Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that Leibniz’s form/matter defense of omnipotence is paradoxical, but not irretrievably so. Leibniz maintains that God necessarily must concur only in the possibility for evil’s existence in the world (the form of evil), but there are individual instances of moral evil that are not necessary (the matter of evil) with which God need not concur. For Leibniz, that there is moral evil in the world is contingent on God’s will (a dimension of divine omnipotence), with the result that even though it is necessary that God exerts his will, there are particular products of his will that are contingent and unnecessary—including human moral evil. If there are instances of evil which are contingent on God’s will and yet unnecessary, then the problematic conclusion for Leibniz’s view must be that human evil depends upon divine concurrence, not just for its possibility in the world (which is necessary) but for its instance (which is contingent). If the form/matter defense of omnipotence contains a true paradox, then God concurs in the form as well as the matter of evil. To assuage this difficulty for Leibniz, I will argue that he could either give up an Augustinian notion of evil, or rely upon a distinction between *potenta absoluta* and *potenta ordinate*, which was popular among important thinkers in the medieval period.
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Leibniz, G.W. (1695) ‘Dialogue on Human Freedom’. In Philosophical Essays, Ariew and Garber, trans. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989. Henceforth, abbreviated ‘D’. Other abbreviations of Leibniz’s works are: ‘Letter to Arnauld’ (1686), ‘LA’ in Ariew and Garber; ‘On Contingency’ (1686), ‘OC’ in Ariew and Garber; ‘On Freedom and Possibility’ (1680–82), ‘FP’, in Ariew and Garber; Theodicy, ‘T’. Chicago: Open Court, 1985.; ‘Discourse on Metaphysics’ (1686), ‘DM’ and ‘Correspondence with Arnauld, Leibniz to von Hessen-Rheinfels’ (1686), ‘vH’: both in Philosophical Texts, Woolhouse and Francks, trans., New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, D2, ‘Dialogue on Human Freedom’, Early Modern Texts, edited by Jonathan Bennett, earlymoderntexts.com; ‘DM’; and Confessions, ‘C,’ Confessio Philosophi: Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil, 1671–1678, Translated and Edited by Robert C. Sleigh, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
The distinction between moral and logical/metaphysical necessity is quite complex, and cannot be exhaustively dealt with here. In spite of the many different interpretations of Leibnizian necessity, there is widespread agreement that metaphysical necessity is tied to moral necessity. There is no logical contradiction in denying that God makes the choice he does make, but he is bound morally (Leibniz uses the expression ‘moral necessity’) so that in some sense God could not choose otherwise than he did. For a thorough examination of contemporary scholarship on this issue, see R.S. Woolhouse, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Metaphysics and Its Foundations, Princeton (1998), 120ff.
This may prove to be another problem for Leibniz, of course, since it seems that if all divine attributes are perfect, none should be less than essential to the divine. But, Leibniz would probably answer that essences ground necessity in a divine being, and non-essential things are those things that need not occur. If divine will (though perfect and perfectly free) is also not constrained by necessity, then it is not essential. The contrary to the former implies a contradiction in the divine nature, whereas the contrary to God choosing otherwise (in most cases) does not imply a contradiction. (See ‘Letter to Foucher,’ and ‘On Freedom and Possibility.’)
Michael J. Murray, ‘Spontaneity and Freedom in Leibniz,’ in Leibniz: Nature and Freedom. D. Rutherford and J.A. Cover (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Robert M. Adams. Leibniz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, 16–18.
Robert C. Sleigh, Jr., in his introduction to Confessio Philosophi: Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil, 1671–1678 (New Haven: Yale, 2005, xxvii), writes about Leibniz’s struggle with necessitarianism. Although the full discussion is not relevant to this essay, it is interesting to note that Leibniz’s argument for necessitarianism is as follows: (a) because of various attributes God necessarily has, God necessarily chooses to create the best possible world; (b) whatever possible world is the best, is so necessarily; therefore (c) whatever states of affairs obtain do so necessarily. Sleigh suggests that Leibniz, in his attempt to defend divine freedom, never accepts (c).
See Donald Rutherford, ‘Leibniz on Spontaneity’ in Leibniz: Nature and Freedom. D. Rutherford and J.A. Cover (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 173. A referee for Sophia has noted that this results in God acting like a utilitarian. God chooses what is best, and creates a moral order designed to bring about the best states of affairs, all things considered. Some people will break God’s commands, simply by not paying attention to them. The difficulty with such a reconstruction, along with a typical Leibnizian reading, is that it takes for granted that the amount or potency of evil in the world is necessary. In fact, it obviates the problem: if some evil is contingent, and Leibniz’s divine acts as a utilitarian, then God allows evil to be in the world—not for the good that will occur if it is in the world—but in spite of it. The good of the world happens, and the evil is something to endure because the good is qualitatively better.
Leibniz writes to Arnauld, (LA): ‘Just as we might judge, for example, that a perfect square does not imply contradiction, although there has never been a perfect square in the world, and if one tried to reject absolutely these pure possibilities he would destroy contingency and liberty. For if there was nothing possible except what God has actually created, whatever God created would be necessary and God, desiring to create anything would be able to create that alone without having any freedom of choice.’
Nicholas Jolley. Leibniz. NY: Routledge, 2005, 168.
A critic might point out that if ‘perfection’ is a relative term, then it would be false that things that have limits are necessarily imperfect. For Leibniz, however, this would conflate what is meant by ‘evil’—metaphysical evil is a limitation of created beings, not one for which anyone is morally culpable. (Humans, of course, are not to blame for being created, and God cannot create anything as great as himself, so he is not blameworthy on this point, either.) But, created beings are not as great as God, because they depend on a necessary being for their creation and sustenance. Leibniz reserves the term ‘metaphysical evil’ for the ‘imperfection’ of being limited.
DM 30, T 20. Adams (1994, 50, 56) notes, ‘Leibniz thought this entitled him to hold that evil is not caused by God, but by the limitations inherent in the concepts of the creatures that it was best, on the whole, for God to create.... He also thought it provides an answer to complaints that individuals might be tempted to make against God: “you will insist that you can complain, why did God not give you more strength. I reply: if he had done that, you would not be, for he would have produced not you but another creature.”’
Robert Sleigh. ‘Leibniz’s First Theodicy,’ Nous 30, Supplement: Philosophical Perspectives 10, Metaphysics (1996), 481–499.
‘All action of God arises from cognition, all action arising from cognition is voluntary, all voluntary action is the cause of something good or bad.’ Andreas Blank, Leibniz: Metaphilosophy and Metaphysics 1666–1686. Munich: Philosophia Verlag GmbH. 2005, 151.
This distinction is found, for example, in Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, John Major, and Johann Eck.
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Hernandez, J.G. Moral Evil and Leibniz’s Form/Matter Defense of Divine Omnipotence. SOPHIA 49, 1–13 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-009-0159-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-009-0159-7