of things, as Leibniz himself does (sec. 170; G vi
215/H 232-3). In this, he adds in a later section, 'the ancient Stoics were ...
almost of the same opinion as the Thomists. They were at the same time in
favor of determination and against necessity, although they have been accused
of attaching necessity to everything' (sec. 331; G vi 311/H 324). Leibniz is
equally supportive of the Stoics' rationale for determinism, their account of fate
or destiny as 'the inevitable and eternal connection of all events' (sec. 332; G vi
312/H 325).
6
Leibniz adopts it as a central principle of his own philosophy that
'all things are connected in each one of the possible worlds: the universe, what-
ever it may be, is all of one piece, like an ocean' (sec. 9; G vi 107/H 128); and
he acknowledges this as a view he shares with the Stoics.
7
Finally, in the Theod-
icy, Leibniz cites with approval Chrysippus's attempt to insulate God from
responsibility for evil by ascribing it to a limitation that is part of the 'original
constitution' of souls (sees. 331-5, 379-80). In distinguishing active and pas-
sive, or formal and material, aspects of the soul, he remarks, Chrysippus's
j
example of a cylinder whose shape restricts its motion does not differ greatly
from his own image of a laden boat carried along by the river's current. These
comparisons tend towards the same end,' he writes; 'and that shows that if we
were sufficiently informed concerning the opinions of ancient philosophers, we
should find therein more reason than is supposed' (sec. 335; G vi 314/H 327).
Leibniz's engagement with the Stoics reaches a critical point with the issue of
divine providence. Given the differences in their theological starting points, we
might expect to find little agreement here. The Stoics identify god with the
active principle that gives form and motion to matter by being present in it.
From the start, then, there is the basic point that, unlike Leibniz, the Stoics do
not regard their god as a transcendent being who deliberates among an infinity
of possible worlds and chooses to create that one which his wisdom represents
as the best; rather, their god is an immanent being that is eternally one with the
world.
8
Yet as significant as this difference might seem, it is not necessarily
decisive in distinguishing the kind of providence that the Stoic and Leibnizian
deities exercise. The Stoics refer to the active principle of the cosmos in a vari-
ety of ways: 'God, intelligence, fate, and Zeus are all one, and many other
names are applied to him.'
9
Under each of these descriptions, the active princi-
ple is seen as endowing the world with a unity and intelligible order, and this
order is regarded as providential in the dual sense of being foreknown and con-
ducive to the happiness of human beings.
10
The latter commitment rests on the
Stoics' conviction that human beings are the one type of being in which matter
has been organized by god in such a way that we are able to understand, and
govern our actions according to, the intelligible order of the cosmos.
11
The fun-
damental principle of Stoic ethics - the basis of their conception of virtue - is to
live in agreement with nature, or 'right reason,' the 'universal law' that governs
the world as a whole.
12
Consequently, the Stoics hold that 'the world itself was
created for the sake of gods and men, and the things that it contains were pro-
vided and contrived for the enjoyment of men. For the world is as it were the
common dwelling-place of gods and men, or the city that belongs to both; for
they alone have the use of reason and live by justice and by law.'
13
There are striking parallels between this Stoic scheme and Leibniz's philoso-
phy. Both advance the conception of a divinely ordered universe, in which
human beings flourish - live virtuously and happily - to the extent that they
conform their will to the order that governs nature as a whole. It is unsurprising,
then, that Leibniz voices at least some sympathy for the Stoic position. Sugges-
tive in this regard is a remark from his 1695 Specimen dynamicum: 'Our age has
saved from contempt... the tranquility of the Stoics which arises from the best
possible connection of things' (GM vi 234/L 436). Here Leibniz highlights the
contentment that results from an acknowledgment of divine providence and
seems to ally himself with the Stoics in accepting such a view. This passage,
though, is atypical. Far more common are texts in which Leibniz takes issue
with the Stoics for offering a consolation inferior to that provided by his own
philosophy. In Theodicy, sec. 254, for example, he begins in a seemingly Stoic
vein and then turns to emphasize his disagreement with the Stoics:
It is no small thing to be content with God and with the universe, not to fear what
destiny has in store for us, nor to complain of what befalls us. Acquaintance with
true principles gives us this advantage, quite other than that which the Stoics and
Epicureans derived from their philosophy. There is as much difference between
true morality and theirs as between joy and patience: for their tranquility was
founded only on necessity, while ours must rest upon the perfection and beauty of
things, upon our own happiness. (G vi 267-8/H 282-3)
The criticism expressed in this passage appears at odds with the remarks Leib-
niz makes later in the Theodicy about the Stoics. Whereas in those sections he
defends the Stoics against the charge of fatalism, here he seems to argue that
Stoic consolation is unsatisfactory, precisely because it is limited to a passive
acceptance of the necessity of things as opposed to a proper appreciation of
their 'perfection and beauty.' It looks, then, as though in this passage at least
Leibniz upholds the charge of fatalism against the Stoics and concludes from
this that they reject divine providence.
Appearances aside, I believe this is not Leibniz's criticism of the Stoics,
although the issue is complicated by his tendency to conflate their views with
those of Descartes and Spinoza. In writings from the 1670s, he levels the same
charge against these 'new Stoics' as he does against the ancient Stoics in Theod-
icy, sec. 254: given their conception of nature, their ethics is limited to an 'art of
patience' which 'scarcely consoles' (G iv 299/AG 241).
14
In the case of Des-
cartes and Spinoza, Leibniz explicitly premises this criticism on the claim that
they are committed to a fatal necessity concerning all things. This is a point he
continues to press against Spinoza in the Theodicy:
[Spinoza] appears to have explicitly taught a blind necessity, having denied to the
Author of Things understanding and will, and assuming that good and perfection
relate to us only and not to him ... [A]s far as one can understand him, he acknowl-
edges no goodness in God, properly speaking, and he teaches that all things exist
through the necessity of the divine nature, without any act of choice by God. (Sec.
173;Gvi217/H234)
Spinoza's greatest error, in Leibniz's eyes, is the denial of a providential deity:
he rejects the 'fundamental assumption that God has chosen the best of all pos-
sible worlds' (sec. 168; G vi 210/H 228). Leibniz locates two sources for this
error. First, in Spinoza's view, God's power is not exercised according to 'the
principle of Wisdom and Goodness' but by a 'metaphysical and brute necessity'
(G vi 218). Second, Spinoza dismisses any objective standard of goodness or
perfection against which to judge the lightness of God's action.
15
Leibniz holds that the defence of divine justice requires a conception of God
as an intelligent agent who exercises choice, and that the latter is coherent only
if there is variety of possible worlds from which God may choose. This is not
the Stoics' position. Nevertheless, the Stoics do conceive of god as a purposive
agent, who acts to realize a world in which nature guides rational beings toward
the goal of a virtuous life, or 'a life in agreement with nature.' Epictetus appeals
to this fact in arguing for the importance of the moral life:
God has brought man into the world to be a spectator of himself and his works, and
not merely a spectator, but also an interpreter. For this reason, it is shameful for
man to begin and end just where the irrational animals do; he should rather begin
where they do, but end where nature has ended in dealing with us. Now she did not
end until she reached contemplation and understanding and a manner of life har-
monious with nature. Take heed, therefore, lest you die without ever having been
spectators of these things.
16
For the Stoics, the happiness of rational beings does not depend simply on the
acceptance of the order of nature as necessary but on understanding it as a prov-
idential order willed by an all-knowing and beneficent god.
17
The Stoics'
emphasis on the teleology of divine action marks their philosophy as fundamen-
tally different from that of Spinoza, and Leibniz was well aware of this differ-
ence.
18
Although he rejects the Stoics' identification of God with the active
principle of nature and regards such a position as on a par ontologically with
Spinoza's monism, the evidence suggests that he absolves the Stoics of the error
of fatalism and concedes to them a notion of providence. If this is correct, then
Leibniz's criticism of the consolation offered by the Stoic philosophy - that it is
limited to a patience that falls short of contentment - must rest on other
grounds.
II
Further insight into this question can be found in Leibniz's discussion, in the
preface of the Theodicy, of three different doctrines of fate: the Mohammedan,
the Stoic, and the Christian.
19
As he represents it, \hefatum mahometanum is a
strict fatalism: whatever is to happen, happens necessarily. Acting to avert or
promote a particular outcome is useless, for if anything is destined to happen, it
will happen. Leibniz dismisses this outlook as a product of the 'lazy argument'
(or 'lazy sophism'), which he diagnoses as the fallacy that results from collaps-
ing the modality of causal determinism into a brute logical or metaphysical
necessity. Significantly, he does not accuse the Stoics of this error:
[W]hat is called the Fatum Stoicum was not so black as it is painted: it did not
divert men from the care of their affairs, but it tended to give them tranquility in
regard to events, through the consideration of necessity, which renders our anxi-
eties and our vexations needless. In this respect these philosophers were not far
removed from the teaching of our Lord, who deprecates these anxieties in regard to
the future, comparing them with the needless trouble a man would give himself in
laboring to increase his height. (G vi 30/H 54)
Again, Leibniz ascribes to the Stoics a tranquility that rests on a consideration
of the necessity of things, a view that might seem to confirm their association
with Spinoza. However, Leibniz also notes the closeness of the Stoic philoso-
phy to the 'teaching of our Lord,' something he never says about Spinoza. That
this amounts to a tacit admission of the Stoics' affirmation of providence is con-
firmed by Leibniz's subsequent attempt to distinguish a third kind of fate, the
fatum christianum:
It is true that the teachings of the Stoics (and perhaps also of some famous philoso-
phers of our time), confining themselves to this alleged necessity, can only impart a
forced patience, whereas our Lord inspires more sublime thoughts, and even
instructs us in the means of gaining contentment by assuring us that since God,
being altogether good and wise, has care for everything, even so far as not to
neglect one hair of our head, our confidence in him ought to be entire. And thus we
should see, if we were capable of understanding him, that it is not even possible to
wish for anything better (as much in general as for ourselves) than what he does. It
is as if one said to men: Do your duty and be content with that which shall come of
it, not only because you cannot resist divine providence, or the nature of things
(which may suffice for tranquility, but not for contentment), but also because you
have to do with a good master. And that is what may be called Fatum Christianum.
(G vi 30-1/H 54-5)
Although Leibniz's argument is less than transparent, his case against the Stoics
appears to amount to this. In affirming divine providence, one is consoled by the
thought that all is ordered for the best. Yet this can be a hard pillow on which to
lie. If fate delivers a series of blows, one's only recourse is to say, that is fate; one
must bear such suffering with a 'forced patience.' To this extent, Stoic tranquility
indeed rests on an affirmation of the necessity of things: not the strict geometrical
necessity that Spinoza propounds but an unchanging, universal providence to
which all must submit.
20
Leibniz's claim against the Stoics is that his theodicy
offers a richer consolation than this, one which provides for a 'contentment' that
surpasses Stoic 'tranquility.' It is able to do this because of the distinction he
draws between providence and divine justice.
21
Although the Stoics support the
idea that God orders the universe providentially, what is missing from their phi-
losophy, in Leibniz's view, is an adequate recognition of God's care for the wel-
fare of individual human beings, a care Leibniz expresses in the image of God as
a 'good master,' or sovereign, who observes a perfect justice with respect to ratio-
nal beings, ensuring that virtue is always balanced with happiness and vice with
unhappiness. In 'On the Ultimate Origination of Things,' Leibniz describes the
special relationship between God and rational beings in the following terms:
Just as in the best constituted republic, care is taken that each individual gets what
is good for him, as much as possible, similarly, the universe would be insufficiently
perfect unless it took individuals into account as much as could be done consis-
tently with preserving the harmony of the universe. It is impossible in this matter to
find a better standard than the very law of justice, which dictates that everyone
should take part in the perfection of the universe and in his own happiness in pro-
portion to his own virtue and to the extent that his will has thus contributed to the
common good. (G vn 3077AG 154)
As stated, Leibniz's argument seems open to an immediate objection. Leib-
niz's conception of divine justice turns on a basic distinction between rational
minds and other created beings. By virtue of their reason, he writes, minds are
'capable of entering into a kind of society with God,' which 'allows him to be,
in relation to them, not only what an inventor is to his machine (as God is in
relation to the other creatures) but also what a prince is to his subjects, and even
what a father is to his children' ('Monadology,' sec. 84; G vi 621/AG 223-4). In
this way, there is constituted 'the city of God,' 'the most perfect possible state
under the most perfect of monarchs' (ibid., sec. 85): 'a moral world within the
natural world,' which is 'the highest and most divine of God's works' (ibid.,
sec. 86). These, however, are ideas directly traceable to the Stoics. It is integral
to the Stoic position that rational beings occupy a privileged place in the uni-
verse: 'the greatest and most authoritative and most comprehensive of all gov-
ernments is this one, which is composed of men and god ... by nature it belongs
to [rational beings] alone to have communion in the society of god, being inter-
twined with him through reason.'
22
For the Stoics, moreover, divine justice is
inseparable from providence, for justice is grounded in the universal law that
governs nature as a whole.
23
The Stoics can even defend the point, central to
Leibniz's argument, that divine justice entails a balance between virtue and hap-
piness. Since the Stoics maintain that the happy life is identical with the virtu-
ous life, they are committed to the thesis that a perfect justice (in Leibniz's
sense) governs the actions of rational beings: virtue is necessarily correlated
with happiness and vice with unhappiness.
24
To appreciate the force of Leibniz's case against the Stoics, we must consider
it from a broader perspective which brings to light underlying differences in
their respective conceptions of the good and of happiness. Leibniz's dissatisfac-
tion with the Stoic position is best seen in relation to the Stoics' treatment of
natural evil: the suffering caused by earthquakes, drought, disease, etc. In agree-
ment with Leibniz's own view of providence, the Stoics regard such suffering as
justified in terms of the contribution its causes make to the orderly operation of
the universe; the part is justified in terms of the whole. God wills a universal
law that entails, as an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence, events that
cause human suffering. As Epictetus writes:
If you regard yourself as a man and as a part of some whole, on account of that
whole, it is fitting for you now to be sick, and now to make a voyage and run risks,
and now to be in want, and on occasion to die before your time ... For it is impossi-
ble in such a body as ours, in the universe that envelops us, among these fellow
creatures of ours, that such things should not happen, some to one man and some to
another.
25
Leibniz employs similar reasoning and accepts that God may legitimately sacri-
fice the happiness of rational beings for the sake of the perfection and harmony
of the whole.
26
Nevertheless, he believes that this providence must be situated
within a larger account of God's justice. If a virtuous person suffers because of
natural evil, an imbalance is created between what that person deserves on
account of his virtue and his happiness. Since the law of justice dictates a balance
between virtue and happiness, God must exercise a compensatory (or, in the case
of a wicked person who does not pay for his crime, retributive) justice that serves
to correct any temporary imbalance between virtue and happiness. Thus, God
ensures that it is never ultimately the case that the virtuous person is unhappy in
spite of his virtue, or the wicked person happy in spite of his crime. As it is evi-
dent that many die without the fulfilment of this condition, Leibniz argues that
divine justice also requires that each rational being possess a personal immortal-
ity: 'It follows necessarily that there will be another life and that souls will not
perish with the visible bodies. Otherwise there would be crimes unpunished and
good deeds unrewarded, which is contrary to order' (Mo 49/L 564).
27
The Stoics' response to the problem of evil begins from a fundamentally dif-
ferent conception of the relation of virtue and happiness. For the Stoics, nothing
is a good in itself except virtue and what partakes of it.
28
Thus, the virtuous life
alone is choiceworthy and sufficient for happiness; happiness does not depend
on physical well-being or the attainment of external goods. In the Stoics' view,
therefore, the suffering produced by natural evil does not create an imbalance
that demands to be corrected. Rather than looking for redress, the virtuous per-
son demonstrates his virtue by understanding such events as necessary conse-
quences of nature's universal law. To treat such events or the suffering they
cause as evils that demand compensation would be, on the contrary, to demon-
strate one's lack of virtue.
29
Since virtue, or living in agreement with nature, is
constitutive of happiness, the Stoics regard this account as consistent with god's
providential care for human beings. Seneca maintains that the equivalent of the
trials of Job should be seen as an example of god's concern for us, because such
trials test the virtuous person and allow him to realize the full extent of his vir-
tue.
30
From a different perspective, Epictetus argues that god demonstrates his
concern for rational beings by allowing our happiness to depend on nothing that
is not within our power, that is, on virtue alone, and not on external goods which
are 'liable to frustration, removal, or compulsion.'
31
Leibniz accepts that under the right circumstances a virtuous life can be suffi-
cient for happiness, and that such a life is one in which we endeavour to under-
stand the order of the universe and use this order as the rule for our own actions.
However, in contrast to the Stoics, he does not claim that virtue is constitutive of
happiness, or that a virtuous life is necessarily a happy life. Leibniz defines 'hap-
piness' (felicite) as a 'lasting state of pleasure,' and 'pleasure' as a 'knowledge or
feeling of perfection' (Gr 579/R 83).
32
Virtue can be sufficient for happiness, on
his account, because virtue is the perfection of the will: its disposition to choose
in accordance with wisdom, or a knowledge of the good. Thus, a virtuous person
naturally enjoys pleasure - and as it endures, happiness - as a result of being
aware of his virtue.
33
Yet while Leibniz believes that a life of virtue is naturally
productive of happiness, he allows that events outside our control can pre-empt
happiness attained in this way. We remain vulnerable to fortune, because other
things besides virtue (e.g., health, beauty, power) are also goods for us - lesser
goods, to be sure, but goods nonetheless. Each of these qualities involves some
degree of perfection, whose perception we experience as pleasure. Conversely,
the perception of a lack, or privation, of such perfection is experienced as pain.
34
It is conceivable, then, that on balance the pleasure experienced as a result of
virtue may be outweighed by the pain experienced as a result of physical or
emotional suffering. Because an imbalance between virtue and happiness is con-
ceptually possible for Leibniz, justice as compensation has an essential role to
play in his theodicy. The virtuous person always will be made happy by his
virtue, but this does not mean that other circumstances may not interrupt that
happiness. God as providential creator may have reasons, connected with the har-
mony of the whole, for allowing the virtuous person to suffer undeserved evils
and the wicked person to profit temporarily from his wickedness.
35
In contrast to the Stoics, Leibniz allows that these are genuine evils; however,
he insists that divine justice will, in the course of time, correct such imbalances
through the mechanism of nature. God's paternal care for rational beings takes
the form of a harmony between the 'kingdoms of nature and grace,' as a result
of which through the operation of nature no crime is left unpunished, no virtue
unrewarded.
36
Leibniz and the Stoics agree, therefore, that divine justice is exer-
cised via the order of nature, and that a virtuous life is (ultimately) a happy life,
but they differ in their understanding of this justice. Whereas the Stoics identify
divine justice with the universal law, or providence, that governs nature as a
whole, Leibniz sees God's justice as a higher principle which ensures that, in
the course of time, providence serves the interests of rational beings, balancing
virtue with happiness.
Ill
Leibniz frames his case against the Stoics in the language of Christian theology:
God is not simply the governor of the universe, the administrator of universal
law, but a good master who cares for the fate of individual human beings and
ensures that their virtue is rewarded with happiness. This forms the core of what
Leibniz calls thefatum christianum, which he claims supports a more satisfying
consolation than is available from the Stoic philosophy. When it seems that our
virtue is insufficient for happiness - when physical or emotional suffering over-
whelms virtue's pleasing effects - we may take comfort in the thought that,
given God's justice and the immortality of the soul, virtue is still worth pursu-
ing, for virtue eventually will be rewarded with happiness, if not in this life then
in the next.
Appearing as it does in the Theodicy, Leibniz clearly intends this description
of thefatum christianum to be acceptable to Christian orthodoxy. Stated in these
general terms, it presumably is. When we look more closely at the philosophical
commitments that support his stance, however, we encounter a set of views
whose orthodoxy is less obvious. In keeping with his account of immortality,
Leibniz's position does not rely on a conventional conception of divine judg-
ment.
37
Given his explanation of the exercise of God's justice via the harmony
of the kingdoms of nature and grace, the crux of his theory is a claim about the
order of nature itself. God does not intervene in nature to reward the virtuous
person who has suffered unjustly, nor is this reward reserved for an extra-
mundane afterlife; rather, nature itself contains the means for correcting such
wrongs, and reparations are made within an earthly existence.
Leibniz's account of divine justice as a mechanism for balancing merit and
reward presupposes a weakening of the Stoics' view of the essential connection
between virtue and happiness. This might seem to lend support to the idea of
the vulnerability of human beings, their inability to ensure their own happiness
through virtuous action, and the consequent need for divine assistance (or
grace). In some passages, Leibniz appears to accept this inference.
38
His fullest
description of the character of the virtuous person, however, moves in the
opposite direction. Although Leibniz insists on the importance of ascribing
a compensatory justice to God, he does not believe that the virtuous person's
happiness must remain dependent upon receiving such compensation. The per-
son with the most complete virtue, on the contrary, is one whose happiness
requires only the knowledge that divine justice is observed in the created world:
If anyone who is certain of divine government shall think with assurance that the
immortal soul placed in the control and protection of God cannot be harmed except
by itself, and that by loving God or revering his virtue he has been destined for the
highest happiness, he will more easily and more fully enjoy a type of blessed life
[beatam quandam vitam] already now on earth with a mind that is not only content
with all evils but also pleased by the very things that happen. The Stoics also seem
on occasion to have inclined to this view, which certain passages in Epictetus, Mar-
cus Aurelius, and Seneca appear to suggest, albeit more obscurely. (A vi.4, 485)
39
Somewhat paradoxically, then, the person of highest virtue is the one who
least of all needs to be compensated for suffering. As his virtue grows stronger
and his knowledge of divine justice more certain, he enjoys greater happiness
here and now as a result of his virtue and is proportionately less vulnerable to
the suffering wrought by physical evils. Their effect is negligible in the case of
the person of complete virtue, who needs nothing but his virtue to be happy:
It is a great thing ... when a person of rank can enjoy himself even in illness, mis-
fortune, and disgrace, especially if he can find contentment, not out of necessity
because he sees that things must be as they are (this is no more comfort than that of
taking a sleeping potion to escape feeling pain), but out of the awakening within
himself of a great joy which overcomes these pains and misfortunes. Such joy,
which a person can always create for himself when his mind is well-ordered, con-
sists in the perception of pleasure in himself and in the powers of his mind, when a
man feels within himself a strong inclination and readiness for the good and the
true, and particularly through the profound knowledge which an enlightened under-
standing provides us, namely, that we experience the chief source, the course, and
the purpose of everything, and the incomprehensible excellence of that Supreme
Nature which comprises all things within it. (G vn 87/L 427)
40
Although the noble individual remains in principle susceptible to the harmful
effects of nature, the strength of his virtue is such that he is in practice unaf-
fected by physical evils. Recognizing that the only true goods are those that
depend on the powers of will and intellect, he is capable of a blessedness that
transcends ordinary happiness. Echoing the Stoics' conception of a happiness
that depends solely on things within one's power, Leibniz writes:
Happiness \felicitas] depends on fortune, blessedness [beatitudo] on our will. We
must, indeed, allow that even our will is dependent on external causes, since reason
can be corrupted by sickness and in other ways. Nevertheless, it is certain that
given the use of reason even blessedness is in our power. (A vi.4, 2714)
For all of his efforts to distance himself from the Stoics, Leibniz's full
account of the relation of virtue and happiness brings to light a closer affinity
with their position than initially appeared. With respect to physical and emo-
tional suffering, Leibniz and the Stoics agree on at least a general formula for
consolation: pursue a life of virtue grounded in a knowledge of divine justice
(or the universal law of nature) and one will enjoy a happiness that is secure
against the hardships of fortune. Central to both accounts is the idea that virtue
presupposes an understanding of the order God has willed for the universe, and
that happiness follows when we conform our will to that order.
41
This is what
the Stoics mean by 'living in agreement with nature,' and it is plausible to read
Leibniz as affirming a similar view. Despite this common ground, however,
Leibniz continues to insist that his philosophy supports a consolation superior
to that of the Stoics. Obviously, there remain significant differences in their
conceptions of divine order and their explanations of how an understanding of
divine order is effective in securing happiness. What remains to be established
is how these differences contribute to Leibniz's account of the consolation asso-
ciated with thefatum christianum.
IV
For the Stoics, consolation depends upon eliminating the passions that disturb
the soul's tranquility: sadness over illness or loss, fear of death, hope for better
things to come. Their prescription for ridding ourselves of these 'diseases' of
the soul is to pursue a life of virtue, or a life in agreement with nature, supported
by the belief that the only true good is virtue. Disciplined by 'right reason,' the
virtuous person consistently chooses the morally right action for the right rea-
son and is unaffected by the hardships of fortune, enduring suffering with
patience and nobility. In this way, one may achieve a happy life, or, in Zeno's
phrase, 'a good flow of life,' free of the disturbing effects of hope, fear, sadness,
and pleasure, emotions rooted in mistaken judgments about the good.
42
Notori-
ously, the Stoics argue that only the rarest individual - the sage - can expect to
attain a condition of virtue in which the full fruits of happiness are enjoyed.
Nevertheless, they appear to believe that any rational being can benefit from the
therapy of reducing the harmful effects of the passions, and that the result is a
soul that begins to mirror the perfect tranquility of the sage.
43
Leibniz's alternative recipe for consolation is best understood as having two
parts.
44
In the first place, as we have seen, he insists that his philosophy offers a
more stable and more readily attainable tranquility than is provided by the Sto-
ics. With his account of divine justice, human beings may be confident of their
fate in a way they cannot be within the Stoics' scheme. We are not forced sim-
ply to bear our suffering with patience but are reassured by our knowledge of
God's justice and the immortality of the soul that our virtue will be rewarded
with happiness. In contrast to many of the Stoics' critics, Leibniz does not take
issue with the general goal of eliminating the passions. However, he does
argue forcefully on behalf of the ethical importance of one passion, hope, as
crucial to the explanation of why a belief in divine justice is effective in produc-
ing tranquility. To the extent that we are entitled to hope that our suffering will
be compensated by future happiness, we are less troubled by that suffering
when it occurs and less prone to anticipate with fear what fortune will bring.
That Leibniz lays less emphasis on the threat of divine punishment as a motiva-
tor of virtue reflects the general cast of his theology. Although he defends the
notion of divine justice as retributive, Leibniz's God is fundamentally a God of
love, and our sense of divine justice is most acute when we focus on God's
benevolence rather than his will to punish.
45
In response to the Stoics, Leibniz
consistently maintains that we owe our confidence in God, and the resulting
tranquility of the soul, to the thought that God's justice guarantees our future
happiness, and not to the thought that we might in the end be judged unworthy
of happiness.
But Leibniz does not rest his case against the Stoics on this alone. He argues
that the knowledge of divine justice produces a contentment that goes beyond
simple tranquility or a lack of disturbance. The basis of this contentment is his
conception of happiness as 'a lasting state of pleasure.' As this definition
suggests, on Leibniz's account, happiness is an inherently dynamic state that
demands the continuation of pleasure, or the perception of perfection. Leibniz is
clear that this will not be merely bodily or sensory pleasure, for such pleasure is
by nature transitory and subject to fortune. The pleasures that produce happi-
ness are rather those associated with perception of the perfection of the will and
intellect, that is, virtue and knowledge. It is these pleasures that endure, secure
against the vagaries of fortune, and produce a contentment consisting of a mod-
erate and steady feeling of joy, which is justified because it reflects our posses-
sion of true goods of the soul.
46
Wisdom, as the science of happiness, instructs us in how to achieve and aug-
ment this state of well-being.
47
Leibniz's most far-reaching claim is that for this
to happen, we must revise our original conception of God's justice and with it
our understanding of the fatum christianwn. The justice exercised by God is,
according to its strict definition, the 'charity of the wise.'
48
The crucial compo-
nent of this definition is the concept of charity, which Leibniz defines as 'uni-
versal benevolence,' or a disposition to will the good of all things in proportion
to their goodness (Gr 583). Justice is charity moderated by wisdom, or a good
will united with knowledge of the good.
49
The most important consequence of
this definition is that divine justice, as the charity of the wise, implies a will to
produce as much good as possible. 'It is goodness,' Leibniz writes in the Theod-
icy, 'which prompts God to create with the purpose of communicating himself;
and this same goodness combined with wisdom prompts him to create the best'
(sec. 228; G vi 253/H 269). By virtue of his justice, God wills both to create the
world of greatest goodness, or perfection, and to balance the virtue of rational
creatures with their happiness, willing good in proportion to goodness.
50
A correct understanding of God's justice is a prerequisite for complete virtue,
which Leibniz describes as 'universal justice' or 'piety.' 'While justice is
merely a particular virtue ... when we leave out of consideration God or a gov-
ernment which imitates that of God,' he writes, 'as soon as it is based on God or
on the imitation of God it becomes universal justice and contains all the virtues'
(Mo 63-4/L 570).
51
A fully virtuous person, therefore, is one who understands
God's justice as the charity of the wise and is disposed to imitate that justice in
her own actions, acting justly in relation to other rational beings and endeavour-
ing to contribute wherever possible to the common good.
52
Rather than simply
affirming the eternal order of the universe, bearing patiently the hardships it
brings, the virtuous person, following the example of God, strives to contribute
to the greater perfection of the world through her own intellectual and moral
development and that of other rational beings.
53
Since the effect of such willing
is to make it more likely that others will affirm the same ends in the future, the
result is 'an enduring progress in wisdom and virtue, and therefore also in per-
fection and joy' (G vn 88/L 426). By these means, the virtuous person lays the
foundations for her own contentment. Conscious of her own virtue and of the
increasing perfection of the world, her pleasure not only endures but continues
to grow. Thus, she achieves the state Leibniz identifies with happiness, and this
as a consequence of her knowledge of divine justice as the charity of the wise.
54
Leibniz repeatedly states that we owe our greatest happiness to the love of
God, for the perception of God's perfection is our greatest pleasure and this
pleasure can continue indefinitely, as God's perfection is without limit.
55
In the
final section of the 'Principles of Nature and Grace,' he cites this as the key
point on which his consolation surpasses that of the Stoics:
One can even say that the love of God gives us, in the present, a foretaste of future
felicity ... [I]t gives us perfect confidence in the goodness of our author and master,
which produces real tranquility of mind, not as with the Stoics, who are induced to
be patient by force, but one that is produced by present contentment, which also
assures us future happiness. And besides the present pleasure, nothing can be more
useful for the future. For the love of God also fulfills our hopes, and leads us down
the road of supreme happiness, because by virtue of the perfect order established in
the universe, everything is done in the best possible way, both for the general good
and for the greatest individual good of those who are convinced of this, and who
are content with divine government, which cannot fail to be found in those who
know how to love the source of all good. It is true that supreme felicity (with what-
ever 'beatific vision' or knowledge of God it may be accompanied) can never be
complete, because, since God is infinite, he can never be entirely known. Thus our
happiness will never consist, and must not consist, in complete joy, in which noth-
ing is left to desire, and which would dull our mind, but must consist in a perpetual
progress to new pleasures and new perfections. (G vi 606/AG 212-13)
While parts of this passage may suggest the promise of happiness in some
future life, its concluding sentence unequivocally rejects the attainment of a
supreme happiness in which nothing is left to desire. What Leibniz offers
instead is a present contentment, whose effects will continue to be enjoyed in
the future. His account rests, again, on the idea of happiness as a dynamic state
that is never complete but always directed toward new pleasures. For Leibniz,
no less than for Hobbes, the pursuit of happiness cannot be brought to an end;
there is no final repose in a created existence.
56
We find happiness neither in a
beatific vision of God, nor in our resignation to fate, providence, or the neces-
sity of things. Rather, it demands 'a perpetual progress to new pleasures and
new perfections.' The love of God symbolizes for Leibniz the optimal means of
ensuring this progress: it leads us 'down the road of supreme happiness [le
chemin du supreme bonheur]' (not the road to supreme happiness). To love God
is to adopt God's ends as our own. This means that we strive to contribute as
much good as possible to the world and accept that whatever happens as a result
of our efforts is consistent with God's justice:
In order to act in accordance with the love of God, it is not sufficient to force our-
selves to be patient; rather, we must truly be satisfied with everything that has come
to us according to his will. I mean this acquiescence with respect to the past. As for
the future, we must not be quietists and stand ridiculously with arms folded, await-
ing that which God will do, according to the sophism that the ancients called logon
aergon, the lazy argument. But we must act in accordance with the presumptive
will of God, insofar as we can judge it, trying to contribute with all our power to the
general good and especially to the embellishment and perfection of that which
affects us, or that which is near us and, so to speak, in our grasp. (G iv 429-30/AG
37-8)
57
The love of God thus requires that we adopt a twofold attitude toward the
world: we must endeavour to contribute to what we understand as the hidden
dynamic of that order - the greater perfection of all things
58
- and accept, in line
with the traditional notion of consolation, that whatever happens, happens in
accordance with God's will.
59
The first part of this formula marks what is most
distinctive about Leibniz's recipe for consolation: it consoles by putting us to
work improving the world, on the assumption that this is in keeping with God's
justice and the source of our greatest happiness - the contentment that surpasses
mere tranquility.
Leibniz's conception of God's justice as the charity of the wise transforms
the character of what he calls thefatum christianum. For the person of complete
virtue, or piety, God's role as the redeemer of worldly suffering is of secondary
importance.
60
By conforming his will to the principle of universal justice, the
pious person is able to ensure his own continued happiness and independence
from fortune. The will to contribute to the greater perfection of the world, and
the pleasure we take in the contemplation of that perfection, are goods of the
soul that can be enjoyed whatever fortune brings. Restricting his conception of
value to these 'true goods,' the pious person is not merely reassured about his
fate, confident that his virtue will be rewarded in the future, but benefits from
the continued enjoyment of the best sort of pleasure here and now. This is what
is not guaranteed to the person of incomplete virtue, for whom there is a compe-
tition between goods of the soul and goods of the body. Finding value in the
latter, such a person suffers when these goods are threatened by fortune and
consequently takes comfort in the idea of a God who compensates rational
beings for their suffering, ensuring that virtue finds its proper reward.
61
In this
case as much as in the first, though, God's justice is exercised through the order
of nature. The person who has suffered undeservingly receives compensation by
natural means in an earthly existence that is continuous with their present life.
Thus, putting together the fates of the perfectly and imperfectly virtuous person,
Leibniz's notion of the fatum christianum amounts to just this: the world has
been created by God such that rational beings naturally enjoy a happiness that
is commensurate with their virtue. If they are imperfectly virtuous, their happi-
ness remains vulnerable to fortune and they may have to wait to enjoy its full
fruits - its enjoyment becomes, as it were, hostage to the furtherance of the
goals of universal providence. By contrast, when virtue is completed through a
knowledge of divine justice, one acquires a happiness that is secure against for-
tune: an 'enduring progress of pleasure,' or 'a present contentment which also
assures us future happiness.'
Here we encounter the full ethical import of Leibniz's theodicy: how the
knowledge of divine justice serves as a precondition for true happiness. At the
same time, it is clear how ethics itself acquires a larger meaning for Leibniz by
being comprehended within a conception of divine justice. For Leibniz, God's
justice is expressed in the fact that rational beings naturally enjoy a greater and
more permanent happiness to the extent that they conform their will to the prin-
ciple of universal justice, or the charity of the wise. As he concludes in 'On the
Ultimate Origination of Things': 'It is impossible in this matter to find a better
standard than the very law of justice, which dictates that everyone should take
part in the perfection of the universe and in his own happiness in proportion to
his virtue and to the extent that his will has thus contributed to the common
good' (G vn 307/AG 154). What is most striking about this position - and what
reinforces the resonance of Stoicism in Leibniz's philosophy - is that while
doubts can be raised about whether the fatum christianum is an authentically
Christian view of human existence, there is no question that it accepts that we
are subject to an unyielding fate or destiny. Leibniz stresses that on his account
we are not forced simply to submit to fate but actively participate in its unfold-
ing. But as he himself recognizes, the ancient Stoics did not affirm the conclu-
sion of the lazy argument either, that we must merely submit. The virtuous
person acts under the imperative of virtue, enjoys the happiness that is the natu-
ral complement of such action, and accepts that whatever happens, happens in
accordance with the divine will. While it might be argued that this is common
ground with Christianity as well, what unites Leibniz and the Stoics is the fur-
ther belief that our highest happiness is nothing more than this and that it lies in
our power to achieve it through the practice of virtue alone.
62
Notes
1 In a letter to Des Bosses, Leibniz defines theodicy as 'the doctrine of the right and
justice [jure etjustitia] of God' (G 11428). In a subsequent letter, he describes it as
'like a certain kind of science, namely, the doctrine of the justice (that is, the wisdom
together with the goodness) of God' (G 11437). Leibniz's writings are cited accord-
ing to the following abbreviations (where a quoted passage differs from a cited trans-
lation, or none is cited, the translation is my own): A = Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
Sdmtliche Schriften und Briefe, ed. Preussische (later: Deutsche) Akademie der Wis-
senschaften zu Berlin (Darmstadt/Leipzig/Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1923- ); AG =
G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, ed. and trans. R. Ariew and D. Garber (India-
napolis: Hackett, 1989); D = Gothofredi Guillelmi Leibnitii Opera Omnia, ed. L.
Dutens (Geneva: De Tournes, 1768; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1989); G = Die
philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, ed. C.I. Gerhardt (Berlin:
Weidmann, 1875-90; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1978); GM = G.W. Leibniz,
Mathematische Schriften, ed. C.I. Gerhardt (Berlin: A. Asher; Halle: H.W. Schmidt,
1849-63); Gr = G.W. Leibniz, Textes inedits d'apres les manuscrits de la biblio-
thequeprovinciate de Hanovre, ed. G. Grua (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1948; repr.
New York: Garland, 1985); H = G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of
God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil, trans. E.M. Huggard (La Salle, IL:
Open Court, 1985); K = Die Werke von Leibniz, ed. O. Klopp (Hanover: Klindworth,
1864-84); L = G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. and trans. L.E.
Loemker, 2nd ed. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969); M = The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspon-
dence, ed. and trans. H.T. Mason (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967);
Mo = Mittheilungen aus Leibnizens ungedruckten Schriften, ed. G. Mollat (Leipzig:
H. Haessel, 1893); P = G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. G.H.R.
Parkinson (London: Dent, 1973); R = G.W. Leibniz, Political Writings, ed. and trans.
P. Riley, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); RB = G.W. Leib-
niz, New Essays on Human Understanding, trans. P. Remnant and J. Bennett (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); W = G.W. Leibniz, Selections, trans. P.
Wiener (New York: Scribners, 1951).
2 Leibniz links his undertaking to Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy, which he
was instrumental in having published in a new German edition. In a 1697 letter, he
remarked that Boethius 'says some very beautiful and sensible things about the
order of the universe. For seeing the successes of the wicked, the misfortunes of the
good, the brevity and ordinary evils of human life, and the thousands of apparent
disorders that offer themselves to our eyes, it seems that everything happens by
chance. But those who examine the inner natures of things find everything is so
well regulated there that they cannot doubt that the universe is governed by a
sovereign intelligence in an order so perfect that if one understood it in detail,
one would not only believe but would also see that nothing better can be wished
for' (G vn 545).
3 'I have always been most satisfied, from my very youth, with the ethics of Plato and
in some ways with his metaphysics as well; these two sciences demand each other's
company' (G in 637/L 659). Cf. D VI. 1, 215; G iv 298-9.1 discuss one aspect of
Leibniz's relation to Plato and Neoplatonism in my paper 'Leibniz and Mysticism,'
in Leibniz, Mysticism and Religion, ed. A. Coudert, R. Popkin and G. Weiner (Dor-
drecht: Kluwer, 1998), pp. 22^6.
4 De providentia 1 (in Seneca, Moral Essays, vol. 1, trans. John W. Basore [Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928]). I am grateful to Jacqueline Lagree for
emphasizing the relevance of this passage. It has been suggested that the doctrine of
providence occupies a more prominent place in the thought of the later Stoics, Sen-
eca and Epictetus, than in that of the early Greek Stoics. Whether or not this is true, it
remains the case that the early Stoics frame their ethics against the background of a
conception of nature as divinely governed, in which human beings achieve happiness
insofar as they 'live in agreement with nature.' For an elaboration of this reading, see
A.A. Long, 'Stoic Eudaimonism,' in Stoic Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1996), pp. 179-201.
5 See the essay to which AG gives the title Two Sects of Naturalists' (G vn 333-6/AG
281-4). Leibniz's writings include a set of notes on Epictetus's Handbook (Gr 567-
70) and scattered references to the works of Seneca, Cicero, Plutarch, and Diogenes
Laertius (though none to the major presentations of Stoic teaching in Definibus,
book 3, and Lives of Eminent Philosophers, book 7). A crucial source for Leibniz's
knowledge of ancient Stoicism are the works of Justus Lipsius. Drawing on Lipsius
in Theodicy, sec. 332, for example, Leibniz cites Aulus Gellius as offering a more
faithful presentation of Chrysippus' s views than is found in Cicero' s Defato.
6 For a comprehensive account of Stoic views on this topic, see Susanne Bobzien,
Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Presss, 1998).
7 See his published reply to Bayle's criticism of the system of pre-established harmony
(G iv 523/L 496). In Theodicy, sec. 360, Leibniz links the doctrine of universal con-
nection to God's foreknowledge and wisdom (G vi 328-9/H 341).
8 Diogenes Laertius, 7.134-43. For other passages and commentary, see A.A. Long
and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987), vol. 1, ch. 44. Wherever possible translations from Stoic sources are
drawn from this volume, hereafter cited as LS.
9 Diogenes Laertius, 7.135-6 (LS 46B).
10 The fullest presentation of the Stoic doctrine of providence is found in book 2 of
Cicero's De natura deorum. See also Diogenes Laertius 7.138, 147, and the passages
collected in LS 54.
11 Cicero, De natura deorum 2.153; Seneca, Ep. 76.9-10 (LS 63D).
12 Diogenes Laertius, 7.87 (LS 63C).
13 Cicero, De natura deorum 2.154 (trans. H. Rackham [Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1933]). Cf. 2.133 (LS 54N), and Seneca, De providentia 1.5: 'I shall
reconcile you with the gods, who are ever best to those who are best. For nature never
permits good to be injured by good; between good men and the gods there exists a
friendship brought about by virtue' (trans. Basore).
14 Cf. 'Two Sects of Naturalists,' cited in note 5.
15 This criticism first appeared following Leibniz's reading of the Tractatus Theologico
Politicus in 1671. Spinoza, he wrote, is 'the most impious and the most dangerous
man of this century. He was truly an atheist, that is, he did not acknowledge any
providence which distributes good fortune and bad according to what is just' (A ii.l,
535).
16 Discourses 1.6.19-22 (in Epictetus, Discourses, vol. 1, trans. W.A. Oldfather [Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925]). Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum 2.37-9
(LS 54H).
17 Cf. Plutarch, On common conceptions 1075E: '[The Stoics] are unceasingly busy
crying against Epicurus for ruining the preconception of the gods by abolishing
providence. For, they say, god is preconceived and thought of not only as immortal
and blessed but also as benevolent, caring and beneficent' (LS 54K).
18 'The Stoics are accused of this error [of fatalism], against which J. Lipsius defends
them, since everything nonetheless happens as a result of divine decrees, or by
the free will of God and created beings, though in a determinate order which God
infallibly knows ... This [fatalism] in fact seems to have been the view of Hobbes and
Spinoza, the former of whom made all things corporeal, the latter of whom thought
that God is nothing other than the very nature or substance of the world' (De Reli-
gione Magnorum Virorum, ca. 1686-7 [A vi.4, 2460]). Cf. Jacqueline Lagree, Juste
Lipse et la restauration du stoicisme (Paris: Vrin, 1994), pp. 58-9.
19 See also his fifth letter to Clarke, sec. 13 (G VH 391/L 697).
20 Compare Seneca's attitude in De providentia 5.8: 'What, then, is the part of a good
man? To offer himself to fate. It is a great consolation [solacium] that it is together
with the universe that we are swept along; whatever it is that has ordained us so to
live, so to die, by the same necessity it binds also the gods. One unchangeable course
bears along the affairs of men and gods alike' (trans. Basore). See also the passage
from Ep. 107, quoted in note 29.
21 Causa dei, sees. 40-1 (G vi 445).
22 Epictetus, Discourses 1.9.4-6 (trans. Oldfather). This supplies the basis for the
Stoics' doctrine of the cosmopolis: 'anyone who has studied the administration of the
universe and has learned that "the greatest and most authoritative and most compre-
hensive of all governments is this one, which is composed of men and God ...'" -
why should not such a man call himself a citizen of the universe' (ibid.). Cf. Dio-
genes Laertius, 7.138; Cicero, Defmibus 3.64. Leibniz follows the Stoics in this line
of reasoning.
23 See Cicero, De legibus 1.18-19: 'Law is the highest reason, implanted in Nature,
which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite ... [T]he origin of
Justice is to be found in Law, for Law is a natural force; it is the mind and reason of
the wise man [prudentis], the standard by which Justice and Injustice are measured.'
On the theological roots of the Stoic conception of justice, see Malcolm Schofield,
'Two Stoic Approaches to Justice,' in A. Laks and M. Schofield, eds, Justice and
Generosity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 191-212.
24 Cicero, Defmibus 3.26-9.
25 Discourses n.5.25-9 (trans. Oldfather). Cf. Seneca, De vita beata 15.1, and Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations 10.6: 'In the thought that I am part of the whole, I shall be
content with all that comes to pass.'
26 See, for example, Theodicy, sec. 118 (G vi 168-9/H 188-9).
27 Leibniz's understanding of this immortality is complex. On the basis of his meta-
physics, he is committed to the position that there is no generation or corruption of
souls or soul-like substances - 'they can only begin by creation and end by annihila-
tion' (Monadology, sec. 6); and that physical death does not involve a complete
separation or extinction of the soul's body, but only an 'enfolding and diminution' of
its organs, which eventually will develop again as those of a new organism, or the
same organism in a different form (ibid., sees. 72-7). These claims apply to all types
of creatures, and provide no support for the stronger thesis that there is a continuity
of memory or self-consciousness across successive lives. Such a continuity, or
immortality, is posited by Leibniz as the exclusive property of rational beings, on
the grounds that the conditions of divine justice would fail to be met if a person in
principle lacked awareness of the connection between divine reward or punishment
and the deeds of a previous life for which he was held accountable (Discourse on
Metaphysics, sec. 34). The point to be stressed about Leibniz's doctrine of immortal-
ity is that it involves no commitment to an extramundane afterlife. Reward and
punishment are delivered by natural means within a succession of linked earthly
existences: 'this globe must be destroyed and restored by natural means at such times
as the governing of minds requires it, for the punishment of some and the reward of
others' (Monadology, sec. 88; G vi 622/AG 224).
28 Diogenes Laertius, 7.94.
29 Cf. Seneca, Ep. 107.6-9: 'Let's not be taken aback by any of the things we're bom to,
things no one need complain at for the simple reason that they're the same for every-
body. Yes, the same for everybody; for even if a man does escape something, it was a
thing which he might have suffered. The fairness of a law does not consist in its
effect being actually felt by all alike, but in its having been laid down for all alike.
Let's get this sense of justice [aequitas] firmly into our heads and pay up without
grumbling the taxes arising from our mortal state ... What we can do is adopt a noble
spirit, such a spirit as befits a good man, so that we may bear up bravely under all that
fortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature's ... This is the law to
which our minds are needing to be reconciled. This is the law they should be follow-
ing and obeying. They should assume that whatever happens was bound to happen
and refrain from railing at nature. One can do nothing better than endure what cannot
be cured and attend uncomplainingly the God at whose instance all things come
about' (Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, trans. Robin Campbell [London: Penguin,
1969], pp. 198-9).
30 De providentia 4.4-8.
31 Discourses m.24.3.
32 Leibniz experiments with variations on these definitions. In a revised draft of the
same study, happiness is defined as a 'lasting state of joy,' and 'joy' as the 'total
pleasure which results from all that the soul feels simultaneously' (Gr 582). In the
New Essays, a work composed a decade later, he defines pleasure as 'a sense of per-
fection,' and happiness as 'a lasting pleasure, which cannot occur without a continual
progress to new pleasures' (RB 194).
33 Our reason, Leibniz writes to Queen Sophie Charlotte, 'makes us resemble God in a
small way, as much through our knowledge of order as through the order we our-
selves can give to things within our grasp, in imitation of the order God gives to the
universe. It is also in this that our virtue and perfection consists, just as our happiness
consists in the pleasure we take in it' (G iv 508/AG 192).
34 In Theodicy, sec. 251, Leibniz characterizes health as a 'physical good' that is not
accompanied by pleasure, though its privation may cause us pain: 'we only perceive
the good of health, and other like goods, when we are deprived of them' (G vi 266/H
281). On the range of things considered goods, see 'On Wisdom' (G vn 86-7/L 425-
6) and Theodicy, sec. 124 (G vi 178/H 198). In 'Reflections on the Common Concept
of Justice,' Leibniz restricts the 'true good' to 'whatever serves the perfection of
intelligent substances': 'It is obvious, therefore, that order, contentment, joy, wis-
dom, goodness, and virtue are goods in an essential sense and can never be bad.'
These are contrasted with power, which is 'a good in a natural sense... because, other
things being equal, it is better to have it than not to have it,' but which can lead to evil
if not united with wisdom and goodness (Mo 48/L 564).
35 As we shall see, such an imbalance in fact occurs only in the case of individuals
whose virtue is incomplete, because they lack an adequate knowledge of God's
justice and of the true goods of the soul: 'the dignity and glory, and our mind's
sense of joy on account of virtue, to which [philosophers] appeal under the name of
honor [honestatis], are certainly goods of thought or of the mind, and are, indeed,
great ones, but not such as to prevail with all, nor to overcome all the bitterness of
evils, since not all men are equally moved by the imagination; especially those who
have not become accustomed to the thought of virtue or to the appreciation of the
goods of the mind, whether through a liberal education or a noble way of living, or
the discipline of life or of a sect. In order really to establish by a universal demon-
stration that everything honorable is useful and everything base is damned, one
must assume the immortality of the soul, and God as ruler of the universe' (G in
388-9/R 173).
36 Monadology, sees. 87-9 (G vi 622/AG 224).
37 See note 27.
38 Or, at least, he accepts the weaker conclusion that by means of virtuous action human
beings cannot guarantee their happiness in this life, since the rewards for such action
may be delayed by God until a later earthly existence. See 'Observations on the Book
Concerning "The Origin of Evil" Published Recently in London,' sec. 18 (G vi 419-
20/H 424-5).
39 The consideration of the perfection of things, or, what is the same, of the supreme
power, wisdom, and goodness of God, who does everything for the best, that is, with
the greatest order, is sufficient to make all reasonable people content, and to convince
them that contentment should be greater to the extent that we are disposed to follow
order or reason' (G iv 508/AG 192). 'Since nature brings everything in order, he who
stands closest to that order already can most easily arrive at an orderly contemplation
or orderly conception, that is, at a felt satisfaction, precisely because there can be no
higher satisfaction than to consider and see how good everything is and that nothing
possibly better is to be wished' (G vn 121/W 574).
40 'One can say that this serenity of spirit, which finds the greatest pleasure in virtue
and the greatest evil in vice, that is, in the perfection and imperfection of the will,
would be the greatest good of which man is capable here below, even if he had
nothing to expect beyond this life. For what can be preferred to this internal harmony,
this continual pleasure in the purest and greatest, of which one is always master and
which one need never abandon?' (Mo 61/L 569-70).
41 Cf. Cicero, Defmibus 3.73; Seneca, Ep. 31.8.
42 For Zeno's description of the happy life, see Stobaeus, 2.77 (LS 63A), and Diogenes
Laertius, 7.88: 'the virtue of the happy man and his good flow of life are just this:
always doing everything on the basis of the concordance of each man's guardian
spirit with the will of the administrator of the whole' (LS 63C). For a typical state-
ment of the Stoics' remedy for the passions, see Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.29,
34-5: 'Viciousness is a tenor or character which is inconsistent in the whole of life
and out of harmony with itself... It is the source of disturbances which ... are dis-
orderly and agitated movements of the mind, at variance with reason and utterly
hostile to peace of mind and of life [inimicissimi mentis vitaeque tranquilliae]. For
they cause troubling and severe ailments, oppressing the mind and weakening it with
fear. They also inflame the mind with excessive longing ... a mental powerlessness
completely in conflict with temperance and moderation... So the cure for those vices
is situated in virtue alone' (LS 61O).
43 See Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1994), chs. 9-10.
44 Leibniz does not always clearly separate these two lines of argument. They are, how-
ever, distinguished in Theodicy, sec. 177, where he speaks of his account of divine
justice as supporting 'the confidence in God that gives us tranquility' and 'the love of
God that makes for our happiness' (G vi 220/H 237).
45 For a defence of retribution, see Theodicy, sees. 73-4.
46 See note 34 and Theodicy, sec. 254: 'The pleasures of the mind are the purest, and of
the greatest service in making joy endure' (G vi 267/H 282).
47 'Wisdom is the science of happiness or of the means of attaining lasting contentment,
which consists of a continual advancement toward greater perfection, or at least of
the variation in one same degree of perfection' (G 11136/M 171-2). 'Wisdom is the
science of happiness. It is this which must be studied more than any other science,
since nothing is more desirable than happiness. This is why it is necessary to try to
act in such a way that our mind is always in command of the matter with which it is
occupied, that it often reflects on the end or objective of what it is doing. By asking
ourselves from time to time, what am I doing? to what good is this directed? we are
brought back to the main point. Thus, we guard against amusing ourselves with trivi-
alities, or things that become trivial when one is too devoted to them' (Gr 581-2).
48 Leibniz defends this definition in greatest detail in the essay 'Reflections on the
Common Concept of Justice' (Mo 41-70/L 560-73).
49 'Justice is nothing but what conforms to wisdom and goodness combined. The end of
goodness is the greatest good. But to recognize this we need wisdom, which is
merely the knowledge of the good, as goodness is merely the inclination to do good
to all and to prevent evil, at least if evil is not necessary for a greater good or to pre-
vent a greater evil. Thus wisdom is in the understanding, and goodness is in the will,
and as a result justice is in both' (Mo 48/L 564).
50 'Thus when one is inclined to justice, one tries to procure good for everybody, so
far as one can, reasonably, but in proportion to the needs and merits of each' (Gr 5797
R83).
51 Cf. New Essays iv.viii.12: "universal justice is not merely a virtue - rather, it is the
whole of moral virtue' (RB 432).
52 New Essays iv.xviii.9 (RB 500); Mo 60/L 569.
53 See 'Memoir for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention': 'Now this general good, in
so far as we can contribute to it, is the advancement toward perfection of men, as
much by enlightening them so that they can know the marvels of the sovereign sub-
stance, as by helping them to remove the obstacles which stop the progress of our
enlightenment' (K x 11/R 105).
54 I argue for this point at greater length in chapter 3 of my book Leibniz and the
Rational Order of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
55 'One cannot know God as one should without loving him above all things, and one
cannot love him thus without willing what he wills. His perfections are infinite and
cannot cease. This is why the pleasure which consists in the feeling of his perfections
is the greatest and the most durable possible, that is, it is the greatest happiness; and
that which causes one to love him makes one at the same time happy and virtuous'
(Mo 62-3/L 570). It is significant that Leibniz grounds the love of God on knowl-
edge acquired through discursive reason: 'But one cannot love God without knowing
his perfections, or his beauty. And since we can know him only in his emanations,
there are two means of seeing his beauty, namely in the knowledge of eternal truths
... and in the knowledge of the harmony of the universe. That is to say, one must
know the marvels of reason and the marvels of nature' (Gr 580/R 84).
56 Cf. Leviathan, ch. 11.
57 Cf. G n 136/M \l\\Monadology, sec. 90.
58 On this hidden dynamic, see 'On the Ultimate Origination of Things': 'In addition to
the beauty and perfection of the totality of God's works, we must also recognize a
certain unending and unbounded progress of the universe as a whole, as a result of
which it always proceeds to greater development, just as a large portion of our world
is now developed and more will become so ... Thus progress never comes to an end'
(Gvn308/AG 154).
59 'We finally come to the two great laws which reason teaches us concerning the hang
of destiny itself and the incomparable order it includes: first, that we should regard as
good and proper everything that has already happened or is happening, as though we
might be seeing them from the right viewpoint; secondly, that in all future things or
events that are yet to happen, we should seek to do the good and proper thing as
much as it is possible for us to do. Of these rules, the former gives us every possible
satisfaction in the present, and the latter paves the way to a future, far greater happi-
ness' (G vi i 122/W 575-6). 'Then at last we learn that we have reason to find the
highest joy in all things that have happened and are yet to happen, but that we must
also seek, as far as is in our power, to direct what has not yet happened for the best'
(G vn 87/L 427).
60 The importance it does have is limited to the fate of others, namely, those without the
ability to sustain their own happiness.
61 Irrespective of his virtue, the person who ascribes value to bodily pleasure suffers as
a result of his own error. In general, Leibniz accepts the principle that 'a lesser good
is a kind of evil if it stands in the way of a greater good' (Theodicy, sec. 8). The will
tends toward good in general; it must strive after the perfection that befits us, and the
supreme perfection is in God. All pleasures have within themselves some feeling of
perfection. But when one is limited to pleasures of the senses, or other pleasures, to
the detriment of greater goods, such as health, virtue, union with God, felicity, it is in
this privation of a further aspiration that the defect consists' (Theodicy, sec. 33; G vi
122/H 142).
62 I am grateful to Jon Miller (my commentator in Toronto), Brad Inwood, and Steven
Strange for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
10
Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the
Problem of Evil
ROBERT C. SLEIGH, JR
The primary aim of this paper is to make a contribution toward understanding
Leibniz's rich and intricate treatment of the problem of evil. In my opinion, the
study of Leibniz's treatment of the problem of evil and, more generally, his
philosophical theology is in its infancy compared to the study of some other
aspects of his philosophy. Hence, the aims of this paper are modest - something
like an initial map of selected highlights of the relevant terrain.
There is no doubt that the problem of evil was a life-long preoccupation for
Leibniz. In its most general form, the problem of evil concerns the question of
the consistency of the mere existence of evil in the created world with the
characteristics attributed to its creator by theists, Leibniz included, specifically,
God's moral perfection, holiness, justice, wisdom, and power. Leibniz con-
cerned himself with this general problem of evil but, throughout his career, cul-
minating in the Theodicy, Leibniz also concentrated on specific problems
arising from the various Christian doctrines concerning divine providence,
damnation, salvation, and the consequences of original sin. Four special cases
were of particular concern to him. First, there is a threat to God's holiness,
given his apparent moral concurrence in sin, in virtue of his failure to prevent
sin that it is in his power to prevent. Leibniz claimed that this is the most diffi-
cult special problem to solve. (See, for example, T 107.)
1
Second, there is a
threat to God's holiness generated by Leibniz's acceptance of the thesis that
God physically concurs in all actions produced by creatures, including those
that are sinful; that is, that God causally contributes to each sinful action in such
fashion that, had he not so contributed, that sinful action would not have
occurred. Third, there is a threat to God's justice that arises from the combina-
166 Robert C. Sleigh, Jr
tion of the thesis that God metes out punishment, indeed, eternal damnation, for
a sinful life with the thesis that God exercises complete providential control
over his creation, including those very sinful actions for which he punishes sin-
ners. Fourth, there is another threat to God's justice that arises from the combi-
nation of the thesis that salvation is ultimately a matter of the bestowal of divine
grace with the thesis that such bestowal is gratuitous, that is, utterly indepen-
dent of the merits (or lack thereof) of those on whom such grace is bestowed.
Leibniz coined the term 'theodicee' to refer to problems of this ilk, namely,
problems that concern the justification of the ways of God with respect to his
creation. I follow his lead and call such problems theodicean.
In general, such a problem may be thought of as arising in the following way.
We begin with a set S of propositions about divinity accepted by those alleged
to have a problem. Membership in S may vary from case to case, but candidates
for inclusion are assertions of God's existence, of his various perfections, of his
providential control over his creation, and of the gratuity of his grace. Next we
consider a set E of propositions alleged either to be obviously true or, at any
rate, accepted by theists, about what we might call the downside of the life of
creatures; for example, assertions of the existence of evil in general and sin in
particular, of the fact that many are called but few are chosen, and of the gratu-
ity of healing grace required for salvation. Last, we have the claim that the
union of S and E is an inconsistent set. What we might call a 'Plantinga Style'
defence consists in proving or, at any rate, purporting to prove that there is some
set of propositions D such that the union of S and D is consistent and entails
each element of E. Such a strategy, if successful, shows that the claim that the
union of S and E is inconsistent is false. Leibniz wanted all of that and more.
The more - what yields a 'Leibniz Style' justification if successful - is a pur-
ported proof that the members of D are true. At the core of various purported
justifications Leibniz offered are certain fundamental propositions that he
accepted:
i. This is the best possible world.
ii. Since, in the long term, sin is harmful only to the sinner, it is not absolutely
evil,
iii. Whoever has an evil will deserves punishment, whatever the source of the
evil will,
iv. The ultimate source of evil is in the divine understanding, not in the divine
will.
My main developmental thesis is this: once Leibniz came to accept each of
these propositions, he never rejected any of them, but his views about exactly
Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil 167
what theodicean problems they resolved varied significantly over time. I shall
also suggest that there is some hyperbole in Leibniz's claim that the problem of
divine moral concurrence in sin is the most difficult to resolve. Given his com-
mitment to (i), he did not find it difficult to resolve. I suggest that the problem
of divine physical concurrence in sin gave him the most grief and was attended
by a variety of changes in attitude on his part concerning how best to handle it.
It may be said with only the mildest exaggeration that Leibniz never met a pur-
ported proof for the existence of God that he didn't like, at least in general
terms. The same cannot be said of then extant purported solutions to theodicean
problems, even restricting attention to those that could be considered orthodox,
in some broad sense. In this section, I note those approaches aimed at providing
material for solutions, or partial solutions to theodicean problems that Leibniz
met and rejected, excluding those that he viewed as self-consciously unortho-
dox. In this latter category are various efforts of the Socinians, who denied that
God possesses some of the perfections orthodoxy attributes to him; for exam-
ple, omnipotence and omniscience.
There are four approaches intended to be compatible with orthodoxy and
aimed at providing material for solutions to theodicean problems extant in Leib-
niz's time that he met and rejected. The first makes use of the claim that, as
Leibniz put it in paragraph n of the Discourse on Metaphysics,
... there are no rules of goodness and of perfection in the nature of things ... and the
works of God are good only because of the formal reason that God made them.
The theodicean advantage of this position is this: it insures that any evil state of
affairs that obtains is not willed to obtain by God. This advantage is reached on
the cheap, so to speak. Leibniz rejected this thesis in the same paragraph:
... if that were so, God knowing that he is the author of them had no need to look
upon them afterwards and find them good, as is testified in Holy Scripture.
Leibniz added:
... by saying that things are not good in virtue of any rule of goodness, but in virtue
of God's will alone, it seems to me that we would unthinkingly destroy all love of
God and all His glory. For why praise Him for what He has done, if He would be
equally praiseworthy for doing just the contrary?
1
The second makes use of the infinite gulf between creator and creature. The
idea is that either the notions of duty and obligation have no application to God
so that whatever he does he has not failed to do what he ought to do or, if the
notion of duty does apply in some way to God, still creatures are so insignifi-
cant relative to God, that whatever he does to them couldn't amount to a viola-
tion of a divine obligation. Leibniz accepted the idea that moral obligation has
no straightforward application to God, but he argued that nonetheless some mis-
erable states of affairs (e.g., eternal damnation of the innocent) are incompatible
with divine perfection, and, hence, that there is no solution to any theodicean
problem enhanced by this non-application (CD 66). And he argued that crea-
turely insignificance relative to God cannot be used to justify otherwise unac-
ceptable divine behaviour. Leibniz wrote:
It is vain to reply that we are nothing before Him, not more than the smallest worm
is before us. In fact, this excuse would not diminish, but would rather increase His
cruelty. (CD 116)
Turning to the third and fourth approaches to aspects of the problem of evil that
Leibniz met and rejected, the plot thickens. The third is a version of what we
might call the free-will defence. The free-will defence is particularly well suited
to provide a basis for a solution to the third of our special theodicean problems,
namely, the problem concerning the justice of God's punishing the sinful behav-
iour of creatures, which behaviour, like everything else, is under God's provi-
dential control. Leibniz rejected a libertarian conception of freedom, which has
useful applications to theodicean problems - in particular, the problem concern-
ing divine justice just noted. Let (3 be some sinful choice of some creature.
According to the libertarian account that Leibniz rejected, p's obtaining is nei-
ther metaphysically necessary nor a metaphysical or causal consequence of
something willed to obtain by God; that is, for any state of affairs a such that a
obtains because God wills that a obtains, the conditional (if a obtains then (3
obtains) is neither metaphysically nor causally necessary. By Leibniz's lights,
accepting a libertarian account of freedom is tantamount to denying that God is
the first cause of everything that obtains, a position he regarded as unaccept-
able. Of course, it is just this consequence of a libertarian conception of free-
dom that seems to make it so useful for theodicean purposes. Still, Leibniz
himself hoped to employ freedom for theodicean purposes. There can be no
doubt that Leibniz believed that human beings sometimes make choices that are
free, that only free choices are sinful, and that these two facts are to be utilized
constructively for theodicean purposes. I don't see how. Although scholars
whom I respect and whose work I admire have made serious and sustained
efforts to help me see the error of my ways, I still think that Leibniz was a deter-
minist and compatibilist; and I fail to see how freedom of the sort accepted by a
determinist/compatibilist can aid in the solution of any theodicean problem.
The fourth, and last, of the approaches intended to contribute to the solution
of a theodicean problem while preserving orthodoxy that Leibniz rejected, is
what we might call privation theory. In important early works - 'On the Omni-
potence and Omniscience of God and the Freedom of Man' (1671, A/6/1/537-
46 and A/6/2/579-80) and The Author of Sin' (1672-3, A/6/3/150-1) - Leib-
niz made an effort to characterize privation theory, to characterize its alleged
theodicean contribution to the solution of theodicean problems, and to explain
in derisive terms why the theory cannot so contribute. It was quite common
among non-scholastic philosophers in the seventeenth century to treat privation
theory with derision. I think that the seventeenth-century deriders would have
accepted this way of fixing the reference of the expression 'privation theory,'
along with its alleged theodicean contribution: it is whatever account Saint Tho-
mas offered in, for example, De Potentia Q3, a. 6, ad 20, and Summa Theolo-
giae (ST) i n Q79, a. 2, ad 2. Briefly, the idea seems to be this: sin, like any evil,
is a privation, a lack of some feature that is proper to the bearer of the lack.
God, as first cause, is responsible for the positive features of creatures, but need
not be responsible for all their lacks. In De Potentia Q3, a. 6, ad 20, Saint Tho-
mas considered the objection that if God operates as first cause with respect to
the will of a creature, then defects (sins included) of its voluntary actions must
be ascribed ultimately to God. Thomas replied:
... in sinful action, whatever there is of entity ... is reduced to God as its first cause,
but what there is therein of deformity is reduced to [creaturely] free choice as its
cause.
And, in ST i n Q79, a. 2, ad 2, Saint Thomas considered some sinful act of some
human person. He concluded:
... man is the cause of sin. But God is a cause of the act in such a manner that He is
in no way the cause of the defect accompanying the act; and, hence, He is not the
cause of sin.
It is this theodicean use of the idea that evil in general, and sin in particular, is a
privation that Leibniz criticized in The Author of Sin.' Leibniz first set out his
understanding of the theory:
Concerning this important question of the author of sin, it is commonly believed
that one may avoid the difficulty by claiming that sin in its essence is nothing but a
pure privation ... and that God is not the author of privations. Toward that end, the
famous distinction between the physical aspect and the moral aspect of sin was
introduced - a distinction that has been abused somewhat, although it is good in
and of itself. (A/6/3/150)
Leibniz then formulated his criticism:
Where then is this moral aspect of sin of which so much is said? Perhaps it will be
said that it consists ... in the lack of conformity of the action with the Law, which
lack is pure privation. I agree with that, but I do not see what that contributes to the
clarification of our question. For to say that God is not the author of sin, because
He is not the author of privation, although He can be called the author of every-
thing that is real and positive in the sin - that is a manifest illusion. It is a left-over
from the visionary philosophy of the past, it is a subterfuge with which a reason-
able person will not be satisfied.
I am amazed that these people did not go further and try to persuade us that man
himself is not the author of sin, since he is only the author of the physical or real
aspect, the privation being something of which there is no author. (A/6/3/150-1)
The basic idea behind Leibniz's criticism seems to be this: the moral features of
an action supervene on its natural features in such fashion that anyone who
causally contributes to every aspect of the natural features of an action is
responsible, at least in part, for its moral features. Leibniz's understanding of
privation theory, its theodicean uses, and his criticisms thereof - as formulated
in 'On the Omnipotence and Omniscience of God and the Freedom of Man,'
and in The Author of Sin' - are nearly identical to those of Thomas Hobbes,
formulated in section 22 of chapter 46 of the Latin version of Leviathan. It is a
decent hypothesis that in this matter, as in others in the relevant time period,
Leibniz was much under the influence of Hobbes. In general, that influence
waned. In this particular case, it clearly did for ridicule was not Leibniz's last
word on privation theory and its theodicean applications, as we shall see.
Ill
In the concluding section, I consider Leibniz's positive efforts with respect to
the general problem of evil, and the four theodicean knots to which he devoted
significant attention - problems we may label respectively moral concurrence,
physical concurrence, providential control, and grace. I focus on Leibniz's use
of the four doctrines previously noted: (i) this is the best possible world; (ii) sin
is ultimately harmful only to the sinner; (iii) whoever has an evil will deserves
punishment, whatever the source of the evil will; and (iv) the ultimate source of
all evil is not in the divine will, but in the divine understanding.
Leibniz thought he had a proof that this is the best possible world. This
claim was greeted in its time with derision and its stock has not risen subse-
quently. Given this history, which Leibniz surely could have foreseen, it is sur-
prising that he did not allocate more effort to sustaining the claim. The basic
position is outlined in paragraphs 8 and 9 of the Theodicy; it is also outlined in
numerous other passages, but it is pretty much the same short story in each
such passage. It is this: We know a priori that God must have a sufficient rea-
son for choosing to create one of the infinity of possible worlds. With his
essential omnipotence and omniscience setting the context of choice, the suffi-
cient reason must be located in his essential goodness. The consequence is
that he would create no world were there not one best. But there is a world, so
it must be the best.
Leibniz was well aware that the orthodox position was that expressed by
Saint Thomas Aquinas in ST i Q25, a. 6 - that God has created a very good
world, but not the best, because there is no best. Leibniz felt the need to counter
Thomas. Surprisingly, his manner of doing so is as perfunctory as his alleged
proof for the positive thesis. Before I take note of Thomas's argument and Leib-
niz's reply, I want to indicate that Thomas seems to have presupposed much of
what Leibniz affirmed here. Thomas's claim that there is no best possible world
occurs in the latter half of his reply to objection 3 in Q25, a. 6. That reply begins
with the following claim:
... supposing the very things that do exist, the universe cannot be better than it is.
That is, let a be the set of all and only those possible worlds whose constituent
individuals are all and only the individuals in the actual world. Thomas's claim
is that the actual world is the best world in a. We can imagine Leibniz reasoning
as follows: Surely Thomas would claim to know this a priori. So he must agree
that we can reach conclusions a priori about what God would create in a variety
of circumstances by reasoning of just the sort Leibniz utilized in his proof that
this is the best possible world. Moreover, surely Thomas must accept a general-
ization here: that is, where (3 is any set of possible individuals and a the set of
possible worlds each of which is composed of all and only the individuals in p\
were God to create some world that is a member of a, then God would create
the best. Basically, what separates Thomas from Leibniz on this score is that
Thomas held this thesis: For any possible world a there is some possible world
such that the set of individuals in a is a proper subset of the individuals in (3 and
P is better than a.
Leibniz's first query with respect to this thesis would be how in the world
would Thomas know such a thing to be true? Surely the only grounds are a pri-
ori. The intuition Thomas is working with seems to be this: take a good world,
add some more good things, and you have a better world. Leibniz's response
is that we know no such thing; perhaps adding good individuals will yield
disaster - a worse world. Who knows?
Suppose Leibniz was on solid ground in rejecting Thomas's reasons in favour
of the thesis that there is no best world. Still, Leibniz's claim to know a priori
that were there no best possible world - that is, were Thomas right - then God
would not have created any world, also appears vulnerable, indeed, open to the
following objection. As Robert Adams has put it (footnote 2 of 'Must God Cre-
ate the Best?'):
Leibniz held that if there were no best among possible worlds, a perfectly good
God would have created nothing at all. But Leibniz is mistaken if he supposes that
in this way God could have avoided choosing an alternative less excellent than oth-
ers he could have chosen. For the existence of no created world at all would surely
be a less excellent state of affairs than the existence of some of the worlds that God
could have created.
2
Whether Leibniz is open to this objection is not my present concern. But it seems
clear to me that he might have thought not. In STi
a
Q25, a. 6, Thomas employed
a distinction that resonated throughout subsequent discussions, especially in the
seventeenth century. Thomas answered the question - whether God could make
better things than those that he did make - with a distinction: God could not do
better considered ex parte facientis - with respect to his manner of making; but
God could do better ex parte facti - with respect to the things made. Male-
branche, in particular, emphasized the point that when we reason a priori about
creation choices in various imagined settings, we must pay heed both to the value
of an envisaged choice ex parte facientis and to its value ex parte facti. Couple
this with the idea that although God antecedently favours diffusing his goodness
through creation, it's not really a big deal from his point of view - there is not all
that much in it for him. Certainly, no increment in the total amount of goodness.
Again, Leibniz might appeal to Thomas, who struggled in the Summa contra
Gentiles to provide an explanation for why God would bother to will things other
than himself. The problem is allegedly solved in the later Summa Theolgiae by
placing a communication of goodness principle front and centre of this form:
It pertains to the nature of the will to communicate as far as possible to others the
good it possesses. (Sri
c
Q19 a. 2)
I think Leibniz would have latched onto the 'as far as possible' clause, arguing
this way: A choice of a very good world than which there is a better world
would subject God's choice to second-guessing. And he might argue that any
choice subject to second-guessing of the sort available here significantly lowers
the value of the contemplated choice ex parte facientis. Given that there isn't
sufficient value associated with the communication of goodness that would
ensue there just would not be a sufficient reason, all things considered, for God
to get into the creation business in the circumstances imagined. It's just not pos-
sible given the combination of God's nature and the envisioned circumstances.
In any case, it would take an effort to overestimate the theodicean importance
Leibniz attributed to the thesis that this is the best possible world. It combines
in a fruitful way with what is surely the most frequently employed theodicean
defence; namely, the greater good defence. Consider the following proposition:
GGD: For any evil state of affairs a that obtains, there is some good state of
affairs 6 that obtains such that it is not possible that 6 obtains and a does not,
and it is better that both 6 and a obtain than that neither obtains.
I take it as clear that GGD has theodicean value. Still, to use it as a justification
(as opposed to a defence}, we would need to know that it is true, not just possi-
bly true. Just on this score, Leibniz's commitment to the thesis that this is the
best possible world put him in a strong position. Indeed, Leibniz could affirm
the proposition that results from switching the positions of the quantifiers in
GGD - a proposition that is stronger than GGD, and which implies GGD. He
need only take as value for @ the entire actual world, no matter what value for a
is selected.
In Leibniz's early work on the problem of evil, he came close to the supposi-
tion that utilization of (i) in the manner just indicated was adequate to handle
the general problem, and both moral and physical concurrence. The idea
invoked was this: God is justified in permitting and, indeed, in causally contrib-
uting to evil, provided that the evil is required for a greater good. In an impor-
tant letter to Wedderkopf, written in 1671, Leibniz did not dispute the claim that
ultimately God is an author of sin. Yet he defended God's holiness with the fol-
lowing version of (ii):
Sins are evil, not absolutely, not with respect to God, otherwise He would not per-
mit them, but with respect to the sinner. (A/2/1/118)
I suggest that Leibniz employed the following 'meaning postulate' - state of
affairs a is absolutely evil only if a's obtaining entails that the best possible
world does not obtain. Given this reading, Leibniz's solution to the problem of
physical concurrence amounts to invoking the greater good strategy. He came
to see this as inadequate.
In the early going, Leibniz leaned toward employing (iii) - the doctrine that
an evil will deserves punishment, whatever its source - as a solution with
respect to providential control and divine grace - the two problems that raise a
question about divine fairness in the treatment of creatures. Consider the fol-
lowing passage from 'On the Omnipotence and Omniscience of God and the
Freedom of Man' (A/6/1/542):
You say, 'Why did God not create me better, why did He not give me a more moderate
constitution, a different will, a more enlightened understanding, a happier upbringing
... in a word, more grace? The way I am, I must be a sinner, I must be doomed...' Here
I am not obliged to answer you; it is enough that you did not will to give up your sin-
ning ... Punishment belongs to an evil will, no matter what its source.
It is important to note that Leibniz remained committed to (iii) throughout his
career. Consider the following passage from T 64:
... whatever dependence is conceived in the case of voluntary actions - even if there
were an absolute and mathematical necessity (which there is not) - it would not fol-
low that there would not be as much freedom as would be required in order to ren-
der rewards and punishments just and reasonable.
It is equally important to note that Leibniz came to see his early theodicean uses
of (iii) as inadequate. In his latter writings, he employed one of the most strik-
ing doctrines from his mature metaphysics in order to provide a response to the
'why me?' question posed by the sinner who notes some obvious implications
of Leibniz's strict determinism. Consider the following:
You will insist that you may complain - why did God not give you more strength?
I reply: if He had done that, you would not exist, for He would have produced not
you, but another creature. (A/6/4/1645)
Herein Leibniz was relying on a doctrine that may be formulated as follows:
For any individual x and property F, if x has F, then, for any y, were y to lack F,
y would not be x. Leibniz's theodicean uses of this amazing doctrine deserve a
separate paper.
Even in 'On the Omnipotence ...,' after having affirmed that he need not
answer our query as to why you were not given more grace, Leibniz continued:
Nevertheless, the wisdom of God must be justified in and for itself, although not in
your particular case. (A/6/1/543)
This position - that some global justification for God's decisions with respect to
providence and the ensuring distribution of divine grace must be provided,
although no justification is required in individual cases - is essentially the same
as that of Saint Thomas in ST i
a
Q23, a. 5, ad 3. Thomas stated the position and
set out to explain why no justification, even in general terms, is available in
individual cases. Thomas's view was one orthodox position in the seventeenth
century. After alluding to a version of GGD, taking the world as the relevant
'greater good,' Thomas wrote:
Let us then consider the whole of the human race in the same manner as we just
considered the whole universe. God has willed to manifest His goodness in men -
with respect to those whom he predestines, by means of His mercy in sparing them,
and, with respect to those whom He reprobates, by means of His justice in punish-
ing them. And this is the reason why God elects certain ones and reprobates certain
ones ... Yet why He chooses these for glory and reprobates those has no reason
except the divine will.
Clearly Thomas's account for the position offered could not stand with Leibniz!
Antoine Arnauld claimed that the account offered was one of Thomas's deepest
insights, and the failure of Malebranche and Leibniz to accept it was the princi-
pal fork in the road at which they took a wrong path.
In his maturity, Leibniz came to the conclusion that GGD did not suffice to
justify God's allowing sins to obtain. The principle - non essefacienda male ut
eveniant bona - taken by orthodoxy to be implied by Romans 3:8 - held in the
case of sin, according to Leibniz. (See, for example, T 24.) In Causa Dei, Leib-
niz provided a succinct formulation of what he took to be the relevant principle
of this domain:
... it is always illicit to permit another person to sin unless duty requires this per-
mission. (CD 38).
The principle is elaborated in paragraph 66 of Causa Dei:
... permission of sin is legitimate (that is, morally possible) when it turns out to be a
duty (that is, morally necessary). This is the case whenever another's sin cannot be
prevented unless one violates what one owes to oneself or to others.
In God's case, of course, it could only be what he owes to himself. And in the
next paragraph, Leibniz put his cards on the table, noting that there is something
God 'owes himself that covers every sin that obtains:
... if God had not selected the best series of the universe (in which sin does occur)
for creation,... He would have acted contrary to His own perfection. (CD 67)
We turn to the problem of divine physical concurrence in sin, which, I claim,
is the problem that provided him with the greatest difficulty. We have noted pre-
viously that in his early years Leibniz rejected what he took to be the standard
Scholastic doctrine intended to solve the problem of physical concurrence - pri-
vation theory. Once it became clear to Leibniz that the problem of physical con-
currence, which he termed the problem of the author of sin, was resistant to the
strategies employed with respect to other theodicean problems, he brought (iv)
to bear as the basis for the justification of choice. Recall that (iv) is the thesis
that the ultimate source of evil - sin, in particular - is in the divine understand-
ing over which God has no control, not in the divine will, over which God has
control. Leibniz engaged in a sustained effort in the Confessio Philosophi, writ-
ten in 1672-3, to utilize (iv) in order to solve the problem of sin. I outline the
justification offered in the Confessio, along with what I take to be its inadequa-
cies. My claim is that Leibniz came to see its inadequacies and was forced
thereby to concoct his own complicated version of privation theory.
In the Confessio, Leibniz announced his solution to the problem of the author
of sin as follows:
... although God is the ground (ratio) of sins, nevertheless He is not the author of
sins ... sins are not due to the divine will, but rather to the divine understanding, or,
what amounts to the same thing, to the ... eternal ideas, or the nature of things ...
(A/6/3/121)
Some elements of this purported solution to the problem of the author of sin are
quite clear in the text. No doubt Leibniz held the following theses in the Confes-
sio: (a) there are exactly two modes of divine causation - causation via the
divine understanding and causation via the divine will; (b) each state of affairs
that obtains is caused to obtain either by the divine understanding or the divine
will; (c) God is an author of those states of affairs caused to obtain by the divine
will; (d) sins are not caused to obtain by the divine will. So far, so easy. But
when we turn to details, the picture becomes murky.
Let's start with a problem concerning the understanding of Leibniz's notion
in the Confessio of causation via the divine understanding. Some of Leibniz's
remarks suggest that he was committed therein to the following (where a is any
state of affairs that obtains):
1. God is the cause of a's obtaining via his understanding if, and only if,
necessarily, if God exists then a obtains.
The basis tenor of the Confessio seems to support ascribing the following to
Leibniz:
2. For any state of affairs a that obtains, necessarily, if God exists then a
obtains.
Putting (1) and (2) together, we reach the conclusion that in the Confessio Leib-
niz was committed to the thesis that every state of affairs that obtains is caused
to obtain by the divine understanding. Clearly Leibniz held that some states of
affairs are caused to obtain by the divine will. So, following the present line of
interpretation, we would reach the conclusion that in the Confessio Leibniz did
not take the two modes of divine causation to be mutually exclusive. Unfortu-
nately, many of his remarks therein suggest that he did. Those same remarks
suggest a rather different conception of causation via the divine understanding,
one employing the notion of per se necessity introduced in the Confessio. We
may extract Leibniz's notion of per se necessity from the following account of
per se possibility. A state of affairs is per se possible just in case it is metaphys-
ically possible in the ordinary sense that it obtains, or, if it is not, then the
impossibility of its obtaining does not result from an incompatibility among its
internal intrinsic features, but rather from an incompatibility between those fea-
tures obtaining and some other state of affairs that obtains of necessity. Leibniz
utilized the following example to explain the point. Consider the state of affairs
consisting in some innocent person being damned eternally. Leibniz held that
this state of affairs is per se possible, although it is metaphysically impossible
in virtue of various necessary features of a necessary being, namely, God. The
conception of causation via the divine understanding suggested by many of
Leibniz's examples is this:
3. God is the cause of a's obtaining via the divine understanding if, and only if,
it is per se necessary that a obtains.
Unfortunately, (1) and (3) offer quite different accounts of the relevant notion.
In the Confessio, Leibniz held that no sin obtains of per se necessity. So given
that the two modes mentioned - via understanding and via will - exhaust God's
modes of causal operation, (3) would have the consequence that God is the
cause of sin via his will; that is, that God is the author of sin - exactly what
Leibniz wished to deny. So, if there is a viable account offered in the Confessio,
it must utilize (1) rather than (3). Since (1) and (2) have the consequence that
God's causation via the divine understanding is ubiquitous, the pressure falls on
Leibniz's account of causation via the divine will.
Unfortunately, the notion of causation via the will, that is, of authorship, in
the Confessio is also troubled. I think that a careful examination of it leads to
ascribing the following to Leibniz:
4. Agent A is the author of a's obtaining if, and only if, A is the cause of oc's
obtaining (somehow), and A wills in favour of a's obtaining; that is, A takes
delight in oc's obtaining.
Consider a sin 6 that obtains. Since, given (1) and (2), God is the cause of 6's
obtaining via his understanding, Leibniz's claim that God is not the author of
3's obtaining would amount to the claim that pi's obtaining does not delight
God.
This account may seem not to merit Leibniz's claim in the Confessio to have
devised an account that clarifies in a significant way what the Scholastics
should have asserted on this topic. In his mature treatment of the problem, Leib-
niz was clear that it is not enough to show that God does not take delight in sin;
it is also necessary to show that his causal activity with respect to the sinful
states of affairs that obtain in the world God created does not tarnish his holi-
ness, whatever his preferences with respect to those sins may be. The fact is that
in his mature treatments of the problem of the author of sin Leibniz took refuge
in his own version of privation theory - the theory versions of which were lam-
pooned in 'On the Omnipotence and Omniscience of God and the Freedom of
Man' and 'The Author of Sin.'
In an important paper, 'Concerning Freedom, Fate, and the Grace of God'
(A/6/4/1601-18), Leibniz took up privation theory again. He wrote:
... it seems illusory to say that God concurs in the matter of sin, but not in the for-
mal aspect, which is a privation or anomie. But one should know that this response
is more solid than it seems at first glance, for every privation consists in imperfec-
tion, and imperfection, in limitation. (A/6/4/1605)
This passage utilizes the conceptual tools of Leibniz's final solution to the prob-
lem of the author of sin - a solution on display in the Theodicy. Roughly, the
idea is this. Every created entity is a combination of perfection and limitation.
What is limited in a created entity is the source of its imperfection, and, ulti-
mately, its sin, if it is a rational created entity that sins. The ultimate source of
the limitation present in created entities is to be found in the possible individu-
als in the divine understanding - a source not under the control of the divine
will. In the Theodicy, Leibniz coupled this framework with a theory of concur-
rence between created agent and God in the production of a creaturely action.
Not surprisingly, this theory has the consequence that causal responsibility for
sin falls uniquely to the created agent.
I agree with Gaston Grua's claim that this thesis is central to Leibniz's contri-
bution to the solution of the problem of evil.
3
It is front and centre in a letter to
Molanus:
... every creature is essentially limited; I call this limitation or negation a privative
imperfection, and I add that this is the source of evil, not only of the capacity for
sin, but even of sin itself. (Grua 412)
Making sense of this theory is a task Leibniz scholars have yet to undertake.
Notes
1 The following abbreviations are employed herein:
A German Academy of Science, ed. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Sdmtliche
Schriften und Briefe. Darmstadt, Leipzig, and Berlin, 1923- . Cited by
series and volume. Thus, 'A/6/1/537-46' refers to pages 537 through 546
of the first volume of the sixth series.
CD G.W. Leibniz. Causa Dei. Cited by section number as in Die Philosophis-
chen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz. Ed. C.J. Gerhardt. 7 volumes. Berlin,
1875-90. Reprint. Georg Olms, 1965. Causa Dei occurs in volume 6, pages
437-62.
Grua G.W. Leibniz. Textes inedits. Ed. Gaston Grua. 2 volumes. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1948. Reprint. New York: Garland, 1985.
T G.W. Leibniz. Essais de theodicee (The Theodicy). Cited by section num-
bers as in Gerhardt, volume 6, pages 21^436.
2 See 'Must God Create the Best?' as reprinted in Robert M. Adams, The Virtue of
Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1987), p. 63.
3 Gaston Grua, Jurisprudence universelle et theodicee selon Leibniz (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1953; reprint, New York: Garland, 1985), p. 274.

Kremer & Latzer - The - Problem.of - Evil.in - Early.modern - Philosophy.dec.2001

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Kremer & Latzer - The - Problem.of - Evil.in - Early.modern - Philosophy.dec.2001

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy

This page intentionally left blank

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen