Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Positivism and Realism', 'The Theodicy' and 'Thinking About Logic'

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6 ideas

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature

19326	God must be intelligible, to select the actual world from the possibilities [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The cause of the world must be intelligent: for this existing world being contingent and an infinity of worlds being equally possible, with equal claim to existence, the cause of the world must have regarded all of these worlds to fix on one of them.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.127), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II
	A reaction: A wonderfully Leibnizian way of putting what looks like the design argument.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections

19327	The intelligent cause must be unique and all-perfect, to handle all the interconnected possibilities [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The intelligent cause ought to be infinite in all ways, and absolutely perfect in power, in wisdom, and in goodness, since it relates to all that which is possible. Also, since all is connected together, there is no ground for admitting more than one.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.128), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II
	A reaction: Notice that Leibniz's possible worlds seem to be all connected together, unlike David Lewis's worlds, which are discrete. Personally I suspect that all perfections will lead to contradiction, though Leibniz strongly argues against it.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / a. Divine morality

19344	God prefers men to lions, but might not exterminate lions to save one man [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: It is certain that God sets greater store by a man than a lion; nevertheless it can hardly be said with certainty that God prefers a single man in all respects to the whole of lion-kind.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.189), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.IV
	A reaction: Lovely problems arise when you guess at God's values! We have the same problem. Would you kill a poacher who was wiping out the last remaining lions? How many lions would you kill to save a human?

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / b. Euthyphro question

19330	If justice is arbitrary, or fixed but not observed, or not human justice, this undermines God [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The three dogmas (1) that the nature of justice is arbitrary, (2) it is fixed, but not certain God will observe it, or (3) the justice we know is not that which God observes, destroy our confidence in the love of God.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.237), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III
	A reaction: Leibniz proceeds to carefully refute these three responses to the dilemma about how justice relates to God.

28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof

19325	God is the first reason of things; our experiences are contingent, and contain no necessity [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: God is the first reason of things: all that we see and experience is contingent and nothing in them renders their existence necessary.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.127), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II
	A reaction: Perkins presents this as the first step in one of Leibniz's arguments for God. They all seem to be variants of the ontological argument. [His 'Theodicy' is the Huggard translation, 1985] This resembles Aquinas's Third Way.

28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof

19329	The laws of physics are wonderful evidence of an intelligent and free being [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: These admirable laws [of physics] are wonderful evidence of an intelligent and free being, as opposed to the system of absolute and brute necessity, advocated by Strato and Spinoza.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.332), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II
	A reaction: Note the swipe at Spinoza. Leibniz defends the absolute necessities residing in God, but is too polite to call those 'brute', though personally I can't see the difference. But he says the laws arise from 'perfection and order', not from God's necessity.