RELATED QUESTIONS:
· The problem of evil in Leibniz’s rationalism. Discuss.
(YOUR
INTRODUCTION)
LEIBNIZ’S RATIONALISM: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Generally, the rationalism of Leibniz is popularly known for his thesis of apperception as being the reason why rationalism is difficult to refute. However, as regarding the problem of evil in Leibniz's rationalism, Leibniz actually tried to solve the problem of evil. He tried to explain that, this world in which we live in, is the best of all possible worlds. And, the reason is because God chose to create this world. Accordingly, what it means for something to be possible is that, it is an embodiment of things that could be. Like, it is possible that Africa could have being a white skinned race.
Now what are possible worlds? Possible worlds are possible realities. They are not worlds in the respect to physical planets but in respect to everything in existence. The actual world is the world which actually and physically exists in reality. The possible worlds do not all exist like the actual world, but they are used to explain and understand things that could be in a logical sense. Now, for something to be necessary means that it exists in all possible worlds. For example, it is necessarily false that a dullard logician can exist. So, Leibniz says that God is a necessary Being. He is necessary because He exists in all possible worlds. There is even a possible world in which only God exists according to Leibniz.
God is a necessary Being and therefore God knows all the possible worlds to create. He knows this because the knowledge of possible worlds is innate in His mind because He is omniscient. He has foreknowledge of all future uncertainties. This view is known as conceptualism. Before creation, God had to know all possible worlds, that is, all worlds which are logically capable of creating. God had to know the blueprint of everything within each possible world. Thus, the possible worlds are contained within God. This knowledge allows God to choose the possible world He wanted to create. His choosing of anyone of these worlds is a completely free action on God’s part because He could exist by Himself. Therefore, Leibniz says that we live in the best of all the possible worlds because since God is all-good and all-knowing, He would have to choose the best of all of these.
According to the free-will defence; now, the actual world (our real world), while still having evil in it, is an extremely good world. It is good because of free-will. The fact that we have free-will is better than if humans were morally all-good by default. For if we were all-good then, we would have no freedom of the will to make choices and choose good or evil. These choices are better than not having choices. This is known as the free-will defence in response to the problem of evil. Leibniz seems to have trouble with the concept of free-will. His possible world idea seems to contradict free-will. If God chose any world (since it was the best world ever), the people in that world would have to do whatever God chose. Although their actions might be contingent and uncertain, God still causally determined it to occur. Thus, Leibniz seems to think that free-will has to exist in the world because it would make all responsibility meaningless.
There seems to be a dilemma here for Leibniz. God’s choosing of a possible world is a completely free act and cannot err if God is all-powerful. Therefore, everything we do as well as all that happens in the actual world was known and chosen by God. So, everything that is (especially evil) must occur; but this does not mean it is necessary but rather foreordained and predetermined by God. Thus, from all that has been said so far, below in a nutshell are some of Leibniz’s main replies to the problem of evil;
· Human minds are only aware of a small fraction of the universe which is our actual world. So, to judge it as full of misery and evil on this small fraction is being too forward. Just as the true perspective or, indeed, any perspective of a building is not visible from viewing a small corner of it, so the proper order of the universe exceeds one’s ability to judge it.
· The best possible universe does not mean that it contains no evil, but that it holds the less of evil which there is.
· Like Augustine, Leibniz claims that evil and sin are negations of positive reality. All created beings are limited and imperfect; therefore evil and sin are necessary for created beings due to this imperfection.
OUR CRITQUE OF LEIBNIZ’S VIEWS
For us, considering Leibniz's theodicy theory as explained above, everything still points back to God. Our point of contention is the above statement which says; “...God’s choosing of a possible world is a completely free act and cannot err if God is all-powerful. Therefore, everything we do as well as all that happens in the actual world was known and chosen by God. So, everything that is (especially evil) must occur; but this does not mean it is necessary but rather foreordained and predetermined by God”. We would be arguing for and against;
· Our arguments for Leibniz's views
God’s choice of one of the possible worlds (which is now our actual world) is a free act. But that does not mean that God caused all the events in the world, but rather, He chose them. Being all-powerful, He certainly allows whatever happens in the world. But that does not mean that He causes whatever happens. Man as a being has some degree of freedom to choose. Thus, whenever we perform immoral acts the fact that He gives us that power and chooses not to over-ride our decision does not make him the cause of the decision, nor does it hinder our freedom of choice. He simply allowed it to be. I like the word “allow” because it preserves God’s sovereignty. Therefore, He has full knowledge of evil, has power to stop it, makes a decision to allow it, but is not the cause of it.
· Our arguments against Leibniz’s views
Also, the fact that everything is foreknown and foreordained (in the sense of not always caused but always allowed) by God does not make the future any more certain than it already is by definition. If we define the future as what “will be” then no one can change the future, not even God. For if the future was to change, then the original event that changed never actually was the future. So, the future is set by definition. But, here is an inconsistency. We know that, if man should choose other than he does, the future would be different than it ought to be. Therefore, on this premise, the future is really no different from the past. This holds because, we all know that had we chosen differently, some aspects of the past would have been different than they are. No one can change the past, but we know that our conscious personal decisions affected what the past became; so it is with the future. It cannot be changed, but what we choose partly determines what it will become. So God’s foreknowledge and fore-ordination of the future does not make it any more certain. Rather, man himself has a role to play in the future.
Lastly, we have an issue with the idea of the best possible world which Leibniz parades in his theodicy. We feel that a best possible world does not exist. And even if it were true that the actual world is the best world, why are there so much pain, suffering, and moral evil in the world? Is it that of all the possible worlds which exist, this is really the best of them? The fact that evil (as we have it today) exists in the world would outrightly contradict this best possible world theory. Another point is, would God even need to actualize the best possible world if it were to exist? Considering the fact that this best possible world has this level of evil in it, it is totally unnecessary for God to allow it to exist. This seems to be quite a problem indeed. It really challenges God’s Omni-qualities.
No comments:
Post a Comment