kremer & latzer - the.problem.of.evil.in.early.modern.philosophy.dec.2001

The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy

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The Problem of Evil inEarly Modern Philosophy

Edited by

ELMAR J. KREMER ANDMICHAEL J. LATZER

U N I V E R S I T Y O F T O R O N T O P R E S SToronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2001Toronto Buffalo LondonPrinted in Canada

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Toronto Studies in PhilosophyEditors: 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. 3-5,1999ISBN 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

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University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishingactivities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing IndustryDevelopment Program (BPIDP).

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Contents

Contributors vii

1 Introduction 3Elmar J. Kremer and Michael J. Latzer

2 Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts 10Alfred J. Freddoso

3 Descartes's Theodicy of Error 35Michael J. Latzer

4 Spinoza: A Radical Protestant? 49Graeme Hunter

5 Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil 66Steven M. Nadler

6 Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism orPhilosophical Courage? 81

Denis Moreau

1 Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil 101D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon

8 Leibniz and the 'Disciples of Saint Augustine' on the Fate ofInfants Who Die Unbaptized 119

Elmar J. Kremer

vi Contents

9 Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of Theodicy 138Donald Rutherford

10 Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil 165Robert C. Sleigh, Jr.

Contributors

Alfred J. FreddosoGraeme HunterElmar J. KremerD. Anthony LariviereMichael J. LatzerThomas M. LennonDenis MoreauSteven M. NadlerDonald RutherfordRobert C. Sleigh, Jr,

University of Notre DameUniversity of OttawaUniversity of TorontoLakehead UniversityGannon UniversityUniversity of Western OntarioUniversite de NantesUniversity of Wisconsin, MadisonUniversity of California, San DiegoUniversity 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 andwrestled with in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Or perhaps'problems' of evil would be a better designation, since many distinct issues areto be found within the labyrinthine twists and turns of this momentous issue.For the philosophers of the period, the task of theodicy was both philosophicaland theological. Philosophically, evil presented a challenge to the consistencyand rationality of the world-picture disclosed by the new way of ideas. But indealing with this challenge, philosophers were also influenced by the theologi-cal debates about original sin, free will, and justification that were the aftermathof 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 ismalevolent. 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 inconsistenttriad: God is omnipotent; God is benevolent; and yet evil exists. It seems thatany two parts of the triad taken together are inconsistent with the third. Theexistence of an almighty and benevolent God is consistent with the appearanceof 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 benevolentand limited in power. And, of course, if the divine attributes are held to bebeyond 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 anyway humans can understand; hence the alleged compatibility of God and evilcould not be established. Classical theism, however, disallows the abandonmentof any part of the triad, and insists that we can express the divine attributes atleast 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 wasa lifelong preoccupation: A genuine theodicy must consist of a set of proposi-tions, not just hypothetical but actually true, capable of showing the ultimateconsistency of the existence of God and evil without sacrificing the attributes ofGod 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, towhom Leibniz himself owed a great deal. The intellectual struggle with theproblem of evil defines the philosophy of Augustine to an enormous degree. Ashe records in his Confessions, as a young man Augustine was attracted to thesect of the Manichaeans precisely because of their rational solution to the prob-lem of evil: cosmic dualism. Rather than fruitlessly endeavouring to show howa 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 theproduct of the good god. In the seventeenth century, Pierre Bayle will ironicallyhail the 'hypothesis of the two principles' as indeed the only truly reasonablesolution to the problem. But Augustine found the answer to Manichaeism in hisdiscovery of the 'nothingness' of evil. Because evil is literally no-thing, butsimply the privation or absence of a good which ought to be present, there is noneed to trace its presence to any evil god, still less to the positive will of the onegood God. God merely 'permits' the privatio boni which his power could easilyprevent, but which his goodness allows, for his own good reasons.

What are these reasons? One of the most famous and influential Augustiniancontributions, with roots in both pagan philosophy and biblical revelation, is theso-called 'aesthetic' theme: that whole consisting of evil and the good madepossible by and drawn out of evil is better than a condition simply good tobegin with, just as shadows are needed in paintings and dissonance in musicalcompositions. Along with this theme, Augustine developed what has come tobe called the 'free will defence.' God is able to draw good even out of thedisordered (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 evilaround us.

As perennial as the themes of Augustine's theodicy are the challenges tothem, 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 eventhe best of all possible worlds - does this not amount to a denial of the reality ofevil? Is the appearance of evil not in the end a function of the limitation ofhuman perception, such that, to an unclouded mind, 'whatever is, is right'? Andif 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 nocreatures are really free? So acute is this problem, and so contentious in thehistory of Christian dogma, that Leibniz calls it a 'labyrinth' wherein humanreason goes inevitably astray. In the two centuries following the ProtestantReformation, the problem of freedom and predestination reached an unsur-passed degree of crisis, involving not just a plethora of excruciatingly difficultand sophisticated attempts at solution, but social and cultural upheaval as well.Thus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the theodicy problem was nomere idle puzzle of dogmatics, but a problem of immense social significance, aproblem which cut to the heart of the philosophical and theological projects ofthe very best minds of the age.

II

The problem of theodicy is urgent within the philosophy of the early modernperiod because the dream of the new scientists was for a complete explanationof 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 theproblem 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 problemcannot hold, since error is intimately connected with sin or moral evil, andDescartes is impelled to wrestle with evil like any traditional theodicist. In theFourth Meditation, he offers a version of the 'free-will defence,' locating theorigin of evil in the will of the erring creature. However, as Michael Latzerargues, Descartes's free-will defence founders on his conception of God's abso-lute and inscrutable predestination of all events, including human acts ofthought and will. Descartes presents this conception in his correspondence withPrincess Elizabeth as consoling - there is a Providence that shapes our ends.But tracing evil to its source in utterly unfathomable divine decrees, and placingGod above the laws of mathematics and logic, as Descartes does, spells the endof a rational theodicy.

Descartes would have wanted to avoid such an outcome. But Spinoza, bycontrast, makes a conscious and systematic effort to undermine the traditionalpreconditions 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' thatSpinoza's denial that God acts by free choice, that God is 'good' (as defined byclassical theism), and that God acts for the sake of ends, places him outside thedomain of traditional theodicy. But Spinoza is also interested in the project ofconsolation. 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 hintsof his own prescription for happiness: freedom through scientia intuitiva, orknowledge 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 goodrealized.

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 radicalProtestant reformation. Hunter rejects the traditional reading of the TractatusTheologico-Politicus through the lenses of the Ethics, and examines Spinoza'sdicta in the Tractatus concerning the spirit of Christ, the essentials of Christianbelief, and the principles of Christian reformation on the premise that they weresincerely held and seriously intended. Hunter argues that against the crudeanthropomorphism of Cartesian divine voluntarism, the Spinoza of the Tracta-tus offers an orthodox understanding of divine providence, ruling all things bygrace, mercy, and pity.

Leibniz is another of the moderns whose Christian orthodoxy seems to situneasily with his philosophical principles. The tension in Leibniz's case isbrought out by Donald Rutherford in 'Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolationsof Theodicy.' Like the Stoics, Leibniz teaches a doctrine of consolation basedon the pursuit of virtue grounded in the knowledge of divine justice. Leibnizinsists that his conception of the Fatum Christianum offers a richer consolationthan 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 ofworldly suffering, or in the timeless beatific vision, but in the 'perpetualprogress' of the unending development of substances, and the independencefrom fortune which true virtue, and conformity with the universal will, provide.

Recognition of the seriousness of Leibniz's consolatory and apologetic aimsin 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 tracessome of the developments in Leibniz's thinking from the time of the early Con-fessio Philosophi, through the Discourse on Metaphysics, and finally theTheodicy, particularly with regard to Leibniz's handling of the classical themesof the free-will defence and of evil as privation. As always in the work of thegreat 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 idiosyncraticmetaphysical 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 thetheodicies of the moderns. But as Denis Moreau argues in 'Malebranche onDisorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism or Philosophical Courage?' Male-branche is a notable exception. For, in a striking way, Malebranche is willing toallow that God's governance of the world through simple 'ways,' while unim-peachable and wholly worthy of the Creator, may (and indeed does) involvedysteleological 'surd' evils, instances of suffering of which we can say, withoutany qualification, nuance, or excuse, 'It's evil.' Arnauld claimed that in thisrespect 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, unlikeDescartes, 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, involvesthe labyrinthine problem of freedom and predestination, particularly in the cau-sation of sin. Although a problem with a biblical lineage, the contingencies ofhistory 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 tothe 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 reasonedrefutation of Luther on freedom, Erasmus's On the Freedom of the Will, wascrushed by the more powerful reasoning of Luther's mighty Bondage of theWill. 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 struggleover grace and freedom which Catholics fought with Evangelical and ReformedChurches spilled over into battles among Catholics.

The most important debate on these topics within the Catholic Churchoccurred in the meetings of the Congregationes de Auxiliis. These were ad hoccommittees of cardinals called together to resolve a dispute that began in 1588with the publication of the Jesuit Luis de Molina's work on the agreement offree will with grace, and related matters, 'according to Several Articles in St.Thomas,' and its repudiation by Domingo Banez, a more traditional Thomistand the leading Dominican theologian of the time. The meetings lasted from2 January 1598 until 28 August 1607, and ended without a resolution of theissues. Dispute broke out again among Catholics after the publication of Jan-sen's Augustinus in 1640 and continued into the eighteenth century. AlfredFreddoso'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 campat the threshold of the seventeenth century. Suarez's finely tuned analysis of theconcurrence of God in the sinful acts of creatures is an attempt to walk therazor-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 withinthe Catholic Church, provided much material for Pierre Bayle's Historical andCritical Dictionary. Bayle's massively erudite work intensified the theodicyproblem on many fronts, and, whatever Bayle may have intended, providedammunition for atheology well into the late eighteenth century. (Its influence isfelt, for example, in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.) Some ofBayle's aporetic challenges on the freedom-foreknowledge issue are discussedby D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas Lennon in 'Bayle on the Moral Problemof Evil.' Typically cloaking his views in commentary on the views of others,Bayle voices his dislike of classical solutions by approving the Socinian denialof foreknowledge. This move seemed to Bayle at least more reasonable than theunfathomable affirmation of both divine foreknowledge and human liberty ofindifference, to be found, for example, in the theodicy of William King. Moregenerally, 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 andcreatures, so that we cannot get away with claiming God's goodness is quiteunlike ours, subject to different rules; and, second, that God is utterly free tomake any world, unfettered by any need to achieve plenitude of being, or anyother 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 inLeibniz'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, heexpresses his pleasure at the favourable reception of the Theodicy by 'excellenttheologians of the three religions.' Yet, as we have seen in connection withDonald Rutherford's essay, Leibniz's own theological views were sometimessufficiently unorthodox to threaten his project. Elmar Kremer, in 'Leibniz andthe "Disciples of Saint Augustine" on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized,'argues that Leibniz's repudiation of the Augustinian position on this particularpoint led him to a markedly unorthodox position on original sin. Kremer alsoargues that Leibniz's position on the fate of infants who die unbaptized reflectsan important break with the Augustinian division of the problem of evil into twoparts, one dealing with humans (and other intelligent creatures) and one dealingwith subhuman creatures.

Leibniz's discomfiture is archetypical of the early modern philosophers intheir dealings with the problems of theodicy. Their philosophy tended to putthem at odds with all of the important Christian theological positions on sin,grace, and justification. Yet they were forced, for practical as well as theoreticalreasons, to stay in touch with the ongoing theological discussion. It is our hopethat the studies in this volume will stimulate further research into the resultingstruggles of the early modern philosophers to resolve this most poignant andtroubling of problems.

The papers in this volume were delivered at a conference on the problemof evil in early modern philosophy held at the University of Toronto during3-5 September 1999, and sponsored by the SSHRC, by the Department ofPhilosophy, University of Toronto, and by St. Michael's College, Universityof Toronto. We would like to thank Sebastien Charles and Syliane Charles ofthe 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 providedcommentaries on the papers, as well as those who attended and took part in thediscussion at the conference.

Suarez on God's Causal Involvementin Sinful Acts

ALFRED J. FREDDOSO

1. Introduction: Evil and God

In this paper I will explore certain key features of Francisco Suarez's account ofGod's action in the world, with an eye toward explaining his view of the preciseway 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 withhis mainly Thomistic opponents that God is an immediate cause of every effectproduced by creatures - including every free act and, a fortiori, every sinful actelicited by creatures with a rational or 'free' nature. But he differs markedlyfrom them in his account of how it can be plausibly maintained that Godpermits sin without causing sin or, to put it somewhat differently, how it canbe plausibly maintained that the moral defectiveness of a sin is not traceableto God as a source.

The heart of the paper will be drawn from sections 2-4 of Disputation 22 ofthe 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 iseither (a) the privation of some good that ought to belong to a given subject inview of its nature and powers or (b) the subject itself insofar as it suffers such aprivation. Beyond this, however, he notes that a positive entity can be 'evil foranother' in the sense that its presence in a particular type of subject entails theabsence of some good which that subject ought to have. Such an entity might bea natural evil, that is, a positive entity that deprives its subject of some naturalgood 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 entitythat is naturally bad for water, since water is by its nature cold; again, a sixthfinger 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, moregenerally, 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, entitiesthat are bad for a free nature precisely insofar as it is free. Moral evil is dividedinto the evil of sin or fault (malum culpae) and the evil of punishment (malumpoenae), a distinction that Suarez characterizes as follows:

We can say succinctly and clearly that the evil of sin (malum culpae) is a disorderin a free action or omission - that is, a lack of due perfection as regards a freeaction - whereas the evil of punishment (malum poenae) is any other lack of a duegood 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 rationalwill, is defective because by its nature it induces a privation of the due orderingto God that its subject - a free and rational creature - ought to have. An evil ofpunishment, 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 inflictsor at least permits.

Although Suarez concedes that from outside the Christian perspective itseems that human beings suffer natural evils that are in no way connected withsin, he nonetheless notes that, according to the Faith, all the natural evils thatbefall us as human beings in fact stem ultimately from sin and especially fromoriginal sin, since God's antecedent intention was that we should be free fromsin and suffering and death:

Even though, leaving aside divine providence, one could conceive of some naturalevil in a rational creature which was not inflicted because of any fault and whichwould 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 rationalcreature unless it is a sin or else takes its origin from sin. It is for this reason thatAugustine, In Genesim ad litteram, chap. 1, says that every evil is either a sin or apunishment for sin. In fact, it is not only the evil that exists formally in humanbeings, but also that which exists in irrational and inanimate things, to the extentthat it results in harm for human beings themselves, that pertains to the evil ofpunishment - not punishment with respect to the lower things but with respect tothe 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 Christiandispensation the evil of punishment loses its character as punishment when it iswillingly embraced in atonement for sin out of supernatural love for God andneighbour 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 relevantpoints. Some natural evils are the per accidens or incidental by-products of the'perfect' action of unimpeded and non-defective created (or secondary) agentson non-defective patients, and as such they are traceable to God's immediateinfluence in the same way that they are traceable to the immediate influence oftheir proximate secondary causes. By contrast, other natural evils find theirdirect source in a defect of power in the agents that cause them or in variousexternal impediments that keep their agents from 'perfectly' producing theeffects at which they are aiming. Such evils are not causally traceable directly toGod, but they are traceable to him indirectly and in the final analysis, since thevarious 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 hecannot be a per se and immediate cause of them (DM 11.3.21). So on Suarez'sview there is in principle no metaphysical or moral problem with God's being acausal source in some way or other of natural evils and evils of punishment.

Sinful actions, however, are a different story because they constitute a freeagent's rejection of God's unfailing love and impede the agent's union with Godand with other rational creatures. As such, they have a special repugnance toGod's goodness and are directly contrary to what he intends. Thus, even thoughGod 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 wayinduce 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, butonly permitted. On the other hand, the other kinds of evil, wherever they comefrom, 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. Andso it is only the evil of sin that God cannot be a cause of, whereas he can be a causeof the other kinds of evil. (DM 11.3.24)


So as far as the causal origin of evil is concerned, the only daunting generalmetaphysical problem, according to Suarez, is to explain in a precise and per-suasive way how God makes an immediate causal contribution to each sinful actwithout its being the case that the moral defectiveness of such acts is causallytraceable 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 hisaccount of God's general concurrence in Disputation 22 of the DisputationesMetaphysicae. By the end of Disputation 21, Suarez takes himself to haveestablished 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 whetherevery effect likewise depends on God per se and immediately for its production.When the production takes place directly through creation ex nihilo, the answeris obviously affirmative. But the more problematic case is production throughthe communication of an accidental or substantial form, since such productionis normally effected by the action of secondary causes.

The question can be put in a slightly different way by asking whether God actsper se and immediately in every action of a created or secondary cause. To besure, 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 fromthis it follows only 'that God's influence is required ... remotely andperaccidensfor the action of any created cause' (DM 22.1.1). The question now being posedis whether every action of a created agent is literally a single cooperative actionwith the First Agent, an action in which both God and the created agent are perse 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. Theseconstitute 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 thesetwo tenets, it follows that in each case of secondary causality, a unitary effect isimmediately produced by God and the relevant secondary cause through a sin-gle cooperative action. In other words, the effect is not divided into a partcaused 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 thataction belongs to both God and the secondary cause.


The third tenet is that even though there is just a single action, God andthe secondary agent act by different powers within diverse orders of causality.More specifically, the secondary agent acts by its created or natural powersas a particular cause of the effect, whereas God acts by his uncreated power asa general or universal cause of the effect. (Hence the designation 'generalconcurrence.')

This tenet requires careful unpacking. Concurrentists are committed to theview that when God cooperates with a secondary agent to produce a giveneffect, God's immediate contribution and the secondary agent's immediatecontribution are complementary. The problem is to formulate a satisfactorymetaphysical characterization of this complementarity that will not rendersuperfluous either the secondary cause's immediate contribution or God'simmediate contribution.

The only viable way to do this is to claim that certain features or aspects ofthe unitary effect are traceable exclusively or primarily to God and that certainother features of the effect are traceable exclusively or primarily to the second-ary agents.1 Accordingly, the concurrentists claim that God acts as a universalcause whose proper effect is being or esse as such, while the secondary causeparticipates in God's universal agency by directing it toward its own propereffect, that is, toward a particular effect to which its intrinsic powers are orderedin the relevant concrete circumstances. This should not be understood to meanthat 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 andthe secondary cause's action are one and the same action, and so just as theactions of secondary causes are obviously multifarious in species, so too God'sconcurrence varies in species from one circumstance to another.2 Rather, thepoint of calling God a universal cause of the effects of secondary agents is, inpart, that any communication of esse by a secondary agent is a participation orsharing in God's own communication of esse as such, and that God's manner ofallowing for this participation is to tailor his proper causal influence in eachcase 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 towrite you a letter. It seems clear that both the pen and I count as joint immediatecauses 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 instrumentalcause.3 Yet the fact that the letter is written in black rather than in some othercolour depends primarily on the causal powers of the pen as an instrumentalcause rather than on any of my powers as a principal cause. (Remember that weare 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 intothat.) On the other hand, the fact that the word 'philosophy,' rather than someother word, occurs at a certain place on the piece of paper - or, even better, thefact 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'sas 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 fromits secondary cause insofar as it is an effect of one particular type rather thananother. For example, a newly conceived armadillo is from God insofar as it issomething rather than nothing, and from its parents insofar as it is an animal ofthe species armadillo rather than some other sort of effect.4 This formulationseems to capture both (a) the idea that a secondary cause's communication ofesse presupposes God's contribution and (b) the idea that the particular typeof esse communicated in any instance of secondary causality stems from thenatures 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 particularcauses contribute to its production in distinctive and non-redundant modes.

By contrast, if God had acted by himself to create the baby armadillo exnihilo, then he would have been a particular cause of the new armadillo (see DM22.4.9). As it stands, however, his cooperative influence is merely general oruniversal in the sense that he allows the active powers of the relevant secondaryagents to determine the specific nature of the very same effect that his owninfluence 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 agentsand is different from the mode of acting he would have engaged in if he hadcaused 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 theorder of secondary causes, needs God's concurrence in order to be exercised. AsSuarez puts it, God's readiness to grant his concurrence to a created agent in aset of concrete circumstances is one of the prerequisites for that agent's actingin 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 havebeen posited in reality. It follows that even though a created agent might have apower 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 theeffects of secondary agents, the concurrentists delineate a mode of cooperative


action that defines a middle position between occasionalism, which in essenceholds that God is a particular cause of every effect produced in the world, andthe 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 distinctionbetween universal and particular causality gives concurrentists the resources toexplain how two agents, operating by different powers and in different orders ofcausality, 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 asinful action is traceable exclusively to the rational agent who is its secondarycause. 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 defectis traceable to the pen as an instrumental cause and not to my influence as aprincipal 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 traceableexclusively 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 sourceof their own moral defects, whereas the defects of natural agents must alwaysbe derived in the final analysis from the positive action of some other agent oragents [see DM 11.3.23].) However, as noted, the distinction between universaland particular causality provides only a foothold for the claim that God is not asource of the moral defectiveness of sinful actions. For the basic account ofconcurrence needs to be fleshed out more precisely, and it remains to be seenwhether the other elements in a full account of God's general concurrence willthemselves 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 FirstCause and the action insofar as it is from the secondary cause, then the action canbe said to be from the First Cause in a prior and more principal way than from thesecondary cause; and, similarly, the First Cause will be said to have his influenceon 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 morenoble and more independent way. Second, the First Cause is related to the actionper se and primarily under a more universal concept, since the First Cause has aninfluence on every effect or action whatsoever precisely because every effect oraction has some share in being. The secondary cause, on the other hand, always hasits influence under some posterior and more determinate concept of being. (DM22.3.10)


Later I will raise the issue of whether this account of subordination is strongenough as it stands, but all parties would agree to at least as much as Suarezasserts here.

The fifth and final tenet is that in any given case the cooperative action ofGod and the secondary cause with respect to a given effect is such that the influ-ence actually exercised by the one would not have existed or effected anythingat all in the absence of the influence exercised by the other. This follows fromthe 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'sgeneral concurrence complements the particular concurrence of the secondarycause and hence does not overdetermine the effect.

This, then, is the sort of divine cooperation with secondary causes that bothSuarez and his opponents are concerned to defend.6 I want to turn now to thedifferences between them that emerge from the attempt to fill out this basicaccount.

3. The Thomistic Gambit

In section 2 of Disputation 22, Suarez tries to show, against unnamed 'laterThomists' (DM 22.2.7), that God's general concurrence involves nothing otherthan 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 effectwithin the secondary agent itself that is in any way prior to the cooperativeaction by which that agent's own effect is produced; rather, God's concurrenceis 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 isthat God's general concurrence is 'something in the manner of an action' andnot 'something in the manner of a principle of action.'

But what is it to claim that God's concurrence involves 'something in themanner of a principle of action' ? And why do many Thomistic authors makethis claim?

To answer these questions, we should begin by noting that the theoriesopposed to Suarez's take their inspiration from a model that many scholasticthinkers associate with certain traditional axioms regarding the subordination offinite agents to God, namely, that of a craftsman using a tool in order to producean artifact - not unlike the example of the pen and the letter I used above toillustrate 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 theproduction 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 thetool 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 twopossible answers to this question, corresponding to the two theories that Suarezcriticizes in section 2.

According to the first answer, in using the tool the craftsman imparts to it apower 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 evenwithin its own order of causality - namely, instrumental causality - and so thatpower needs to be supplemented by a 'higher agent,' the craftsman. Moreover,the power conferred by the craftsman is best thought of as temporary in thesense that it is not a type of power that could be had by the tool as an accidentalform or characteristic that endures beyond the temporal interval during whichthe craftsman is using it; that is, it is a type of power that the tool has when andonly when it is being moved by the higher agent in the cooperative action bywhich the artifact is produced.

According to the second answer, in contrast, the craftsman does not empowerthe tool, but simply applies the tool's intrinsic power to the patient in such away 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 needsupplementation. Instead, the tool, with its pre-existent power, simply needs tobe moved or directed in the appropriate ways by a higher agent in order to beproximately able to participate in the production of the effect. In technicalterms, 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 obvioussense - even if not temporally prior - to the cooperative action by which theartifact is produced.

So the answer to the original question is this: The relevant principle of actionconferred on the tool by the craftsman is either a power or the application of apower. And it is the reception of this principle of action that constitutes thetool's subordination to the craftsman during the time of their cooperative action.

When we turn now to God's general concurrence with secondary causes, thismodel, articulated in one of the ways just explained, yields the standard inter-pretations of the following scholastic axioms: (a) 'A secondary cause does notact unless it is moved (or: pre-moved) by the First Cause'; (b) 'A secondarycause is applied to its action by the First Cause'; (c) 'A secondary cause isdetermined (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 issubordinated 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 thatSuarez 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 incooperation with the secondary cause, where the completion of the power iscausally (rather than temporally) prior to the cooperative action. Suarez givestwo descriptions which, taken together, capture the most plausible version ofthis theory:

The concurrence is a certain entity that emanates from the First Cause and isreceived 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 andinfused power ... The concurrence begins, as it were, with the conferral of thispower and yet does not consist in this conferral [alone], but rather proceeds furtherright to the creature's very own action, with the result that what influences theaction immediately is not only the power communicated to the secondary cause butalso 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, secondaryagents 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 technicalterms, secondary agents are as a general rule 'perfectly constituted in first actwithin 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 causeneeds to be supplemented by God or some other higher agent at the very time ofthe action, this supplementation is naturally prior to God's general concurrenceand not apart of it:

It is true that God sometimes, at least supernaturally, makes up for a secondarycause's imperfection by supplementing its power to act; he does this especially inour own case when he infuses the supernatural habits. But this falls outside of ourpresent topic, since such an infusion of power has to do not with the First Cause'sconcurrence, but rather with the secondary cause's being elevated or perfected


through the First Cause's action. Accordingly, if we are speaking of a secondarycause that has been perfectly constituted in first act within its own order, then it ispointless to add to it some other principle of acting that is received within it. (DM22.2.4)

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 whenthe secondary cause proceeds from 'first act' into 'second act' - that is, onlywhen it proceeds from already having sufficient power to actually exercisingthat power - that God's concurrence comes into play.

And in reply to the objection - again inspired by the model of the craftsmanand the tool - that the power conferred by God on the secondary cause is indeedpart of his general concurrence because that power is an instrument throughwhich he himself acts, Suarez asks whether or not God's contribution to theeffect 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 thesecondary agent's effect, since the only power by which he acts is a createdpower that inheres, even if only briefly, in the secondary cause. On the otherhand, if God's contribution to the joint effect is not exhausted by the productionof this alleged instrumental power, but includes as well an independent andimmediate exercise of his own uncreated power, then any instrumental power iswholly superfluous:

If ... in addition to the influence of this instrumental power, God is also said toinfluence 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 thatremains on God's part would be. For the divine power is intimately present therethrough 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 necessarilyhave 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 isunnecessary; 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 essentialsubordination to the First Cause. (DM 22.2.6)

At this juncture, the objector might concede Suarez's point but insist thateven if God does not confer any power on the secondary cause, he must at leastapply or pre-move or predetermine that cause, with its own intrinsic power, inorder to make it proximately capable of producing the joint effect. For surely,


the argument goes, the secondary cause's essential subordination to God can bepreserved 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. Suarezcharacterizes 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 thatGod's concurrence occupies itself with the secondary cause prior to the latter'saction, 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 secausing 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 thesecondary 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 leastcausally prior' to the secondary cause's action (DM 22.2.7). For even thoughthe application is temporally simultaneous with the action by which God andthe secondary cause cooperate in the production of the latter's effect, it has thesecondary cause itself as its subject and hence cannot be identical with thecooperative 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 scholasticaxioms 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 bepre-moved or applied to its action; that is, it must be directed or determined bythe art and power of the divine craftsman to produce the effect that its ownintrinsic power is proportioned to. And just as the tool acts in the power of thecraftsman, 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 canparticipate in producing the craftsman's proper effect - namely, the artifact - sotoo the secondary cause is elevated by the First Cause's application so that it canparticipate 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 tocall the alleged application (or pre-motion or predetermination) 'neither neces-


sary nor fully intelligible' (DM 22.2.14). He argues in effect that while themodel of the craftsman and the tool might help us to appreciate certain generalfeatures 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 thetool into the appropriate spatial relations with the patient. By contrast, God'sgeneral concurrence already presupposes that the secondary agent is suitablyproximate to its patient. For this proximity is one of the prerequisites for thesecondary agent's action, and God's general concurrence presupposes that allthe 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 accidentalforms. By contrast, there is no plausible analogue for such an effect in the caseof God's putative application of the secondary cause:

If [the application] is an instance of real efficient causality, then it will be a realmovement or change belonging to the secondary cause. What terminus, then, doesit have? Not a spatial terminus or a terminus in any category other than quality, asseems per se evident. But neither can the terminus be a quality. For if this quality isbestowed 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 bestowedin order to effect anything, then it has nothing to do with acting, and there is nopossible reason why it should be called a necessary condition. You will object thatit is necessary for conjoining the secondary agent to the First Agent in the way thatan 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 theconjoining in question is neither a real union nor a more intimate presence, but onlysome new effect, the role of and need for which in the secondary cause's action iswhat we are scrutinizing. (DM 22.2.23)

So unlike the craftsman's application of the tool, God's alleged application ofthe secondary cause has no obviously relevant effect within the secondarycause. Suarez's conclusion is that God's concurrence does not, after all, involvean 'application' of the secondary cause in any non-metaphorical sense.

Again, whereas the tool's acting in the power of the craftsman is perhapsidentifiable with the craftsman's application of it, a secondary cause's acting 'inthe 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 actualinfluence of that power' (DM 22.2.51). But this is compatible with the claimthat 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 whenapplied to the free actions of rational creatures. According to Suarez, an agent isfree just in case, with all the prerequisites for acting having been posited, thatagent is (a) able to act - that is, to will - and also able not to act (freedom withrespect to exercise); and (b) able to will an object and also able to will somecontrary object (freedom with respect to specification).8 His charge in thepresent context is that because the pre-motions or predeterminations posited byhis opponents are causally prior to the secondary cause's action and orderedtoward 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 withrespect to specification:

The condition called a 'predetermination' is not only unnecessary for a free causein light of its peculiar mode of acting, but is also for that very reason incompatiblewith it if it is going to act freely with respect to both exercise and specification. Forthe 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 thespecification 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 weshowed above, there is no freedom in a passive faculty as such. Therefore, it is notwithin 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 hasbeen explained, if the sort of predetermination in question is necessary, then beforeit is received, the will does not have it within its active and free power to exercisethe relevant act, since it is not yet a proximate principle - that is, a principle that iscomplete and accompanied by all the prerequisites for acting. It is not yet even aremote active power (as I will put it), since it does not have it within its power to doanything to acquire the condition or predetermination in question. Instead, it ismerely in passive potency with respect to that condition - which is not sufficientfor freedom. Again, once the condition called a 'predetermination' is posited in thewill, it is impossible for the will not to exercise the act, and it cannot resist thedetermination or its motion; therefore, at no time does the will have both the powerto 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. (DM22.2.37)

8


As we shall see below, the rejection of predeterminations does not by itselfguarantee freedom as Suarez defines it. But the affirmation of predetermina-tions does seem to destroy freedom so defined, since, according to Suarez'sopponents, the predeterminations are themselves necessary prerequisites for asecondary 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 thefaculty 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 towarda 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 isordered - 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 beimputed to it that it does not receive a determination to will against that object? Forthis cannot be imputed to it because of some prior act, both because it is possiblefor there not to have been any prior act, and also because the prior act could nothave been effected without some other predetermination, with regard to which thesame problem arises again; nor, again, can it be imputed to the will because of theabsence of some act, both because (a) the predetermination to that act is likewisenot within the will's power and so neither can the absence of the act be imputed toit, since without exception the primary root of the will's not operating, even whenall 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 ofsome required prior act; rather, [in some cases] the one act is omitted at the verysame time the other is being chosen. (DM 22.2.36)

The Thomists posit predeterminations in part to sustain the doctrine that Godis the principal originating source of being and goodness, including moralgoodness. Suarez is charging in effect that their theory has the unintended con-sequence of making God the primary source of moral defectiveness as well andof obliterating the distinction between God's merely permitting sin and hisbeing a cause of the defectiveness of sin. What's more, given the doctrine ofpredeterminations, it is futile to invoke the distinction between universal andparticular 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, whereasits formal element - namely, its moral defectiveness - is exclusively from the


secondary cause. For to predetermine just this act in just these circumstancesinvolves willing the act by an absolute volition. As Suarez puts it in a relatedcontext:

The [formal] element follows from the [material], since the created will's free actwith respect to this object in these circumstances cannot exist without having thebadness that is concomitant with it. Therefore, if someone wills by an absolutevolition that such an act be elicited by a created will with respect to this object inthese circumstances - and especially if he wills this in such a way that he carriesthe 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 theact 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 thecase of sinful actions only if one's full-blown account of God's concurrencewith sinful acts absolves God of predetermining the sinful act with which heconcurs or of willing it 'absolutely' in some other way. Otherwise, it will renderGod guilty of 'carrying the created will along with him into the exercise of theact.' 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 thisaccount, free acts cannot be predetermined by any temporally antecedent causalactivity 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 compatiblewith some other contrary act of will being exercised; rather, an act is free only ifall the prerequisites for action other than God's contemporaneous predetermi-nations are compatible with its not being exercised or with some other contraryact of will being exercised.10 What's more, the Thomists contend, it is still therational 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 Thomisticreplies to his arguments are unsatisfactory. However, I will not pursue the disputeover predeterminations and the nature of free agency any further here, except tonote that it cannot be understood in isolation from the whole nest of interrelatedissues involving providence, predestination, foreknowledge, and grace that setDominican 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 withfree 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 parallelto the account published by Luis de Molina a few years before the appearanceof the Disputationes Metaphysicae.12 However, with respect to free acts of willSuarez's account represents a genuine advance in precision and detail.

Suarez begins section 4 of Disputation 22 by explaining how God concurswith secondary agents that act naturally, or by a necessity of nature, rather thanfreely.13 These natural agents are necessarily such that they act in a given set ofcircumstances to produce a given effect when and only when all the prerequi-sites for their acting are satisfied in those circumstances. These prerequisitesinclude both (a) 'internal' conditions such as the potential agent's possessionof 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 tothe 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 concurrencefor the action.14

Given that God always accommodates his concurrence to the nature andrequirements of created causes, the manner in which he concurs with naturallyacting 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 typeof effect to which its nature is determined in the relevant circumstances. Andalthough God does this freely, he also does it, says Suarez, 'in the manner of anature' - that is, he does it as a matter of course (DM 22.4.3). For having willedto create and conserve naturally acting causes as part of his providentialplan, God freely adopted from eternity a general policy of granting them theconcurrence which is 'owed' to them by a 'debt of connaturality' - that is,a concurrence that satisfies the requirements of the natures with which Godhas endowed them (DM 22.4.3).

To be sure, this general policy admits of exceptions, as when God worksmiracles by simply withholding his concurrence (as well as the offer of con-currence) from secondary agents. (This is the way in which the scholasticsgenerally interpret the miracle of the fiery furnace in Daniel 3, to cite just oneexample.) But in addition to the general policy, God's providential plan includeshis willing 'efficaciously,' in each particular case of natural secondary causality,to concur with this particular natural agent in these particular circumstances forthis 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 alsodecided 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 eachindividual 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 withrespect to this subject for this individual action and effect in particular, and to concurat 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 'deterministicnatural 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 theexercise of their power and the species of action to which that power is uniquelydetermined in the relevant circumstances (DM 22.4.5). That is, each action of anatural agent is such that God (a) wills it unconditionally and (b) offers for itonly a concurrence that corresponds to the agent's deterministic natural ten-dency in the circumstances. Thus, it is a necessary truth that God offers hisconcurrence to a natural agent for a particular action and effect if and only if theagent 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 sameway to agents capable of free action, their freedom would be destroyed withrespect 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 hisconcurrence 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 forwhich that concurrence were offered in those circumstances, then the agent inquestion would, first of all, have to elicit an act of will, and so would not be freewith respect to exercise:

In order for two free causes to concur per se and in a fixed order with respect to asingle 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 itpleases. Therefore, if, in the case of the concurrence under discussion, the onlything that precedes it is the divine act of will by which God efficaciously wills toconcur with the secondary cause for a given effect, then in order for that effect tofollow 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 inthe 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 wasoffering his concurrence, and so would not be free with respect to specification.

Suarez notes that there have been two principal ways of dealing with thisproblem within the Catholic intellectual tradition. Some authors, accepting asingle account of divine concurrence for both natural and free causes, haveclaimed that the freedom of rational agents is preserved by the mere fact thatGod gives his concurrence freely. Suarez rejects this reply outright, contendingthat the cooperative action in which God concurs can be free with respect toGod and yet not free with respect to the relevant created cause. As we sawabove, this is exactly how things stand with regard to the actions of naturalagents; God freely concurs with such actions, and yet they occur by a necessityof nature. So this way of responding to the problem fails to preserve creaturelyfreedom.

A second ploy is simply to claim that in giving his concurrence God wills notonly the action but the mode or modality of the action, so that in the case of freeagents 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 acoherent account of just how it is possible for God to concur causally with anact 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 ofacting. For he would be at odds with himself if he willed something to happen in agiven mode and then in some other way impeded or removed the causes for thatmode 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 heable 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 andagreeableness of divine providence. Rather, one must either explain how it is thatthere is no contradiction between them - which the present reply does not do - orelse look for some other mode in which God can move the creature 'efficaciouslyand 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 owningenious alternative. Stated simply it is this: When God offers his concurrencefor a particular free act of will A, he, first of all, makes this offer conditionallyon 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 offershis 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 isstill able to elicit A* instead. The first point preserves freedom with respect toexercise, while the second preserves freedom with respect to specification. Iwill now elaborate on each in turn.

When God offers his concurrence for a particular free act of will that lieswithin the power of a rational agent, he does not will that act in the 'absoluteand determinate way' in which he wills the actions of secondary causes that actby 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 concurrenceto a free cause, decide altogether absolutely that the free cause will exercise the actin question; nor does he will absolutely that the act exist. Instead, with a sort ofimplicit 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 thecondition that the secondary cause - that is, the created will - should likewisedetermine itself to that action and issue forth into it. For by its freedom the will isalways 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 doeswith 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 itnever exists in second act, that is, even if the act of will for which it is offered isnever 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, sincethe 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 torational 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 actscan preserve the truth that even though God is a cooperating cause in acts thatare sinful, he is not a cause or source of the defectiveness of such acts. Like anyother 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 lovehim 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 awayfrom him. Nevertheless, God's offer of concurrence for such acts does notimply 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 fora sinful act does not itself entail that if the act is in fact elicited, God wills it byhis 'providence of approval' (providentia approbationis)', rather, in offering hisconcurrence he wills such an act only conditionally and, if it is elicited, it fallsonly under his 'providence of permission' (providentia concessionis). So God'spermission 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 justexplained, 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 ofconcurrence, 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, healmost always prompts us antecedently toward good acts by various means, bothnatural 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 preciselythe 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, sodear to his opponents, that God is the originating source of all moral goodnessand 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 fromeliciting it. And Suarez is able to give a coherent metaphysical account of howthis is possible.

Let us turn briefly to freedom with respect to specification. When God offershis concurrence to a free agent, he offers it for two or more distinct acts that arecontrary to one another:

God offers concurrence to each secondary cause in a mode accommodated to itsnature; but the nature of a free cause is such that, after all the other conditionsrequired for acting have been posited, it is indifferent with respect to more than oneact; therefore, it must also receive the concurrence in first act in an indifferentmode; therefore, it must be the case that, from the side of God, the concurrence isoffered to a free cause not just with respect to one act but with respect to more thanone act ... If this were not so, then the created will would never be proximatelycapable of effecting more than one act; therefore, it would never be free withrespect 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 setof circumstances. The further point that Suarez makes here is that in any suchset of circumstances, God offers a free agent numerically and specifically dis-tinct concurrences for numerically and specifically distinct acts of will, so thatthe 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 agentis accommodated to the secondary cause's mode of acting. And what was saidabout sinful acts in the discussion of freedom with respect to exercise applies,mutatis mutandis, to freedom with respect to specification. In particular, giventhat one or more of the acts for which God offers his concurrence on a givenoccasion 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 asource of its moral defectiveness.

This, then, is the way in which Suarez understands Saint Thomas's claim thatwhile an act that is sinful is from God, God is not a cause of sin.17 To revert tothe manner of speaking introduced above, the fact that a sinful act is somethingrather than nothing is traced back primarily to God as a universal cause, but thefact that it is morally defective rather than morally upright is traced backentirely to its secondary agent as a particular cause. And, according to Suarez, itis only his own full-blown account of God's concurrence with sinful acts thatsucceeds 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 withfree 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 thathis own explanation of subordination limits it to God's acting 'in a more nobleand more independent way ... under a more universal concept.' Is this strongenough? 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 rationalagent (a) whether or not God actually concurs with an act and (b) just which acthe 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 isaccepted. Suarez's opponents will point out that this is precisely one of the resultsthat their pre-motions or predeterminations were designed to prevent.

But Suarez does not lack the resources for an interesting reply. First of all, hewill insist that the dignity of rational agents lies, at least in part, in their abilityto 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 theCatholic doctrine that God exercises particular providence over the world, sothat every particular action - including every free act - effected in the createdworld is either (a) explicitly and knowingly intended by God from eternity or(b) explicitly and knowingly permitted by God from eternity. In answeringobjections to his account of God's concurrence with free acts, Suarez acknowl-edges that in order for this account to cohere with the orthodox understandingof 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 theywere offered divine concurrence for their free acts. Such knowledge is neces-sary because God's conditional offer of concurrence for free acts does not byitself settle the question of just which free acts will be elicited. And so becausehe does not know exactly how free creatures will act just on the basis of his ownintention 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 himto be able to intend or permit particular free acts antecedently.18

Given this picture, the points most relevant in the present context are (a) thatGod'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 toallow particular rational creatures to be in the circumstances in which, as Godforesees, 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 thoughSuarez's account of the subordination of the causality of free agents to God'scausality is weaker than that of its opponents, his complete account of God'sgeneral concurrence is nonetheless strong enough to allow for God's completesovereignty over the free acts, including the free sinful acts, of his creatures.

Notice, too, that the doctrine of God's middle knowledge solves the problemof 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'scontribution - as indeed it must be if the act in question is from both God and thesecondary cause. We should not imagine that on Suarez's account the free agentbegins to act temporally prior to God's causal contribution and that this initiationof 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 rendersotiose his offer of concurrence for free acts that are never in fact elicited. For, heargues, 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 willnot satisfy the causal prerequisites for freedom.19

Notes

1 I develop this theme at more length in 'God's General Concurrence with SecondaryCauses: 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 otherexactly similar form. So while the kind or species of the effect is traced back to thesecondary 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 firstact,' as opposed to 'the concurrence in second act,' which is the actual concurrenceand identical with the cooperative action between God and the secondary cause. Thisdistinction 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 haveexamined them at some length in 'God's General Concurrence with SecondaryCauses: Why Conservation Is Not Enough,' Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991):553-85, and in Part 7 of 'Suarez on Metaphysical Inquiry, Efficient Causality, andDivine 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, theyundermine 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 faculty's being free can be

found at DM 19.2.19-20.


10 See DM 19.4.2-7. There Suarez attributes to his opponents the claim that a freefaculty is one that remains 'indifferent,' given that all the things required on its ownpart - or just on the part of the rational intellect and will - have been posited, but notall 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: CornellUniversity Press, 1988). Also, the interested reader should look at DM 19.2 andDM 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 canact indeterministically, and so he does not distinguish natural agents from agents thatact by a necessity of nature. However, the focus of this part of section 4 is on actionsthat 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 inwhich 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 thatGod concurs freely in actions that occur by a necessity of nature. Suarez expressesthis 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 freeactions of creating, conserving, and concurring with secondary agents.

16 It is a bit unclear here just how God's efficacious will would 'carry [the secondaryagent] 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 ineffect 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 MetaphysicalInquiry, Efficient Causality, and Divine Action.' I thank Sarah Beyers and RobertSleigh for their helpful comments and questions at the conference on which thisvolume 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 hasto do only with error, not with sin. In fact, it may seem strange to considerthe Fourth Meditation as a theodicy at all. Considering the 'order of reasons' ofthe Meditations, the point of Meditation Four could well be seen as narrowlyepistemological. Having proven the existence of his almighty, supremely goodCreator, Descartes now needs to use this concept to undergird his criterion oftruth; the fact of human error creates an immediate problem for the conceptof 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 FourthMeditation, Descartes defines sin as error in the pursuit of good and evil. Andthe study of moral failings is properly theological. In his effusive dedication tothe theology faculty of the Sorbonne, which prefaces the Meditations, Descartesdraws a line between philosophy and theology by restricting the attention of thephilosopher to the questions of the existence of God and of the soul. He callsthem the chief of those questions 'that ought to be demonstrated by the aid ofphilosophy 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 philosophyand 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 theeffects of concupiscence and original sin, and finally of the larger and vexingquestions 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 thatCornelius Jansen's Augustinus was published in 1640, one year before the Med-itations, and within a short time the rancorous battles between Jansenists andJesuits were in high gear. In a 1642 letter to Mersenne, Descartes indignantlyprotests against accusations that he is a follower of Pelagius, whose opinions heclaims never even to have heard of. Descartes claims it is possible to know bynatural reason that God exists, but he never said that this natural knowledge, byitself, is enough to merit supernatural glory. In fact, it is evident, he says, thatsince the future glory is supernatural, more than natural powers are needed tomerit 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 cannotmaintain, 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 actuallydescribing the causes of sin as well as of falsehood.2 The distinction breaksdown in other ways, too, when we recognize that divine grace is just as surelyneeded 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 hesays 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 projectof theodicy, and as offering a solution to the problem of evil as complete, in itsown succinct way, as Leibniz's is on a grander scale. (In fact, the theodicy of theFourth Meditation anticipates many of the most important themes of Leibniz'stheodicy.)

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'! Asaying of Saint Teresa of Avila is that the soul ought always to consider thatonly 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 doneso 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 responsiblefor 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 beingand 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 Descartesup the ladder of argument to the recognition of an unlimited and independentbeing 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 toemphasize 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 likenessof God. But the will is free: as Descartes writes in the Fourth Meditation, 'whensomething is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to pursue orto shun, we are moved by it in such a way that we sense that no external forcecould 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 properbounds, namely the bounds of what is clearly and distinctly perceived. The finaltheme of Descartes's theodicy connects with the first. It is to consider the sinnerwithin the context of the wider world. From that perspective it emerges that, toquote 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 othersare, than if they were all alike.'6 In other words, the greater perfection of theuniverse 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 staleuniformity 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 worldthan one containing sinners alone or saints alone.

There is an interesting tension in the Fourth Meditation theodicy between thelatter two themes (which themes might for convenience be dubbed the free-willdefence, and the principle of plenitude). Brian Calvert has argued that the ten-sion, or the 'internal difficulty,' is serious enough to render Descartes's theodicyineffective. The problem is that, at the cosmological level, Descartes suggests itis fitting for God to have made humans prone to error, since it is fitting there beevery sort of creature in the universe. But, at the personal level, Descartes isdetermined to map out a way to avoid ever falling into error, and he suggeststhat always restraining the will to assent only to what is clearly and distinctlyperceived can serve as a foolproof means of error-avoidance. Thus, in Calvert'swords, 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 beuniversally heeded, this would entail the possibility of there being a world inwhich 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 onthe perfection of the universe? And since it is inconceivable that God's workscould be frustrated, does this not show that God must infallibly destine somecreatures 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 madeexplicit if we restate Descartes's theodicy as: 'This is the way all men can andought 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 histheodicy is not an original creation. In fact, Gilson states that there is absolutelynothing original in the Fourth Meditation, calling it a 'tissue of borrowings fromthe theology of St. Thomas and of the Oratory,'9 of which only the ordering ofthe parts can make any claim to originality. So the problems of Descartes'stheodicy 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 whatDescartes has to say in answer to this problem, in part because this exercisehelps display the resources of Christian philosophy in wrestling with the prob-lem of evil, and in part because Descartes's own argumentative twists and turnsillustrate both the tensions in the air in the 1640s, and some of the implicationsof Descartes's fundamental theological positions. In particular, Descartes'sextreme understanding of divine omnipotence adds an unusual element to hisotherwise 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. Wouldthis 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 showsthat he does not think actual errors are necessary to bring about a world worthyof its divine architect. Rather, the condition of fallibility, of the capacity forerror, is what makes for plenitude of being. Descartes is thus not guilty of anyinconsistency in intending to bring about the eradication of error. Second, Ibelieve that Brian Calvert's objection suffers from the fallacy of fatalism. Thatis, the objection mistakenly assumes that the necessity that there be sin entailsthe necessity of some actual sinner's sin. Descartes argues convincingly thatthere is no such entailment. And third, I will argue that even if the critic insiststhat actual error is necessary in a metaphysically perfect world, even that myown particular errors and sins are necessary, Descartes's handling of the prob-lem of human freedom and divine foreknowledge allows him to defend a robustsense of human freedom in a world completely dictated by divine decree.

To begin with, does invocation of the principle of plenitude somehow commitDescartes 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, thegreater and richer the diversities which its systematic unity combines. But it is notclear at all how a whole such as the universe is more perfect because its parts arenot merely diverse, but some are perfect and others imperfect.10

In other words, defects like error and sin cannot be justified on the principle thata perfect world needs variety, since mere diversity in and among the strata ofbeing 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 theMeditation that God could have brought it about that, while remaining free andhaving finite knowledge, he might nonetheless never err. And he cites two waysthis 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 Godhad permanently stamped on his memory the resolution never to make judgmentsabout anything not clearly and distinctly perceived. Now God did neither. Des-cartes lacks a clear and distinct perception of everything about which he wouldever deliberate, and he forgets never to make judgments about anything notclearly and distinctly understood. These are two expressions of his finitude. Butthe limitations appropriate to the human place in the great chain of being are notthemselves evil. They are the preconditions for our mistakes and sins. In claimingthat 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 errorand 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 isthat he says only that it is a greater perfection in the universe that some of itsparts are capable of error; the Latin is, 'ab erroribus immunes non sit,' that theyare not immune from error. He does not say that plenitude demands actual sin orerror.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 beingmiserable completes the perfection of the universe, it will lose something of itsperfection 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 sowill, 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 thinkingthat actual infallibility would somehow spoil the perfection of the universe.

However, this answer does not totally silence the critic. For it might beargued that the possession of freedom entails the inevitable commission ofactual errors. For example, in question 48, article 2 of the Prima Pars of theSumma Theologiae, Saint Thomas says that 'the completeness of the universerequires 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 inconsequence on occasion do.' Also, in the reply to the third objection in thesame article, he says: 'That whole composed of the universe of creatures is thebetter 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 onlyof the decay of corruptible beings. Perhaps he is merely contrasting the celestialintelligences with terrestrial mortals. And he may not mean that what can fallinevitably does, but instead may be making merely an empirical generaliza-tion.14 And as an empirical fact, an actual aspiration to infallibility seemsabsurdly unrealistic. Can Descartes be serious about this, after all? In the corre-spondence with Elizabeth, he makes some revealing comments that suggest hehimself is doubtful about this possibility. First he notes the difficulty of findingtruth: 'Our nature is so constituted that our mind needs much relaxation if it isto be able to spend usefully a few moments in the search for truth.' (I'm alwaystelling my wife this: I need much relaxation if I am to search for truth!) Then headvises: There is nothing to repent of when we have done what we judged bestat the time when we had to decide to act, even though later, thinking it over atour leisure, we judge that we made a mistake ... It does not belong to humannature to be omniscient, or always to judge as well on the spur of the moment aswhen 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 doesnot require actual sin and error. Nonetheless, experience shows that sin anderror 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 worldcontaining erring individuals, there is no point in my trying to avoid error, sinceI may be one of those reprobate souls whose errors contribute to the generalgood. The practical consequences of such a line of thought can be imagined. Achilling illustration of the dangers of fatalism is to be found in the experience ofChristian 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 viewsimplied that deserters from the army should not be punished because they couldnot help deserting.16

There is, however, something distinctly fallacious about this reasoning. Thefallacy involved is a venerable one. A version of the fallacy of fatalism, it is asfollows:

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, andAbel does not sin, does this mean that Cain sins necessarily! He does not. Itwas necessary (again, in this hypothetical sense) that one or the other of themsin. To use Julian of Norwich's famous phrase, 'sin was behovely' - it behovedthat there should be sin. But it was not necessary in the same sense that anygiven individual be that sinner. The free choice of the agent determines that.

Leibniz discusses this fallacy under the titles fatum mohametum and the 'lazysophism.' Suppose it is true, and even assured from all eternity, that a given manwill sin. Leibniz writes: 'Could this soul, a little before sinning, complain aboutGod in good faith, as if God determined it to sin? Since God's determinations inthese matters cannot be foreseen, how does the soul know that it is determinedto sin, unless it be actually sinning already ... But perhaps it is certain from alleternity that I shall sin? Answer this question for yourself: perhaps not; andwithout considering what you do not and cannot know ... act according to yourduty, which you do know.'17

I believe that Descartes's theodicy can be defended on just this basis. Aninteresting 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 hasarranged for two noblemen, whom he knows will duel if they meet, to meet bychance in a given town. Although the king has arranged the rendezvous, whichwill lead inevitably to the forbidden duel, Descartes reasons that the king in thisfable does not in any sense constrain the noblemen, nor does he impair thefreedom 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 mayposit that Descartes has hit on the correct formula for error-avoidance, andproclaims 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 leasttheoretically possible, given the epistemology of the Meditations, and the onlycoherent 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 youwho are foreordained to heed it; the rest may ignore it.' Even if some rationalcreatures will inevitably fall into error, they remain free in doing so, and theprescription 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 genuinesense 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 ofprovidence. In a letter to Elizabeth of September 1645, he lists as the first of thetruths '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 tocalmly accept all the things that happen to us as expressly sent by God ... we evenrejoice 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 tothe ill-will of men. In reply, Descartes argues in the strongest terms that God isnot 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 mindwithout God's willing, and having willed from all eternity, that it should soenter.'21 Unaided philosophy is able to discover this fact, he says, 'for the onlyway to prove that he exists is to consider him as a supremely perfect being; andhe 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 havein 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, arewithin 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 genuinelyunconstrained 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 mindwithout God's willing, and having willed from all eternity, that it should soenter' ? 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 noblemenwould 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, 'Therewould not be in this monarch any degree of will, either small or great, that thesetwo noblemen should obey the law, and not fight. He would will entirely andsolely that they should fight.'22

Descartes adds to the problem in the Fourth Meditation itself by definingfreedom as incompatible only with extrinsic determination. Freedom is compat-ible, on the other hand, with inward determination, whether it be by our ownperceptions, or by the secret prompting of God. He writes: '... willing is only amatter of being able to do or not do something (that is, of being able to affirm ordeny, to pursue or to shun), or better still, the will consists solely in the fact thatwhen something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, topursue 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 twoconflicting conceptions of liberty: liberty of spontaneity (we are free to dosomething 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 isDescartes's true opinion? Commentators in the seventeenth century, amongthem Leibniz and Spinoza, believed the second conception just cited to be thegenuine Cartesian position. That is, they read Descartes as affirming a 'stronglyindeterministic or "hard" libertarian conception of the freedom of the will' (Iborrow 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 Leibnizand Spinoza, an absurd fiction.

Contemporary scholars, on the other hand, have tended to emphasize thesecond part of the definition, and to put weight on those passages in whichDescartes 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, whetherbecause I clearly know that in it there is the reason of truth and goodness, orbecause God thus internally disposes my thought, the more freely do I chooseand embrace it.'26 A little further on, he writes: 'I could not help judging thatwhat 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 willfollowed from a great light in the intellect.'27 Even more startlingly, Descarteseven suggests, anticipating J.L. Mackie, that God could have so made me as tobe free, yet guaranteed never to err - strongly implying that freedom is perfectlycompatible 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 theoverall fitness of God's plan for the world, with the understanding that Godprovidentially directs the wills of rational agents to fulfil their parts in the cos-mic plan. Strictly speaking there would be no problem of reconciling humanfreedom with divine preordination, since human freedom would be understoodas perfectly compatible with predetermination. In fact, the more determined thewill, the more free it is.

But interestingly, Descartes does insist that there is a problem in reconcilinghuman freedom with divine preordination. It is a problem so acute, he writes, amystery 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 ofall 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 thefree actions of men indeterminate ... It would be absurd to doubt of that of whichwe are fully conscious, and experience as existing in ourselves [i.e., the power offree choice], because we do not comprehend another matter which, from its verynature, we know to be incomprehensible.28

If Descartes were an uncomplicated compatibilist, there would be no need forhim to acknowledge any mystery here. He could simply say that we are freewhen not constrained by any external force, although God is at every momentinwardly inclining our wills toward his own ends. What he affirms, rather, isthat 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 toinitiate their own acts of will in a radically indeterminate way. Hence, theappeal to mystery: we cannot intellectually reconcile what seems to our finiteperception 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'sfriend and supporter, the Jesuit scholastic Mesland. The following quotationseems to offer a most robust defence of liberty of indifference, or of freedomconceived as a contra-causal power of self-determination:

Perhaps others mean by 'indifference' a positive faculty of determining oneself toone or other of two contraries, that is to say, to pursue or avoid, to affirm or deny. I


do not deny that the will has this positive faculty. Indeed, I think it has it not onlywith respect to those actions to which it is not pushed by any evident reasons onone side rather than on the other, but also with respect to all other actions; so thatwhen a very evident reason moves us in one direction, although morally speakingwe can hardly move in the contrary direction, absolutely speaking we can. For it isalways open to us to hold back from pursuing a clearly known good, or from admit-ting a clearly perceived truth, provided we consider it a good thing to demonstratethe freedom of our will by so doing.29

This model of freedom is not obviously consistent with the doctrine of theFourth Meditation. The Meditations offers a critique of liberty of indifference;the Principles, and the letters to Mesland, defend it. What has happened tobring about this change? According to Gilson, the support for liberty of indiffer-ence found in Descartes's later writings is a product, purely and simply, of hisdesire for acceptance by the Society of Jesus. As Gilson tells the tale, Descartesabandoned the Jesuit doctrine of Middle Knowledge he had learned as a school-boy at La Fleche upon his reading of Gibieuf's De Libertate Dei et Hominis in1630. Gibieuf presents a strongly Thomist and Augustinian attack on liberty ofindifference. However, by the early 1640s, to attack indifference was to attackthe Jesuits, the champions of Molina and Middle Knowledge, and to support theJansenist faction in the battles de auxiliis gratiae. Descartes was thus careful topresent himself as indifferentist for Jesuit eyes, ever hopeful that his Principleswould be adopted as the curriculum for Jesuit schools.30

Obviously, the story Gilson tells is quite unflattering to Descartes. Single-mindedly determined to win acceptance for his physics, and to overthrow Aris-totle, Gilson's Descartes will cynically alter or abandon any aspect of his sys-tem not integral to the success of his physics, as occasion dictates. He emergesas a most slippery philosopher - a Thomist in the Fourth Meditation and in theconversation with Burmann, a Molinist in writing to Mesland or Elizabeth. Wesimply cannot look for any consistent doctrine of freedom in this man.

While I have no particular bone to pick with Gilson's persuasive and detailedhistorical argument, I do want to suggest that a case can be made in support ofthe integrity and overall consistency of Descartes's doctrine of freedom. It isinteresting, 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 distinctivedoctrines: that of God's absolute omnipotence.31 We recall that in Descartes'sestimation, the power of God is so immense that even the truths of logic andmathematics are subject to it. In the famous letter of April 1630 to Mersenne, hewrites that 'the mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid downby 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 haslaid 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 aboutthat not all the radii of a circle are equal, why would he hesitate to ascribe tohuman beings a liberty so radical that it seems to contradict the truth of God'sforeordination of all things? It would after all be an easy matter for God toendow us with a will at once independent and contra-causal, yet dependent andtotally 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. WithAugustine 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 isfree when it is enslaved by its maker; that it is unfree when enslaved by the EvilOne; and that to be rendered by grace incapable of sinning is the acme offreedom. Yet to make sense of the inward experience of our freedom (to saynothing of morality, reward, and punishment), he can insist on a mysterious andunfathomable core of radical self-determination.

Of course, this is a resolution of the problem which we can state, but whichwe 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 FourthMeditation:

I must not be surprised if I am not always capable of comprehending the reasonswhy God acts as he does ... for knowing already that my nature is extremely weakand 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 aninfinity 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 'soessentially Cartesian')34 of leaving mystery where it properly belongs. Wherethe being and action of the infinite God are concerned there must be intractablemystery 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 thinkthat in this case Descartes can justify making such an appeal.

Ultimately, though, while this move wins Descartes some breathing room inthe endgame of his theodicy, he faces ultimate checkmate if his doctrine ofGod's absolute omnipotence is brought in. Many writers35 have noted the prob-lems this doctrine produces for Cartesian science; it creates problems no lesstroubling 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 isinvoked for which evil is the price or the precondition, God could have achievedthis good without the evil.36 In Descartes's case, the principle of plenitude iseviscerated. He claims that the world containing fallible creatures may be moreperfect 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 couldeasily have brought it about that the most perfect world is one containing no evilat 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 1642, in Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, eds,Oeuvres de Descartes (Paris: Cerf, 1904), in, 544 (cited hereafter as AT); Englishtranslation in John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and AnthonyKenny, 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., ReneDescartes: Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy (Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing Co., 1980), p. 83.

3 Anthony Kenny, 'Descartes on the Will,' in R.J. Butler, Cartesian Studies (Oxford,1965), p. 15 (reference to 2nd Replies, AT vn, 147).

4 Martial Gueroult, Descartes' Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order ofReasons, vol. 1, The Soul and God, trans. Roger Ariew (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1984), p. 209.

5 Meditation iv, AT vn, 57; Cress, p. 816 Meditation iv, AT vn, 61; Cress, p. 837 Brian Calvert, 'Descartes and the Problem of Evil,' Canadian Journal of Philosophy

2(1972): 125.8 Ibid., p. 126.9 Etienne Gilson, La liberte chez Descartes et la theologie (Paris: F. Alcan, 1913),

p. 441.10 L.J. Beck, The Metaphysics of Descartes (Oxford, 1965), p. 212.11 Meditation iv, AT vn, 61; Cress, p. 83.12 Augustine, The Free Choice of the Will [De libero arbitrio], Book in, ch. 9.13 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae la, 48, 2 (Blackfriars edition, 1967), vol. 8,

p. 115.14 Ibid., p. 114, note b.15 Descartes to Elizabeth, 6 Oct. 1645, CSMK, p. 168.


16 James C. Morrison, 'Christian Wolff's Criticisms of Spinoza,' Journal of the Historyof 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 avirtuous 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 studiedSpinoza 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 isthe complete lack of evidence of his membership in any Christian denomination(see, for example, Laux 1993, 254f; Mason 1997, 208; Nadler 1999, 291; Zac1985, 116/490).

There is however a minority view according to which Spinoza may have beena Christian of some kind. For example, Victor Brochard allows that Spinoza mighthave been one, 'in a sense' (1954, 342), and Richard Popkin concedes that hemight have held views comparable to those of Socinians or Quakers (1996,401).

One way of mediating between the majority and the minority view might beto argue that Spinoza was a non-denominational or, in Leszek Kolakowski'sphrase, an 'unchurched Christian' (Kolakowski 1969). But that is not exactlywhat I shall propose. Certainly I have seen nothing to suggest that Spinoza wasa member of any denomination, but neither do the facts demand that Spinoza beclassified under the Kolakowski label, 'unchurched.' I shall present the signifi-cant body of evidence suggesting that Spinoza was a would-be reformer of theChristian Church. This would make him a radical Protestant, one of a goodnumber of eccentric figures in the Netherlands' so-called 'second Reformation.'Once having presented the evidence for this case, I shall briefly consider itsramifications 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 beenread as confessions and may be examined first.

la. First Person Plural

In 1675, at the instigation of a leading Netherlands public figure, ConraadBurgh, Spinoza wrote a letter to his son, Albert, attempting to discourage himfrom persevering in his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Spinoza's letter wasalso a reply to one he had received from the younger Burgh, containing astrident defence of his new faith. One of Burgh's arguments, which Spinozacounters, 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 ofthe Roman Catholic Church. Spinoza replies that it not only speaks for RomanCatholics 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 itreads in Leibniz's handwritten Latin copy of this letter, which Carl Gebhardtuses as one of the two originals reproduced in his now standard edition ofSpinoza's writings. A similar first person plural expression appears in the Dutchof the Nagelagte Schriften (see Gebhardt's account in G iv, 429). Leibnizthought 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. Thesame 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 RomanChurch, but the common property of all. And because through it we know ... thatwe remain in God and God in us, it follows that whatever distinguishes the RomanChurch 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. (Myemphasis)

The latter instances of the first person plural are alike in both Leibniz's copyand 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 callthemselves 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 whatSpinoza really wrote. Although Gebhardt's conjecture concerning the scribalerror which must have led both to Leibniz's copy and that of the NagelagteSchriften 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 madeon the basis of the intriguing occurrences of first person plurals within them.

There are other places in Spinoza's writings where the first person pluraloccurs in what appear to be confessional contexts. One of them is mentionedlater in this paper. But at present I do not see how any one alone or even alltogether could be held up as conclusive evidence of Spinoza's including himselfamong 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 hisown 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. Spinozadoes 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 thesense of 'authentic,' and authentic beliefs of a given faith can be identified byanyone who knows the faith without implying either that he or she is a believeror 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 webegin to look for indirect evidence. Scattered throughout Spinoza's writings, butparticularly in the TTP, are numerous references to the Christ. They and theircontexts 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 StevenNadler (1999). Steven Smith, on the other hand, calls them 'careful and studiedambiguities' (1997, 105). Popkin says amusingly (1996, 401): 'Jewish readersoften ask me: Why? Who is [Spinoza] trying to kid? Did he have to say suchthings to please the censor, or the audience? They assume that he could not havebeen serious or sincere.'

To see how Spinoza might have been both serious and sincere, it is easiest tobegin 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, hecounsels us to read it over and over again, together with chapter 7 (titled 'On theInterpretation of Scripture' and presumably a propaedeutic to 14), because it(chapter 14) contains the main points (praecipud) which Spinoza wants toestablish (G in, 180.6ff). The title of chapter 14 poses three questions which areanswered 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, inconformity with the method established in the TTP, are to be sought from 'thewhole 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 underdiscussion, since it is the only faith that recognizes both Testaments as authori-tative.

After defining faith in general terms as obedience (175), Spinoza speaks ofthe 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 ofdogma, his next move is initially puzzling, because he goes on to propoundseven of what he himself calls 'dogmas of the universal faith' (fidei universalisdogmata [177.14]). One wonders how someone who has just declared dogmasuperfluous 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, heboasts, they will leave no room for controversy in the Church (nullum locumcontroversiis in Ecclesia relinqui [177.13]).

In rejecting all dogma while proposing seven new ones, Spinoza appears tobe paradoxically active at both of what Church historian Jaroslav Pelikanregards as the opposite poles of seventeenth-century religious controversy. Inhis study of the development of Christian doctrine in the modern period, Peli-kan depicts the seventeenth-century 'crisis of orthodoxy' as having come aboutthrough 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, Spinozaseems 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 hehas 'left no room for controversy in the Church,' and capitalizes 'Church'


(Ecclesia), he shows that he is neither being inconsistent nor even a novelty inhis age. He was attempting, not to prescribe new dogmas as such, and thus tofound a new church, but instead to formulate with lapidary precision what heclaims were the traditional dogmas of the primitive Church (cf. TIP, ch. 14; Gin, ISO.lOff). And in the Reformation context, the primitive Church was theonly one that could lay undisputed claim to universality. Here again Spinoza didnot deviate from his age, but rather typified it. To cite Pelikan once more (1989,15): '[Identification of "the true primitive church" as both the ideal and thenorm 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 byinnovators in 'a blind and rash passion for interpreting the sacred writings andexcogitating novelties in religion' (77P, ch. 7; G in, 97.20ff). What Spinozaproposes, on the contrary, will bring harmony because it expresses 'the mind ofthe Holy Spirit' (ibid.; also 102.18f).

One consequence of defining faith as Spinoza does, in terms of obedience, isthat the only pertinent dogmas of the Catholic faith (fides catholicd) are thosepertaining to God and our obedience to him (TTP, ch. 14, 177). According toSpinoza, they are seven: (1) that God exists, (2) that he is unique and worthy ofdevotion; (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 hesaves 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 Godwho 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 dogmasand Maimonides's explanation of the fundamental principles of the Law in theGuide 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 isto 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 hethinks to be universal in character.3

In its form of presentation, Spinoza's list of dogmas bears much closerresemblance to the creeds or 'symbols' proposed by the leaders of the greatReformation traditions - for example, the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglicanismor Melanchton's Augsburg Confession. Nearer to Spinoza's own time, place,and thinking would be the Five Articles of the Remonstrants, the condemnationof which by the Synod of Dort in 1618 led to the formation of the Collegiantcongregations, with whom Spinoza was connected at least by strong bonds offriendship.

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3. Deism or Christianity?

However, even if the resemblance to Reformation creeds is conceded, it mightbe said that little or nothing in my summary of Spinoza's articles of faith isexplicitly Christian. Perhaps, as the Utrecht physician and polymath Lambertvan 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 aboutdeism) is dismissive (Ep. 43, G iv, 219.32-220.4). Moreover, closer scrutiny ofseveral of his proposed dogmas will reveal a great deal that is Christian aboutthem.

The first (177) deals with the existence of God. But what kind of God? Thoseof us who learned our Spinoza from the Ethics expect to find an impersonal andindifferent 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, butalso 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 understoodin its generally accepted theological sense of 'the free and unmerited act bywhich 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 termsof the practice of justice and charity toward one's neighbour (177). It echoesunmistakably Jesus' famous summary of the Law (Matt. 22:37^0), thoughslanting it toward the value Spinoza, following the apostle James, attributed toworks over faith (cf. 175.21-32).

The seventh and final dogma, namely that God pardons the sins of those whorepent, 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, bywhich 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 personallevel ('by pity and grace'), is providential ('directs all things'), and, mostimportant 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 foolhardydesire to interpret Scripture and think up novelties in religion' (97.20f).

If Spinoza is Christian, then he belongs to the tradition of the great reformersof the first Reformation, such as Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, who were notattempting to found a new religion, but only to purify the old. He belongs to thattradition, not in the sense of accepting its achievements, but of emulating itsspirit. His dissatisfaction with what the first Reformation accomplished was nodoubt conditioned at least in part by that of his Collegiant friends, who thoughtthat the proliferation of warring Protestant sects following the Reformationdemonstrated the insufficiency of its reforms (Fix 1991, 91). Like Spinoza,many of the Collegiants thought that a new reformation was required. Somebelieved it would come from within the established Protestant churches; othersthought 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 reformationwould come by some human apostle (op. cit., 89) or only after the return ofChrist himself (op. cit., 100). In chapter 14 of TTP, Spinoza seems to presenthimself 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, iselaborated in the rest of that work. For example, that picture of Spinoza putswhat he says about the apostles into its proper context. In chapter 11, Spinozashows 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 letterto the Romans (15:20) not to have built on other men's foundations. At the endof chapter 11, Spinoza tells us that this fateful principle of the apostles in factsowed the seed of the very religious discord which flowered so riotously andwith such devastating effect in his own time. Dissent will never be overcome, hecontinues prophetically, until 'religion is separated from philosophical specula-tions and reduced to the fewest and simplest dogmas that Christ taught to hisfollowers' (158.12).

Such a reduction of dogma to the bare essentials of the early Church is, ofcourse, precisely what Spinoza himself will propose three chapters later in thesame book. Is Spinoza in chapter 11 therefore engaged in nothing more than anact of cheap self-promotion: Spinoza, his own John the Baptist, heralding themessiah he himself will become three chapters later? Fortunately, we are notobliged 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 closingwords in chapter 11: 'Happy indeed would be our age,' he writes, 'if it too [likethe 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 toaddress that need. But if he has no such community in mind, then Spinoza mustbe simultaneously creating the need he hopes to satisfy, like a hawker ofunwanted consumer goods. Thus, much about the TTP makes more sense whenit is conceived as the work of a religious reformer addressing a situation cryingout 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 carefulreaders have made. Lewis Feuer, for example, cites a passage in one ofSpinoza's letters to Oldenburg as evidence that Spinoza was 'spiritually excom-municate among the Christians [of Holland]' (Feuer 1966, 149). The passagewhich 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 ModernChristians are wont to defend. For I maintain that God is, as they say, the immanentcause of all things, but not the transeunt cause. Like Paul, and perhaps also like allancient philosophers, though in another way, I assert that all things live and movein God...

How does this indicate that Spinoza is 'spiritually excommunicate amongChristians'? Feuer obviously took Spinoza's critical reference to 'modernChristians' to mean all Christians contemporary with Spinoza and Oldenburg.But since that would have included Oldenburg himself, whom Spinoza had nointention of criticizing, that interpretation is quite unlikely. Spinoza is not tryingto 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 offersChristians a better standard, one that is in conformity not only with Spinozisticdoctrine, but which also enjoys the backing of ancient philosophy and of theprimitive Church in the person of Saint Paul.

Feuer is right to see Spinoza as non-sectarian, but wrong to infer from it thathe was (or thought himself to be) an outsider to the Christian faith. Kolakowskicautions 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 ofreformers, who are absorbed in religious questions, to free themselves of con-fessional affiliations.' On this evidence, Spinoza once again looks less like aheretic and more like a radical reformer.

5. Spinoza's Orthodoxy

To make the best case for considering Spinoza as a 'radical Protestant,' the termshould be taken in a generic sense, one that would cover many Collegiants,Mennonites, Quakers, Socinians, etc. Measured against the orthodox, Spinozawill always be a radical, but it is certainly possible to overestimate his religiousindependence. A surprising number of his teachings, particularly those concern-ing the person of Jesus Christ, are impeccably orthodox. For example, Christ iselevated far above Moses. For Christ was the voice of God, which Moses onlyheard (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 isuniversal. To be saved, for Spinoza, means neither more nor less than 'to havethe 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 inSpinoza's eyes than the historical Jesus, 'le Christ selon la chair.' Indeed,Spinoza explicitly says that Turks and other heathens, if they worship God byexercising justice and charity toward their neighbours, have the Spirit of Christand are saved (Ep. 43, G iv, 226.1-4).

It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss this religious inclusiveness ofSpinoza'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 alsotrue 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 savedby the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his lifeaccording to that Law and the light of Nature. For Holy Scripture doth set out untous 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), thusmaking it difficult to rule out the possibility of salvation without consciousknowledge of Christ.

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But Spinoza also makes Christ unique in the stronger sense of being superiorto 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 Christno 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 Spinozaalludes in his gloss of dogma 7. He was sent to all nations to free them frombondage to the Law (TTP, ch. 3, 54.24f), and also to proclaim a universal law tothem (TTP, ch. 5, 71.1). Therefore he is part of a providential plan unfolding inhistory.

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 RomanCatholics and the main Reformed denominations were concerned (Ep. 76, G iv,319.15ff). But to hold that the Eucharist was merely symbolic was consideredorthodox teaching both by Zwinglians and by many of the radical Protestantsects.

Finally, and most surprisingly, one can find in Spinoza both early and latestatements which, though not endorsements of the Trinity, seem to presupposeTrinitarian doctrine. The earlier instance occurs in the Cogitata Metaphysica,published in 1663 as an appendix to the Principles of Descartes' Philosophy. Itscontext is Spinoza's effort to show what is wrong with the inference from theactual eternity of the Son of God to the possible eternity of creatures. Thosewho make this argument are mistaken both about the nature of eternity and thenature of the Son of God, he says. The refutation of the latter mistake brings outSpinoza's almost Trinitarian teaching. Note also another use of the first personplural, 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 tocreatures, 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 abaeterno 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 notactually modelled upon, the relevant clause of the Nicene Creed: ex Patre natumante omnia saecula (begotten of the Father before all worlds).

In another place, Spinoza relates the Son to the Holy Spirit, writing to AlbertBurgh 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 Christbecause 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 asintending the reformation of Christian doctrine, rather than the simple refusal ofit. For example, Spinoza rejects the incarnation, saying to Oldenburg that forGod to take on human nature is no more possible than for a circle to take on thenature 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 ofthese unorthodox doctrines are explained to Oldenburg in a context that affirmsboth 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 listof Christian doctrines he declares inessential. He gives what he implies is onlya partial list of these in chapter 14 of the TTP, just after his presentation ofthe seven dogmas. Apparently Christians do not need to know: (1) what Godis; (2) why God is the exemplar of true living; (3) whether God is actually oronly 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 eternallaws; (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 ofall of them. Surely one's ability to be a follower of Christ is connected withbeing 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 isimperative to know in what way God (does he mean Christ?) is the exemplar oftrue living, if we are to conform our lives to his in the obedience which Spinozarecommends.

Spinoza's contemporaries certainly found him too cavalier with doctrine, andit is not difficult to see why. Some of the doctrinal points he dismissed werepassionately debated in the religiously charged atmosphere of his day. It is easyto see how dismissing them could create a reputation for atheism. But Spinoza'sconcern with doctrinal matters can also be taken to mean that his fault was notreligious 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?

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Would it make sense to point out superfluous doctrine, if nothing was deemedindispensable? The list of inessentials seems to underline Spinoza's earlierassertion 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 mustremain external to them. But it is pertinent to wonder how Spinoza's reformedChristianity appeared to its apostle from the inside. Here there is insufficientmaterial for certainty, but just enough for conjecture. It is not unlikely thatSpinoza saw himself as part of what is now called the 'second reformation' andas having much in common with many of his friends who were Collegiants.

Though Collegiants have ancestors in the Schwenkfeldian and Franckianspiritualism of the early Reformation (Fix 1991, 86), the Collegiant movementoriginated as a reaction to the dismissal of Remonstrant preachers following thecondemnation of their doctrine by the Synod of Dort in 1618 (Kolakowski1969, 168). I do not claim that Spinoza was a Collegiant, but it is safe to say thathe was sympathetic particularly with their radical wing. Andrew Fix describesthe 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 thatwould build upon and extend the work of the first reformers, the radical newreformers rejected the work of the original Reformation as a failure and called for areconstitution of Christian religious life on earth that went far beyond the reform ofindividual congregations or churches to encompass a complete reorganization ofuniversal 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, wordsapplied by another twentieth-century scholar to Spinoza's friend, the CollegiantJarig Jelles, fit Spinoza equally well. Hubertus Hubbeling writes (Hubbeling1984, 159f): 'Jelles was in many respects a typical "reformer," i.e., someonewho 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 anygreat 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 championsas 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 astand may have been suggested to Spinoza by the controversy which saw two ofhis Collegiant friends, Pieter Serrarius and Pieter Balling, locked in disputewith their erstwhile Quaker allies concerning the religious meaning of thephrase 'the light.' Spinoza attempts to turn off the dim and subjective light ofthe Quakers and hold up the bright and objective one of Scripture. At the sametime, he tries to uphold what is original in the Christian faith, without lapsinginto superstitious veneration of the merely traditional. His are the instincts of areformer. They are the responses that a radical reformer could be expected tomake 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 distinctdifference in tone between the TTP and the Ethics. But few have found the twobooks 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 togetherfor 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 onboth texts simultaneously during the 1660s (cf. Brochard 1954, 333).

One cannot absolutely discount the possibility that Spinoza was of twominds, torn between a more materialistic, scientific philosophy, which heexpressed in the Ethics, and a more uplifting, spiritualistic one, developed in theTTP. Against such an understanding, however, stands the unusually systematicnature of Spinoza's thought. And if one is to understand all Spinoza's writingsas illustrations of one philosophical system, then there must be some singlecourse on which Spinoza's two philosophical flagships are bound.

Angela Roothaan complains that when reconciliations of the two texts dooccur, they inevitably (and unjustly) privilege the Ethics (Roothaan 1998, 270).However, Victor Brochard is a notable exception to her rule, for he, though onlybriefly, sketched an interpretation of the Ethics in the light of the TTP (Brochard1954, 347-61), claiming that there are 'no contradictions or essential differ-ences' between them, and taking the TTP as his standard of reference. It wouldbe a book-length task to work out that project in full,5 but I would like to tryBrochard's method very briefly on the thematic question of theodicy.

Among the concepts entailed by theodicy, are those of goodness, evil, andprovidence. 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 littlemore than derision in the Appendix of Ethics i? Spinoza appears to be a strictnecessitarian, for whom the consolations of providence and all terms of value

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are at best subjective fantasies. There is not space here to go over these richtexts in the detail they merit. But in closing I will look at two concise refutationswhich Spinoza deploys in the second scholium of 1E33, probably aimed at thetheodicies of Descartes and Leibniz.6 The Christian interpretation of Spinozaoutlined 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 againstpositions that in ethics would be called voluntarism and intellectualism, butwhich in theodicy were best represented in Spinoza's day by Descartes andLeibniz 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 thewill 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 couldhave 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 nothave 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 oreven influenced his will. Nothing external could influence Spinoza's God forthe simple reason that nothing is external to him.

The two refutations taken together show Spinoza's God to lack both internalflexibility and external choice. It is easy to conclude that the only middleground for Spinoza to occupy between Cartesian voluntarism and Leibnizianintellectualism 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 Descartesthan 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 precludehis 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 tothe 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 ofprovidence which make it a crude extension of human purposes. Nothing in theAppendix prevents one holding that God both sustains all things and governstheir intercourse with one another. In other words, nothing prevents a Christian


view of providence from fitting comfortably between the rejected positions ofDescartes and Leibniz.

Notes

1 All references to Spinoza's works are to Spinoza 1925, edited by Carl Gebhardt(see Bibliography under 'Primary Sources'). In the text of this paper, this edition isabbreviated as 'G,' following a common practice. References to the TractatusTheologico-Politicus (abbreviated TTP) are to be understood as referring to Spinoza1925 (i.e., G), vol. 3, and will supply in each case the page and line number of thatedition. 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 aspossible, following the standard reference procedure of Studia Spinozana.

2 'Nous sommes surpris de lire alors que dans son Traite theologico-politique, Spinozatente de trouver une definition de la "vraie foi." S'il avait simplement voulu decrirela croyance des hommes vue de 1'exterieur, il eut etc vain et meme impossible deparler de la verite de cette croyance.'

3 Steven Smith's study of Spinoza's Jewish identity (1997,114f) points out two furtherdisanalogies.

4 The definition offered in the Ethics is not helpful, for there 'gratia' is understood inone of its classical senses as equivalent to 'gratitudo.' That sense is lost in theEnglish word 'grace,' except in its use to mean the prayer of thanksgiving said beforemeals.

5 I shall devote a large section of a forthcoming monograph to the reconciliation of thetwo texts.

6 Cartesians are the obvious targets of Spinoza's criticism of 'those who say that goodand bad depend upon the will of God,' but many may wonder whether Leibniz couldreally have been the target of Spinoza's denial that 'God does everything in pursuit ofthe good'? It will be said that in 1677 Leibniz was still several decades away frombecoming the most famous supporter of that doctrine and that Spinoza probably hadin mind the long tradition of 'intellectualism' in ethics.

That may be true. Nevertheless there are several reasons to suspect that Spinozahad 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 inAmsterdam in 1676 and spent several days with him discussing metaphysical ques-tions. (3) Spinoza could easily have learned of Leibniz's philosophy from mutualfriends such as Schuller or Tschirnhaus. (4) If meeting Leibniz did goad Spinoza toreply to the intellectualist position, in his already substantially completed Ethics, onewould 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 anargument still fresh in his memory.

7 To say that Leibniz is the target of this criticism does not imply, however, that thecriticism 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: CarlWinter.

- 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 etdephilosophic 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 ofChicago Press.


Popkin, Richard. 1996. 'Spinoza and Bible Scholarship.' In The Cambridge Companionto Spinoza. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 383^07.

Roothaan, Angela. 1998. 'Spinoza releve-t-il de la theologie naturelle?' Revue detheologie et de philosophic 130: 269-83.

Smith, Steven. 1997. Spinoza, Liberalism and the Question of Jewish Identity. NewHaven 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 theodicyproblem should appear misguided, if not downright absurd. After all, should notSpinoza reject the whole question of theodicy as incoherent, and grounded in afalse 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 isso. 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 Godis 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, touse 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, theimperfection will consist in the suffering of the innocent and the flourishing ofthe wicked. Birth defects, natural disasters, and undeserved punishment are allundeniable 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 conjunctionwith 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 infinitescope. This prevents one from saying that God could not do anything about theevils in his creation. Second, God is omniscient; God knows everything, includ-ing the alleged apparent defects in his work. This prevents one from saying thatGod could (and would) do something about the evils in his creation, if only heknew about them; and since he obviously has not done anything about them, hemust not know about them. Third, God is benevolent and just; God wills onlywhat is good. This prevents one from resolving the conundrum simply by sayingthat God knows about the evils, and is capable of preventing them, but simplydoes not care to do so. How then can we reconcile the existence of evil, pain, andsuffering 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 friendsexcised from the posthumous Dutch edition of his works) - is not omnipotent inthe classical sense. While Spinoza's God is, to be sure, the ultimate and infinitecause of everything that exists, it is not, on the other hand, a free God who actsby will and choice. As he explicitly notes, God, while free, 'does not produce anyeffect by freedom of the will.'' All aspects of the universe follow necessarily andwith 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 entirelydevoid 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 - andis 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 forthe 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 theorganized superstitions that pass for the major sectarian religions.

Without a free, good, and just God, the whole question of theodicy does noteven get off the ground. Or maybe it would be better to say that the question isanswered immediately. There is suffering and disaster in the world becausethere is no wise and providential God watching over the world, a world all ofwhose 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 thosewho would waste their time engaged in trying to resolve the problem of evilwith a theodicy (much as Job's friends attempt to explain the rationale behindhis 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 beof the same nature as themselves) are angry on account of wrongs done to them bymen, or on account of sins committed in their worship. And though their dailyexperience contradicted this, and though infinitely many examples showed thatconveniences and inconveniences happen indiscriminately to the pious and theimpious alike, they did not on that account give up their longstanding prejudice. Itwas easier for them to put this among the other unknown things, whose use theywere ignorant of, and so remain in the state of ignorance in which they had beenborn, than to destroy that whole construction, and think up a new one. So theymaintained 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 unconcernedwith the problem of evil and suffering. What he offers us, however, is not somuch 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 ofthe 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 isresponding is a very prominent one in medieval Jewish philosophy and evenearlier rabbinic texts; and second, that the seeds of Spinoza's response to thatkind 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 Jewishthinkers 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 inSpinoza's thought that, strictly speaking, are peripheral to my discussion butthat nonetheless bear on the problem of theodicy.

First, there is Spinoza's definition of 'good' and 'evil.' Spinoza famouslyclaims 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 orgenus to one another ... We call them imperfect, because they do not affect ourMind as much as those we call perfect, and not because something is lackingin 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 donot denote anything real about things themselves. 'As far as good and evil areconcerned, they also indicate nothing positive in things, considered in them-selves, nor are they anything other than modes of thinking, or notions we formbecause we compare things to one another.' By 'good,' all that is meant is 'whatwe know certainly is a means by which we may approach nearer and nearer to themodel 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 thatmodel' (Ethics iv, Preface, n.208; C 545). What is good, in other words, is simplywhat is regarded by some creature as being useful; what is evil is simply what thatcreature 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 'trueknowledge of good and evil,' suggesting of course that one can be correct ormistaken 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 ofadequate 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 setbefore ourselves - in this case, a model of a human being - but there is also aspecific and objective model of the human being, namely, Spinoza's 'free per-son' or 'virtuous person,' that we ought to strive to emulate. 'Knowledge ofGod,' he says at Ethics ivP28, 'is the mind's greatest good.' And it is good, notjust because we believe it to be conducive to our well-being and supportive ofour conatus, but because it really is so. To be sure, this 'true knowledge of goodand evil' is as much an affect as the merely subjective conception of good andevil, 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 Ishall 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 ofour 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 getto enjoy their highest deserved perfection, but rather as a question as to whyGod created a world distinct from God in the first place. If God is perfect andself-sufficient, what could possibly move God to create anything outside ofGod's being? For Spinoza, this question cannot even be raised. First, God doesnot choose to create at all; the world follows necessarily from the eternalattributes and the infinite modes, and could not possibly have not existed. Therewas 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 thesubstance of the universe, the immanent cause - and not a distinct transitivecause - of all that exists.

There is, of course, a long and hallowed tradition for thinking in this wayabout the relationship between God and creation, both in Jewish and Arabicphilosophy 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 traditionsfor Spinoza's dismissal of this aspect of the theodicy problem.4 But in this essayI 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 tocomplain to God about the way he, to all appearances an upright man, has beentreated. 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 forJob's tribulations, they argue, either because he or his relations have sinned orbecause God has some other reason that transcends our cognitive powers. Oneof his companions believes that our judgment about God's justice should not belimited to what we see in this life, where often the righteous suffer and thewicked 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 forthe 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 rootsbeneath dry up, and above, his branches wither. His memory vanishes from the faceof 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 offspringamong 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 maysuffer in this life, should enjoy the knowledge that the fruits and rewards of hisvirtue will persist long after he is gone from this world. As Zophar insists, 'thetriumph 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 beswept 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 doessuggest a theodicy that has the following general structure: do not judge God'sjustice without taking a long-term perspective on a person's fate, including theirdeath and what happens afterwards.

When Judaism does finally develop, over the course of the rabbinic period, awell-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) andeternal punishment in hell (Sheol or Gehinnom), this basic message can beexpanded into a full-blown theodicy. The true domain of divine justice is notthis world, but the world-to-come, Olam ha-Ba. That is where or when realreward and punishment are allocated to the righteous and wicked. The innocentmay suffer in this life, they may undergo pain and misfortune, perhaps becauseof their few sins; but they will be more than compensated for their sufferings inthe hereafter. Conversely, the wicked may flourish in this world, usually at theexpense of the righteous; but whatever gains they acquire in the here and noware nothing in comparison to the suffering to be inflicted upon them either aftertheir death or at the end of days. When we take all of this into account, we canunderstand 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 wewill 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 andreward for sin and righteousness in this life - it is one that holds a powerfulattraction 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 andsystematic 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 couldreasonably attribute to a rational and non-arbitrary God. A 'pious' person, heclaims, 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 constitutingonly a minority of their actions overall), while some impious persons commitmore righteous acts than others. Now there is, he insists, a 'second world'beyond this one, 'the world of compensation.' It comes into being 'only whenthe entire number of rational beings ... will have been fulfilled. There [God] willrequite all [rational beings] according to their deeds.'6 But it would be unjust notto 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 individualswill be requited in this world for the minority of their deeds, leaving the majorityof 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... whilethe totality of his merits is reserved for a far-off time.'7 This explains 'why itoften 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 hislife. On the other hand, a generally impious individual may have to his creditmany good deeds, for the sake of which he deserves to enjoy well-being for thegreater part of his earthly existence.' When all is said and done, everyone getsexactly what they deserve: everyone gets some reward and some punishment,either in this world or the next, perfectly proportionate to their deeds. Saadyaadmits that sometimes it happens that a completely blameless person nonethe-less suffers in this world. Saadya responds simply by saying that they will becompensated 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 orsuffering in this life - although a life of true virtue will, because of the nature ofvirtue, 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 manya Christian theodicy, as well. But what is particularly important for our study ofSpinoza is the intellectualist twist that the Jewish rationalists Maimonides andGersonides give this doctrine. Although I believe that much of what I have tosay 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 SeferMilchamot ha-Shem), Gersonides argues that one should not judge concerningGod'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 alack 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 canarrange 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 soarrange this, which would be an imperfection in God.'9

The solution to this conundrum is that 'the true reward and punishment donot 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 thatare [truly] human, not good and evil that are not human.'10 The goods and evilsthat 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 withother 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 humanbeing's highest and most proper perfection. 'Since human evil consists of theabsence of this spiritual happiness, i.e., in its imperfection, it is evident that truereward and punishment in man as man consists of the achievement or lack ofachievement of spiritual happiness, not of these sensuous goods or evils that areordered by the heavenly bodies.'11

What this spiritual happiness consists in, for Gersonides, is the acquisition ofknowledge 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 thatcan be had by its material intellect, working in conjunction with the senses. Butthrough the Agent Intellect - that is, through the separate Intellect or Soul thatgoverns this world and the innermost sphere to which it belongs - the humanmind can arrive at the knowledge of more general truths. It can know eternalverities 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 theapprehension of the intelligibles, of the forms of things without their matter.12

Through this process, the human mind comes to an understanding of the trueorder of the world. Its knowledge grows to mirror the knowledge that is in theAgent Intellect itself.

Now these eternal truths that the mind can grasp constitute its 'acquiredintellect,' a part of the mind that is distinct from the material intellect. The humansoul is, for Gersonides, simply a part of the body; it is not a separate, incorporealsubstance. 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, itis 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 naturethat is embedded in the world that is governed by that Intellect - the acquiredintellect is eternal and immaterial. When the body perishes, so does the humansoul and the acquisition of knowledge. But the acquired intellect remains. It is, asGersonides 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 demandsof the body and the force of empirical circumstances often stand in the way ofthe achievement and enjoyment of true perfection. Thus, even virtuous people -those who have devoted their lives to the search for true knowledge - are subjectto the elements, to the disturbances and imperfections of this world. When theydie, however, they are capable of enjoying their highest happiness to the highestdegree:

It is important to realize that each man who has attained this perfection enjoys thehappiness resulting from his knowledge after death. We have some idea of thispleasure from the pleasure we derive from the little knowledge we now possesswhich subdues the animal part of our soul [so that] the intellect is isolated in itsactivity. This pleasure is not comparable to the other pleasures and has no relationto them at all. All the more so will this pleasure be greater after death; for then allthe knowledge that we have acquired in this life will be continuously contemplatedand all the things in our minds will be apprehended simultaneously, since afterdeath 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 hasacquired during life simultaneously.15

The true reward for virtue, for pursuing the life of knowledge and intellectualachievement, will be in the world-to-come, not in a life free of evil and sufferingin this world. Our highest happiness comes only after death. The view of ourrabbis is that true reward and punishment occur in the world-to-come and thatthere is no necessity for reward and punishment in this world to be such that therighteous and the sinner receive material benefits and evils, respectively. Theysay "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 stronglyinfluenced by what he read in Gersonides and Maimonides.17 But it is equallyclear, I believe, that Spinoza denied the personal immortality of the soul. Andby 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 ahost of other philosophers, Jewish and gentile. If there is no life after death, ifwe do not persist after the corruption of the body and the end of its durationalexistence, then there can be no true reward to hope for (nor any true punishmentto 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 thatGersonides says about the soul, its intellectual achievement, and happiness - allof which Spinoza accepts - there can be no true reward for virtue in any allegedworld after this one. Rather, virtue must be its own reward in this world, as asource of abiding happiness and of freedom from the vicissitudes of chance andfortune. Spinoza, in other words, takes Gersonides's theodicy to what he sees asits logical conclusion.

The main project of Spinoza's Ethics is to show us how we can achieve somemeasure 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 weacquiesce 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 ofnature. 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 anunpredictable and unsteady thing.

Now we cannot control nature. But we can control our response to nature. Wecan try to reduce the sway that our passions have over us, and thereby achieve amodicum of freedom, that is, of eudaemonistic independence from the outsideforces 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 theeternal natures that constitute the one substance - God or Nature - and howthey follow necessarily from those natures or attributes, we will be led toward astoic peace of mind. The force of the passsions will be diminished and we willbe less subject to the vicissitudes of the world around us.19 We will, in otherwords, be moving towards an abiding state of happiness and well-being. Whatwe 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 tothe partial and defective acquaintance with things that we have through oursenses 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 toexist in relation to a certain time and place, or insofar as we conceive them to becontained in God and to follow from the necessity of the divine nature. But thethings we conceive in this second way as true, or real, we conceive under a speciesof 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 throughextension 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 fromthe infinite and eternal perspective of God.

Spinoza's knowledge of the third kind is, I suggest, Gersonides's acquiredintellect. Like Gersonides, Spinoza identifies this knowledge with the pursuit ofa general, non-sensory, non-temporalized perspective and deep understandingof 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 ofsuch knowledge is also, Spinoza notes, what constitutes 'virtue' and the goodlife.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 itsfaculties die, this knowledge that now forms a part of our cognitive make-up inthis life will remain.

But here is precisely where Spinoza begins his attack. With these doctrines inhand, Spinoza goes on to deny the personal immortality of the soul. And, giventhe 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. Ifwhat survives the death of the body is simply a kind of knowledge, howevereternal, then there is no robust immortality of a personal nature. Thus, it wouldbe 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 theworld-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 ofthings, the more adequate ideas we have, the more of what belongs to usremains 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 degreeof 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 mindknows things by the second and third kind of knowledge, the greater the part of itthat remains, and consequently the greater the part of it that is not touched byaffects 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 bequalitatively distinguished from another and linked up to the life that was itsdurational 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 seewhy any two eternal minds should necessarily be distinguishable one fromanother. 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 mirrorGod's total and eternal understanding of things. In that case, one eternal mindwould 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 adequateideas? Spinoza is fairly clear that the more adequate ideas two minds have, themore 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 linkingit up with a particular durational consciousness in this lifetime (and thus givingit its personal dimension) is equally problematic. Spinoza states quite clearlythat continuity of memory is essential to continued identity of a person overtime (ivP39s).21 But he also insists, as any good Cartesian would, that memorylasts only as long as the body endures (vP21). Thus there will be no connectionwithin consciousness between the mind in duration and the mind sub specieaeternitatis.

Regardless of what one thinks of these admittedly sketchy arguments,22 thereis one very good reason - in fact, to my mind the strongest possible reason - forthinking 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 considerhis 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

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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 rationalagents). And the two passions that he is most concerned about are hope andfear. These are the passions that are most easily manipulated by ecclesiasticauthorities seeking to control our lives and command our obedience. Unscrupu-lous preachers take advantage of our tendency toward superstitious behaviourby persuading us that there is an eternal reward to be hoped for and an eternalpunishment to be feared after this life. What is essential for them to succeed isour conviction that there is such an afterlife, that my soul, a soul in which I havea very intimate stake, will continue to live after the death of my body, and thatthere is a personal immortality. I believe that Spinoza thought that the best wayto 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 suchhopes and fears are grounded: the belief in the immortality of the soul. Maybethere are eternal aspects of the mind. But, he is saying, the true eternity of themind is nothing like the personal immortality temptingly or threateningly heldout 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 duringown 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 inwhich 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 otherswho 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 aradical 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 ofhis nature and acts from the necessity of his nature' (Ethics iP17), not because God isendowed with 'freedom of the will.' All of my references to the Ethics employ thestandard notation of part number (roman numeral), followed by proposition number(P), and, where applicable, scholium (s). The editions I shall refer to are SpinozaOpera, ed. Carl Gebhardt, 5 vols (Heidelberg, 1925 and 1987), by volume number andpage number; and the translations by Edwin Curley, The Collected Works ofSpinoza, 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; andHenry 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 manto 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 magnificientstudy, La pensee philosophique et theologique de Gersonide (Paris: Editions deMinuit, 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 ofprovidence includes a discussion of just this issue, relying also on union with theactive 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 justicemanifests itself not in the world-to-come but in the world we live in, stressed theimportance of punishment and reward for sin and righteousness in this life. It hasbeen argued, in fact, that Gersonides's view here goes against rabbinic tradition; seeMenachem Kellner, 'Gersonides, Providence and the Rabbinic Tradition,' Journal ofthe 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 nocopies of any works by Gersonides; see Catalogus van de Bibliotheek der VerenigingMet Spinozahuis te Rijnsburg (Leiden: Brill, 1965). Still, there can be no doubt thatSpinoza read and knew well at least the Milchamot ha-Shem, if not also Gersonides'sbiblical commentaries. For studies of Spinoza and Maimonides, see Leon Roth,

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Spinoza, Descartes and Maimonides (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924); Warren ZevHarvey, '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. AsSpinoza insists, no human being can be completely outside the causal nexus ofnature; see Ethics ivP4.

19 This is the upshot of Books iv and v of the Ethics. See especially ivP6: 'Insofar as theMind understands all things as necessary, it has a greater power over the affects, or isless 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 thesoul 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, theRecherche de la verite, published in 1674-5. He conceived his theodicy onlyafter 1680, when his thought matured, especially with the Traite de la nature etde la grace, and he continued to clarify its concepts and principles until the endof 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 onthe theme.) This theodicy is not very well known. It is less well known thanother Malebranchian theories, like the 'vision in God,' and less well knownthan 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'smajor 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 hasthree parts. First, I recall the basic principles of Malebranche's theodicy,emphasizing three themes: what is usually called the 'principe de la simplicitedes 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 willshow how these principles lead Malebranche to an atypical position regardingphysical evil. Here I will show how Malebranche's reflection represents a con-siderable innovation in theodicy, since it expresses a clear break with SaintAugustine and Saint Thomas, as well as with positions that Leibniz was later to

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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 AntoineArnauld and Frangois Fenelon, that Malebranche's theodicy is Manichaean.The second interpretation is more internal: it views Malebranche's theodicy asan 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 itquickly, in the (almost) definitive version that Malebranche developed after1685,2 and then bring out some of its consequences.

In order to be glorified by his work, God wants to create what is best, what ismost perfect (e.g., see TNG I, HOC 5, p. 12). But according to Malebranche, theintrinsic perfection of creation itself is not the only variable that God considerswhen 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 Godemploys to create and sustain the world. In other words, God, in his quest foroverall maximum perfection, must consider not only the created world, butalso, 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 thesake of a result (creation) that alone has value; they are an expression ofdivine perfection, and must be integrated by God into his search for maximalperfection.

What would be the most perfect divine ways of creation possible? Theywould 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 thequalities that he is glorified in possessing' (Dialogues ix, 10/OC 12, p. 214; seealso 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 wisdomof the agent.4 Malebranche emphasizes simplicity among the attributes whosecharacter creation must bear, and he holds that it is the simplicity of ways thatespecially testifies to God's wisdom in creating.

But God does not choose the ways that are most perfect, or simple, absolutelyspeaking, because it is the total perfection of the compound of world and waysthat must be maximized. Here, according to Malebranche, lies the explanation

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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 wouldhave to will each of its details in particular, and in this case, he would multiplyhis particular volitions and ways. This he does not do, in order not to sacrificethe simplicity of his ways: 'If a world more perfect than ours could be createdand conserved only in ways that are correspondingly [reciproquement] lessperfect... I am not afraid to say this to you: God is too wise, he loves his glorytoo 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 lagrace quoted hereafter, one can estimate that very simple ways would be sogeneral, and would to such an extent prevent the detailed organization of theworld, that the world produced by them would inevitably be very imperfect.5 SoGod did not act in that way; to do so would be to produce a work that woulddishonour him. My hypothesis is that, according to Malebranche (after 1685),the perfection of the world and the perfection of the ways vary in an inversemanner. That is why the explanation for the nature of our world must be foundbetween the two extreme cases. It is neither the most perfect possible world, northe one created and conserved in the most perfect ways possible. It is the bestcompound (or compromise) possible.

A numerical example in the Abrege du traite de la nature et de la grace (atext written in 1704, when Malebranche republished all his responses toArnauld) 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 characterof the divine attributes to a degree equal to eight, and that is produced by ways thatexpress the divine attributes only to a degree equal to two, expresses them overallonly to a degree equal to ten. But a work that is perfect only to degree six, or whichexpresses the divine attributes only to degree six, and that is produced by ways thatexpress them once again to degree six, expresses the divine attributes to degreetwelve. Therefore if God chooses one of these two works, he will choose the lessperfect 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 dela 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 perfection8 2 1 06 6 1 2

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This example is at once illuminating and difficult to interpret in detail. Infact, we cannot find a simple mathematical and additive ratio that explains thevariation of the terms.6 This probably means that the example is only a heuristicdevice, which should not be over-interpreted.7 But Malebranche may wish toindicate that God's action cannot be adequately described by means of mathe-matical models. In this case, the example discreetly contests the possibility of aunivocal application, to human beings and God, of a Leibnizian maxim likecum Deus calculatfit mundus.

Malebranche asserts that 'God could make a world that is more perfect thanthe one we inhabit' (TNG i, 14/OC 5, p. 29). And, a few years later and morecategorically, he states: 'I do not hesitate to repeat it: the universe is not themost 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 hadthus created in the most complex ways, the world would have been, in itself,much better. Hence the presence, limited but nonetheless real, of disorderswithin the world. Examples given by Malebranche are rain falling in a placewhere it is useless, a stone falling on the head of a just man, the death of a childwhose 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 tothe production of these beings and events. But he does not do it, because suchan 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 theLeibnizian one: the world according to Malebranche is simply not 'the best of allpossible worlds.' The reasons for this clash between Malebranche and Leibnizabout the status of creation can be found in their differing formulations of therelations 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 'Goddoes nothing for which he does not deserve to be glorified' (sec. 3) and that, inGod's creative process, 'the simplicity of ways is balanced by the richness ofeffects' (sec. 10). Here Leibniz resembles Malebranche, who may indeed haveinspired the Leibnizian formulae. But according to Leibniz, ways and work areconsidered by God as whole, the elements of which cannot be separated so as tobe 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 theways), and the Oratorian consequently concludes that the maximal perfection ofthe combination obtained by sum is not coincident with the maximal perfectionof 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, Godmakes the work and the ways as perfect as possible. Thus, Leibniz maintains thatour created world is really the best possible, and his disapproval of 'the opinionof some moderns who boldly maintain that what God makes is not of the highestperfection, and that he would have been able to do better' is an implicit criticismof 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 therelations among the attributes of God. The adoption of simple ways is basicallyexplained 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 (moreprecisely, limits) the exercise of God's omnipotence. This point can be sharp-ened by an examination of what Malebranche calls God's permission of eviland disorder in the world. When the Oratorian tries to define God's intentionalrelationship with the physical evils and disorders in the world, he writes: 'Godpermits disorder, but he does not want it' (Dialogues ix, 9/OC 12, p. 212); or, ina more elaborated way:

God makes monsters only in order to alter nothing in his action, only out of respectfor the generality of his ways, only to follow exactly the laws of nature he hasestablished and has nonetheless established not for the monstrous effects they mustproduce, but for those effects more worthy of his wisdom and goodness. For hewills 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 initiallywilled 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/OC8, p. 655) and does things that he did not want: 'these are effects of which oneought to say that God permits them because he does not will them positivelyand 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 thetwo at first glance have the same goal: to explain the existence of beings that are

12

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not as perfect as they would have been if they had been willed for their ownsakes 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 theseries of compossibles which defines the best of worlds. Permission, and thedistinction between antecedent and consequent will, are therefore justified cos-mologically by the order of the world. For Malebranche, it is considerationswhich could be called 'theological' (the simplicity of divine ways), and not cos-mological, which justify God's 'permission,' and explain the distinctionbetween '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 whathis wisdom dictates as being worthy of him - simplicity and generality of hisways - rather than to what would maximize the perfection of the created worldand the beings that compose it. The justification of the 'principe de la simplicitedes voies' lies in this determination and this restriction of the divine will by therequirements 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 ofknowledge. It is surprising to see Malebranche describe the divine actions andmake assured judgments, often pejorative, on their products. For an Oratorianpriest, 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 Godcould 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 inGod (that is to say, that our ideas are God's ideas), we are able to judge theaction and the works of God, without being afraid of being deceived by oursubjectivity:

Were I not persuaded that all men are rational only because they are enlightened bythe Eternal Wisdom, I would, without a doubt, be rash to speak about God's plansand to want to discover some of his ways in the production of his Work. Butbecause it is certain that the Eternal Word is the universal Reason of minds, andthat 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, althoughconsubstantial with God himself, does not fail to answer those who know how tointerrogate 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 Malebrancheit is not 'rash' to judge, and in certain cases to criticize, the creative behaviourof God and its results. It is in a way from God's point of view that we pass thesejudgments.

2. Malebranche's Break with Classical Theodicy

These principles are important for Malebranche, since they are what assures thesolidity of his reflection on physical evil, and strongly connects this reflectionwith the rest of his system. But for us modern readers, it is above all the resultsof Malebranche's reflections on physical evil that are of interest, because oftheir originality. To show this originality, I propose a list of four points at whichMalebranche breaks with the 'classical' Christian discourse on physical evil. Itake 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 theseconclusions 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 tosay, 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, itis essentially defective, no matter what purpose its maker had. In the sameway, a monster is an imperfect work.' (Rep. Refl. m/OC 8, p. 770). To affirmin this way that a monster is an imperfect work is to refuse to locate itsimperfection solely in an absence, or a lack, of good; it is to affirm that thework is in itself an evil. Malebranche thus does not admit that physical evil isoutside the sphere of being; that is, he rejects the Augustinian view of thecreature as a being that is good in itself, and evil only to the extent that itlacks 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 reducedto a difference in point of view on the beings under consideration: The Oratoriantakes privation to be an absence that devalues the affected being; the otherswould agree, but would insist on the being, and therefore the goodness, of thebeing 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, notonly 'does not make the work of God more perfect,' but even, 'on the contrary,

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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 inhis mature work.17 It shows that the monster adds nothing to the perfection of theworld, 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' (TNGi, 221OC 5, p. 36). This disfigurement of the world by the monster's presence init signifies therefore the power to vitiate, the disorganizing capacity that evilbeings and events have in creation. And since according to Malebranche the firstaxiom we apprehend is 'nothingness has no properties' (Dialogues i, HOC 12,p. 32), this disorganizing capacity or property shows that physical evils are, touse an expression Malebranche is fond of, 'worse than nothingness.' 18 HereMalebranche'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 theworld, and conjointly the perfection of the universe.19 It is one of the functionsof the famous Augustinian comparisons of the world to a picture or to a piece ofmusic to insist on this global order of the cosmos, of which creatures sometimesdeprived of being are constitutive elements.20

For his part, Malebranche challenges these ideas of the order and perfectionof the world. He begins by contesting the notion that the created world is thebest possible, insisting on the paradigmatic case of the monster: 'There aremonsters whose deformity leaps to the eye ... A world made up of creatureswho lack nothing that they ought to have is more perfect than a world full ofmonsters' (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 amonce again moved to believe what I have heard said many times, that it is thework 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. Iwould 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. Andif there is black with the white, dissonance with the consonance, it is not becausethese give more force to the painting, and more sweetness to the harmony. What Imean is that, at bottom, all this does not render God's work more perfect. On thecontrary, 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 physicaldisorders 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 onthis creation is too limited, and because they accord too great an importance totheir immediate experiences. This prevents them, according to Augustine, fromshowing the cognitive humility that would lead them to recognize that they donot 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 inclusivepoint of view which alone allows for correct judgments on creation: 'It is in thegrand order that there is some small disorder; and it could even be said that thissmall 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 toregard as exact those judgments which, taking precautions against error, affirmits existence. There follows a modification of the response to the libertineobjection 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 thevalidity of pejorative judgments that libertines make on creation; it must insteadbe shown that they are mistaken in arguing from these judgments, well-foundedin 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 sufferingof creatures. But their affirmations on the nature of physical evil create a gapbetween what we feel and what we understand, between what is experientiallyreported (about evil and disorder) and what is metaphysically explained (evil asnon-being, the full reality of the goodness of being, and consequently theuniversal order). One is then led to differentiate levels of discourse (the ex-periential and the reflective), to attribute a distinct signification to them (the

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subjectively felt, the objectively known), and to arrange them in a hierarchyfrom the point of view of their truth.

For Malebranche, by contrast, the metaphysics of evil and the experience ofsuffering 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, insistsrepeatedly on the 'visibility' of the evils he is speaking of: 'things being as theyare'; '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 classicalview, which denies the reality of evil, and posits or postulates the maximalorder of the world, thought of as perfect or as the best possible. There is realoriginality is this, as compared with Leibniz, Fenelon, Bossuet, Descartes inthe 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 havebeen able to consult, all of which at bottom revive the Augustinian-Thomisticsolution. It remains to try to interpret this originality, to which Malebranche'scommentators, 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 ofMalebranche, Antoine Arnauld in the Philosophical and Theological Reflec-tions ...,23 and Fran£ois 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 ofthe theodicy of Malebranche, but only to remark that both Arnauld and Fenelonraise the same objection, that the Oratorian adopts a position like that of theManichaeans 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 andTheological Reflections:

It is certain at least that St. Augustine was pained to hear,anyone speaking socrudely 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 fromthese 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 originfrom the free will of rational creatures; that is, sin and concupiscence which is thefruit 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 andtrue disorders what appears to be such to the limited human soul.25

Fenelon tends in the same direction. For his part, he compares Malebranche tothe Manichaeans, who 'believe that certain beings are evil by their nature andthat evil is something real and positive.'26 'He [Malebranche] favours, withoutmeaning 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 whichJesus Christ, sent by the good principle, made reparation for.'27

Taken literally, these comparisons surely seem unjustified, or justified onlyas part of a polemic against Malebranche and not as part of an attempt to arriveat 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 limitationis an effect of the demands of divine wisdom. In the attempt to preserve somerelevance for the comparison drawn by Arnauld and Fenelon (while grantingthat nothing in Malebranche could be identified as an evil principle), one couldat most speak of an 'intra-divine' Manichaeism, interiorized in God, the latterbeing in himself his own principle of limitation. But the comparison then seemscrude and unacceptable.29

But it is necessary first of all to recover the context of this critique, that is, topay attention to the sense of the word 'Manichaean' in the mind of Arnauld andof Fenelon. In the seventeenth century, Manichaeism was not what we knowtoday, thanks to the discoveries and the research since the end of the nineteenthcentury: a religion unto itself, with its own institutions and rites, and its dogmasorganized in a coherent manner. It can also be supposed that the knowledgewhich Arnauld and Fenelon had of Manichaeism did not go much beyond thepresentation, itself a simplification, to be found in Saint Augustine.30 Thus, fora theologian of the 1680s, Manichaeism was essentially a dualist heresy main-taining the existence of an evil principle combating God, and according apositive existence to evil.

This having been stated, the accusation of Manichaeism levelled againstMalebranche is more understandable. If Arnauld and Fenelon believed theycould identify in him what they considered the Manichaean 'heresy,' this issurely not because the thought of the Oratorian was according to them a revival

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of the doctrine which defined Mani and his disciples in the third century. Thataccusation is absurd. But for Arnauld and Fenelon, a heresy is also, and perhapsespecially, a 'deviation' of thought which can recur in many forms, and whoseeponymous, historically datable form is only one particular concretizationamong others. The claim of parallelism signifies then that Malebranche, althoughan avowed Cartesian who uses philosophical tools that have nothing to do withthose of the Manichaeans, had developed the same tendencies (or succumbed tothe 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 theirinterpretation as a critique. But their interpolation helps to clarify the scope ofMalebranche's theodicy, and to make more precise the place it occupies amongthe different theodicies of the seventeenth century.

3.2. Between Leibniz and Macbeth

The second line of interpretation approaches the theodicy of Malebranche in amore internal manner. It has to do with the understanding of Malebranche'sproject. 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 befound: a pain is a punishment (causal justification) or an ordeal which preparessomething 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 andthe order of meaning. Leibniz is a good example of such a position:

Physical evil, that is sorrows, sufferings, miseries, will be less troublesome toexplain, since they are results of moral evil. Poena est malum passionis, quodinfllgitur ob malum actionis, according to Grotius. One suffers because one hasacted; one suffers evil because one does evil: nostrorum causa malorum nossumus. It is true that one often suffers through the evil actions of others; but whenone 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 thatthe two orders correspond perfectly. An instance of suffering would always beeither 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 asperfectly organized as it could have been, things do not always go that way.Malebranche certainly does not occupy a position radically opposed to that ofAugustine and Leibniz. Since our world is not, after all, the worst of all possibleworlds, it can be thought to be globally organized; that is, the majority of eventsthat 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 thesimplicity of the divine ways, there sometimes occur those events that Male-branche calls 'regrettable and useless' (Meditations chretiennes VH, 15/OC 10,p. 75; Traite de morale i, HOC 11, p. 26): 'the plague affects the good and thewicked indifferently ... one who goes to the aid of a poor person is destroyed inthe ruins, he who seeks vengeance finds no resistance' (Reponse au livre deMonsieur 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 virtueof the order in which they occur.

Malebranche therefore tries to occupy an intermediate position. It is not theposition 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 sovereignchance, seeing there, like Macbeth, 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound andfury, signifying nothing.' Malebranche tries to build a system which postulatesa meaningful global orientation of the world and our lives, but also maintainsthere, like 'gaps of intelligibility,' spasms of meaninglessness in which there isnothing 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 presentthese 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, preciselywhat 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 incertain 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 thesensation of pain. According to Malebranche, one can go from the affirmation

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'this seems evil to me' to the affirmation 'it is evil.' So, this unusual theodicyappears 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 hiscontemporaries (Arnauld, Fenelon, Bossuet), and some theoretical problemswhich eventually make his whole system precarious. Arnauld's criticisms aboutmiracles provide a good example of these difficulties. Arnauld argues that whenone affirms, as Malebranche does, that the laws that govern the universe havebeen 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, howthere 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, actsby a particular volition, when the global perfection of the compound of workand ways is so threatened by an imperfection in the work that it would be betterfor 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 Arnauldthen asks why, if God is able to act by particular volitions, he does not alwaysdo 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 ofthe 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 apparentlyunimportant correction of his theory of the generality of the divine ways. Butthese corrections, apparently harmless at first glance, in fact imply, if all theconsequences are drawn out, a modification of the Malebranchian conceptionof divine action. And this modification, in turn, seems to require abandoningthe principle of the simplicity of ways, re-establishing the principle of particulardivine 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 heparries Arnauld's attacks, with all their structural implications, and the will notto deviate from his initial view.36

Malebranche was not unable to see these difficulties, if only because hisadversaries reminded him of them relentlessly. But, all the same, he neverabandoned the theme of the simplicity of ways. This painful situation for theOratorian, and his obstinate refusal to escape from it, can be interpreted in twoways. 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 mulishthan courageous. We have to renounce his theodicy, and come back to theserene 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 whoforces 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 andconcepts. If one appreciates Malebranche's courage and judges that he wasable, in spite of all the difficulties, to carry his project off, one must then insiston the atypical character of his theodicy, to my knowledge without equivalentamong 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 succeededhim, above all Voltaire, with his challenge to the Leibnizian theme of the best ofall 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 SimoneWeil and Hans Jonas, whose reflections resemble Malebranche's view that inthe 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 underthe 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). Iwish to express my warm thanks to Michael Latzer and Elmar Kremer for their generoushelp 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 thefollowing abbreviations: TNG = Treatise on Nature and Grace (OC 5); Dialogues =Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion (OC 12); Rep. Refl. = Reponse au Livre i desReflexions 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 sonexperience religieuse (Paris: Vrin, 1926), pp. 40-93; M. Gueroult, Malebranche(Paris: Aubier, 1955-9), vol. 2, pp. 137-207; P. Riley, The General Will beforeRousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 64-137; A. Robinet,

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Systeme et existence dans I'oeuvre de Malebranche (Paris: Vrin, 1965), pp. 17-44and 68-113.

3 See Dialogues ix, 10/0C 12, pp. 213-14: 'God wills that his work honor him ... Butnote that God does not will that his ways dishonour him ... God wills that his actionas well as his work bear the character of his attributes. Not content that the universehonours 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 hiswork: he does not do by very complex means that which he can execute by moresimple 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 createthat which could be produced and conserved by the most simple laws, or which mustbe the most perfect, relative to the simplicity of ways necessary for its production orconservation.' The beginning of this text could make one think that Malebrancheposits 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 issubject to variation. Moreover, it is not easy to understand what Malebranche meansby 'simplicity' of ways: if these 'ways' are identified with laws of the world, it couldbe said first off that these laws are 'simple' because not numerous from the point ofview 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 indefining the meaning of 'generality' in the expression 'general volitions.' See thediscussion 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 thathe ought also to have regard for the greatness and the beauty of the design. Also heought 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 toform the design of the most beautiful work which he can execute by the most simpleways...'

6 If x stands for the perfection of the work and y for that of the ways, then for both setsof terms 2x + y = 18; but in that case, the maximal value of the total perfection isobtained by x = 0 and y = 18, and this is certainly not the outcome that Malebranchewants. If a multiplicative law is sought, it is verifiable that (x — 5)y = 6, so that withx > 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 theDiscourse 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 lanature 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 onMetaphysics must be qualified. The Confessio Philosophi (1673) already containsthe 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 thesubsequent 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, andsimplicity 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 aTheodicy: The Leibniz-Malebranche-Arnauld Connection,' Journal of the History ofIdeas 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 Etudesphilosophiques (1981): 279-92.

11 See Rep. Refl. \, HOC 8, p. 651: 'God wills in particular everything which conformsto 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 alsoRep. Refl. i, 1/0C8, p. 651.

14 In the republication of 1712, Malebranche adds an important clarification: 'God'swisdom renders him in a sense [pour ainsi dire] impotent.'

15 This is why I will sometimes speak of 'Augustino-Thomism.' For Saint Thomas, Ihave used the following: Summa Theologiae la, quest. 47 and 48; Summa contraGentiles HI, ch. 5 to ch. 9; De Malo; and the Compendium Theologiae, ch. 114 to120.

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 sinnerfinds himself. However, it seems to me that this expression could be applied, without

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being unfaithful to the thought of the Oratorian, to physical evils insofar as they aredisfigurements 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'sTheodicy,' Journal of the History of Philosophy 35 [1997]: 27^4). For their part,contemporary readers of Malebranche (Arnauld, Fenelon, Bossuet) better perceivedthis 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. Itis found in volume 39, pp. 155-856, of the Oeuvres d'Arnauld, called the 'Edition deLausanne,' 43 volumes (Paris and Lausanne: Sigismond d'Arnay, 1775-83). I havestudied the refutation of the Malebranchian theodicy proposed in this work in detailin 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. 33̂ 10; F. Bouillier, Histoire de la philosophie cartesienne,3rd ed., 2 vols (Paris: Delagrave, 1868), vol. 2, ch. 14; A.R. Desautels, 'Feneloncritique de Malebranche: En marge de Malebranche et le quietisme du P. deMontcheuil,' Revue thomiste 53 (1953): 347-66; and Riley, The General Will beforeRousseau, pp. 74-9. The criticisms of Fenelon are often very close to those ofArnauld.

25 Reflexions philosophiques et theologiques i, ch. 6, pp. 225-6. See also, in the samesense, ch. 2, p. 203.

26 Refutation du systeme du Pere Malebranche, ch. 3, p. 309. The continuation of thetext 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 laple"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 onemust 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 comparedhim to the 'Marcionites, Appeletians, and Valentinians'; finally, an anonymous Dic-tionary of Heresies (Paris: Nyon-Barrois-Didot, 1762), vol. n, pp. 319-21, againmentions the name of Malebranche, although to vindicate him as an opponent ofBayle, in the article 'Manicheisme.' For a contemporary comparison of Malebranchewith 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 (Oeuvresd'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 ofProtestant 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 laverite (OC 3, p. 219): the Oratorian recognizes that when a house collapses on a goodman it is 'a great evil.' He explains that since 'God does not multiply his volitions toremedy real or apparent disorders which are the necessary consequence of naturallaws ... he ought to neglect little things.' The term is equally applied to the order ofgrace in TNG n, 17 additions/OC5, p. 77.

32 It could be objected here that my reading is too narrowly 'philosophical,' and that itneglects 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 aremore 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 couldtherefore 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 theworld as Malebranche sees it, it cannot be suppressed, for all that. Once the worldwas created, and before sin, God acted, in fact, by general volitions. If Adam had notsinned, one of his descendants could therefore have been mutilated by a stone pushedby a blast of wind.

33 This critique can be found developed in the text entitled Dissertation ... sur la

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maniere dont Dieu a fait des miracles ..., vol. 39, pp. 673-741, of the Oeuvresd'Arnauld.

34 This argument is developed for the first time, in a very discreet manner, in theReponse a une dissertation de Monsieur ArnauId (1685), ch. 3, and abridged inDialogues 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 andMalebranche concerning miracles and providence, which I have briefly sketchedhere, see my Deux cartesiens, chapters 8 and 9, and section 4.2 of my article TheMalebranche-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,' inAnnales 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 ofVoltaire (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 distanceentre le necessaire et le bien' from La pesanteur et la grace (Paris: Plon, 1947); onHans Jonas, Der Gottesbegriffnach Auschwitz (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main,1984), especially the end of the text devoted to a critical examination of the 'classicalconcept' 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, asone that arises independently of religious faith. It was Epicurus, after all, whogave the problem its classic formulation. It is the Christian conception of God,however, that gives the problem its greatest urgency, but with the result ofrestricting 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 aboutGod is more widely relevant when understood as talk about the world.

For Descartes, it is divine power that is most prominent. God is omnipotenteven to the point that he is the 'total and efficient' cause of the eternal truths. Onthis conception of God, the model for understanding the world is political.Regal metaphors abound as Descartes construes the relation between God andcreation as that between a king and his realm.1 To use the technical language oftheology, nothing has absolute necessity; the only necessity is ordained. Theupshot is a perhaps surprising empiricism at a very deep level that was playedout by such Cartesians as Desgabets and Regis.2 Only experience can disclosethe content and extent of royal decrees.

For Leibniz, these Cartesians unwittingly destroy God's love and glory bymaking 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 thatpredominates 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

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102 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon

necessary in all its features. The struggle between the Cartesian and Leibnizianconceptions 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 toanyone 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 thephilosophical 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 anobject is dreaded only because it has the power and will of doing harm, andexercises that power cruelly and unmercifully, it must needs be hated anddetested: this can be no religious worship.'4 A condition even for adorability ofGod is a moral relation to him. And it is in primarily moral terms that Bayleunderstands the world.

Elizabeth Labrousse, the doyenne of Bayle scholarship, makes two importantpoints in the course of her discussion of the problem of evil. The moral outlookof 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, whichwould so isolate the transcendent God that dialogue with him would becomeimpossible. Thus, 'it must not be claimed that the goodness of the infinite beingis not subject to the same rules as the goodness of the creature; for if there is inGod an attribute that can be termed goodness, the characteristics of goodness ingeneral must belong to it.'5

The second point is Bayle's rejection of the neo-Plotinian account of evil interms of plenitude and the best of all possible worlds. This is his rejectionbefore the fact of Leibniz's theodicy: 'God could have made things otherwisethan he has made them in a hundred different ways, all worthy of his infiniteperfection; for without that he would have had no freedom and would not havediffered from the God of the Stoics, chained by an inevitable destiny, a dogmawhich is hardly better than Spinozism.'6 The failure of the neo-Plotinianaccount 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 pointof view of the totality when considering the machine of the universe, and thus toadmire 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 viewremains 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 tostruggle with God and to demand of Him an account of the misery [malheur] ofexistence.'7

The struggle and demand are these: if 'good' applies to man and to Godunivocally, and if God could have created other worlds than this one, then wecan argue with him as did the prophets over what he does. A deep-seated fearfor Bayle, and the fundamental reason why the problem of evil must be in somesense resolved, is that God might not be good, and that the horrible lament ofChrist reported by Matthew 26:24 (also Mark 14:21) may not be true just ofJudas but of everyone: better for him never to have been. This is no abstractissue 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 problemof evil, despite the fact that his examination of Bishop King's thought on thematter in the Reponse aux questions d'un provincial forms perhaps the longestcontinuous discussion of the issue. The Dictionary provides Bayle with theopportunity to address the problem from different perspectives and in differentcontexts, something which is not true of the extended discussion in theReponse. Perhaps the most important of these contexts is Bayle's treatment of anumber of heresies which might all be loosely styled 'Manichaean.' Theseheretical groups - Marcionites and Paulicians particularly - though they maynot have had any historical connection to the Manichees, nevertheless sharewith them the view that the world as it exists is best accounted for on thehypothesis of two, coeval powers, one good, one evil. While engaged in the taskof assessing the truth or falsity of the many errors and immoralities with whichthese 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 theheterodox as not only mistaken, but pernicious and immoral as well. However,as one who had both converted and reverted, from Protestantism to Catholicismand back, Bayle would have had a deeper appreciation than many of his con-temporaries of the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments which motivatethe conscious adoption of a religious view. He would have been sensitive aswell to the certainty and doubt which accompany religious belief. It shouldcome 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 examinethe 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 havesince made him an enigma to many, appear very early in the entry. While heexpresses 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 oftwo principles, one good, and the other bad; but in the particular explicationsthey gave of it, and in the practical consequences they drew from it.'10 It was theposition of many ecclesiastical writers that heresy, if not demonstrably false,was inherently weak and incapable of standing up to competition from the truereligion.11 But Bayle's position is the negation of this one. Not only is it thecase that Manichaean dualism is a more compelling doctrine than it is givencredit for being, but '[i]t was a happy thing, that St. Augustine, who understoodso well all the arts of controversy, abandoned the Manichean heresy; for hewould have removed its grossest errors and framed such a system, as, by hismanagement, would have puzzled the Orthodox.'12 What is compelling aboutthe doctrine is how neatly it accounts for the existence of moral evil. This is afailing, on the other hand, of the orthodox view, as Bayle remarks in a pretendeddialogue between Melissus and Zoroaster: 'since the principal character of agood system is to account for what experience teaches us, and that the bareincapacity 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 twoprinciples, 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 vieware at a standoff: a priori reasons favour the orthodox and a posteriori reasonsfavour the Manichees. Further, as Bayle argues, 'every system requires thesetwo things to make it good; one, that the ideas of it be distinct; the other that itaccounts for what experience teaches us.'14 If both kinds of reason are rationallyrequired, and the orthodox view can lay claim to only one of them, it seems thatthere 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 onheresy, we should not see Bayle as attempting to revive the cause of this or anyother heresy. His commitment to the truth of his religion is unwavering. It is justthat, 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 ofdestruction, and not of edification; it is only fit to start doubts, and to turn itselfall manner of ways, to perpetuate a dispute.'15 It cannot, in the end, provide asolution 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 unanswerablythe 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 infinitelywise 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 introduceitself into the world by the work of a principle infinitely good and holy; we shallanswer, 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 thegoodness of God is compatible with the existence of moral evil, despite the'pompous shew of arguments' which the problem of evil engenders. This is thetheme which runs through all of Bayle's discussion in the Dictionary; it formsthe core of his approach in nearly every article where the issue arises, and itexplains why Bayle so systematically undermines every proposed solution tothe problem of evil.

In the Marcionites entry, for instance, Bayle examines an argument thatclaims to show the compatibility of God's goodness with evil by claiming thathuman free will constrains God's ability to prevent evil. Bayle claims that thereare several mistakes in this argument. Chief among these mistakes is this: that itis part of the nature of a finite, created being that it be free to sin. But 'a creaturedoes not become a God, because it is determined to good, and is deprived ofthat which you call free will.'19 What shows this is the orthodox belief that theblessed in heaven are incapable of sin in virtue of a necessary goodness, and yettheir love of God in this state (which necessitates their goodness) is not of thesame 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 theapparent dilemma. To take another example, in the Paulicians entry it is arguedthat 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 orperception. 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 enoughto show that the principle is false. Yet another argument is that finite, created,material things necessarily involve evil. Bayle refutes this argument by pointingout that what is created truly ex nihilo cannot act as a constraint on the power ofits 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 mustoppose 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 arguedin the Paulicians entry: 'we must not engage with the Manichees, till we havebefore 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 ishere 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: 'Thedoctrine 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 itfrom 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 withthe shield of faith.'24 The aim, therefore, of Bayle's treatment of the problem ofevil 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 harmonywith God's goodness. If we appeal 'only to philosophical ideas,' then 'the bestanswer that can be naturally returned to the question, Why did God permit thatmen should sin? is this, I do not know, I only believe that he had some reasonsfor it very worthy of his infinite wisdom, but they are incomprehensible tome.'25

Dismay with Bayle's approach led the Walloon Church of Rotterdam torequire him to provide an 'explanation' of his remarks on the Manichees, Mar-cionites, and Paulicians.26 This explanation involves for the most part only areiteration of the claims made in the earlier remarks. New, however, is a defenceof the approach: Bayle's strategy is to show that not only are the faithful at adisadvantage in a philosophical dispute concerning evil (a claim already madein the remarks), but that there is a real advantage to be gained by refusing toengage in such dispute. His first attempt at such a defence is a weak one: 'Itwould be against the nature of things, for [the mysteries of the gospel] to comeoff victorious from [the test of philosophical disputes], their essential characteris 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 ofa defence of religious mysteries to claim that they would cease to be mysteriesif they were amenable to rational defence, for what is at issue is not their statusas mysteries but their content. Yet Bayle's general defence seems to gain forcethe deeper he proceeds into it, in the way that a country preacher might crank uphis 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 involvesclarifying the difference between faith and reason. The difference, says Bayle,'betwixt the faith of a Christian and the science of a Philosopher' is this: 'thisfaith 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, asis usually the case, as a difference in how belief is produced (i.e., by evidence asopposed to by revelation), but in the kind of belief that results. Granted, theresult is a belief which is immune to rational criticism, but unlike what might bethought of as the standard distinction, a reason can be offered for this immunitywhich is not reducible to obstinacy or blindness: 'as the highest degree ofevidence 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 avirtue 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 havebeen, 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 Abrahamand Isaac was one who constantly showed surprise in dealing with his chosenpeople. Indeed, such a possibility may be required by what Bayle himself takesto be the dialogical relation between us and God. How could God have arguedin good faith with his prophets?

Alas, it is very difficult to define the term 'Socinianism' in a way thatremains 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 itsproper place. Just as anyone who did not have a proper conception of Godwas viewed as an atheist, so anyone who did not carve out the domain of faith tospecification 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 theDictionary.31 A not irrelevant curiosity is that Socinus is still another of theBayle surrogates to be found there: individuals driven from their native land forreligious reasons of conscience. It will be useful to begin with a brief account ofthe biography of this colourful character.

Faustus Socinus was born Fausto Sozzini in Sienna in 1539. Like PeterWaldo four centuries earlier, he spent at least a brief period as a merchant inLyons, where he seems to have received letters from his uncle Lelio filled withheterodox theological views. He returned to Italy and spent twelve years in theFlorentine court under Cosimo i. But he became convinced that, apart from the-


ology, he was wasting his time. Eventually, he was forced by his heterodoxviews to leave Italy for Switzerland, where between 1574 and 1578 he producedtwo of his most important works, on Christ the Redeemer and the condition ofman 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 PolishBrethren, eventually becoming their effective leader. His writing continued,with works on the authority of Scripture and other topics. On two occasions, henearly lost his life because of his views, once at the hands of an angry mob ofstudents. Ultimately, he found protection among certain sympathetic membersof 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 historicalaccounts of human nature. As a result of this difference, they have very differentmoral and political views. Bayle's views are relatively well known. He is, if youwill, a law and order conservative, who even as a refugee in Holland after theRevocation of the Edict of Nantes advocated strict obedience to Louis xi v as theonly hope of Huguenot security. Other refugees like Jurieu were attempting tofoment revolution, but Bayle's position was argued on recognizably Calvinistgrounds. He is an anti-rationalist pessimist who finds original sin utterly cor-rupting and therefore the need for Redemption satisfiable by no less than Godhimself. He therefore accepts the divinity of Christ, and, rather by default, theTrinity. 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 notstripped of freedom, at least deprived of any efficaciousness.

Socinus is a pacifist anarchist,32 whose optimism is grounded in a denial oforiginal 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 (thusviewing Christ in the way that the Calvinists view the Eucharist). The role ofChrist 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 belongsonly 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 forsalvation. (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 removefrom 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, thatis, to obey God's commands, that is, to live in the imitation of Christ. Thoughperfectly 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 agrace. This grace is granted to those and those only, who, made aware of thereward, not only accept that it is true, but also prepare to reject wickedness andbe wholly obedient to God's commandments, and then persist in their piouspurpose.'34 The necessary certitude is based in confidence (fiducia, confidencid)that God will make good on his promises of reward. Though described as agrace, this certitude seems open to all as a matter of will, since the 'substanceand form' of justification by faith is obedience: we freely will to follow reasonin 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 lovevirtue, they simply perish. Eternal damnation, hell-fire, etc., are just metaphors,which, if taken literally, would mean that God makes mortal man immortal onlyin 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 ofSocinianism 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 viewsof the Socinians, whether persecution helps their chances, and whether theiranarcho-pacifist views hurt them.37 Another question treated at length is thereception given Socinianism in Holland, which was surprisingly unfriendly andintolerant.38 Only in bits and pieces does Bayle's view of the Socinian doctrineitself emerge: '... the Socinians destroyed all Christianity, the resurrection of thedead, the hopes of eternal life';39 The eternity of matter, God's extension, thelimitation 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 shallobserve, by the bye, that nothing has proved more prejudicial to the Sociniansthan 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 onlyconsults his reason, and the bright idea of infinite goodness, which, morallyspeaking, makes up the principal character of the divine nature, will be offendedat what we read in Scripture concerning the eternity of hell torments.' As hedoes elsewhere, Bayle here insists on divine goodness, confirmed, he thinks, byboth 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, exceptonly 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 bemade to suffer only for suffering's sake, since no advantage would accrue fromthose torments to the sufferers or the spectators - a thing never done by any wellmtentioned legislature. They hoped to bring over to Christianity by that meansthose, who are offended by a notion that seems little consistent with the supremegoodness. But those Heretics were not aware that this very thing would make themmore 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 helltorments.41

Although he does not say so in this article, Bayle agrees with Socinus and hisfollowers on two very important points. He agrees, first, that the denial of divineforeknowledge, of eternal damnation, etc., is as well as one can do rationallywith respect to the problem of evil. (Although this is not to say that Bayle thinksthe problem is thereby solved. As he makes clear in the Paulicians article, Godshould have been able to predict on the basis of her thoughts that Eve was aboutto sin, and certainly, after her sin, that Adam would do the same.) An indicationof this is to be found in Bayle's criticism of the attempt by King to justify God'salleged creation of human freedom of indifference, given the prospect of the illuse of it. King attempts to exculpate God by describing the ill use of freedom asmerely possible. Bayle responds with a typical example: imagine a group ofmothers who allow their daughters to attend a ball unchaperoned; the womanwhose daughter is seduced may be excused if the daughter was thought to bestrong enough to withstand the seduction, but not if she was inexperienced. 'ASocinian, who sees in this a rather delicate objection, can nonetheless say thatthe success of the temptation was uncertain and the hopes false.' King cannotsay 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 theExplanation 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.' Theonly way to deal with them is by insisting on the very truths of faith that theydeny. He points out 'how impossible it is to confute the Philosophical objec-tions of the Socinians; and since they acknowledge the scripture, they oughtimmediately to be attacked by it. This is the weak side of their defence; theother is the strong side.'43

A second point on which Bayle agrees with Socinus and his followers is thatthe 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 stuntutterly at odds with divine omnipotence. The absolution of original sin is an endthat is readily achievable with a greater economy of means. Instead, there had tobe something that could have been achieved only by the sort of life that Christled, and that was his moral example. Nor is the point of this example merely tobring about a certain kind of behaviour, for that too could have been broughtabout by the omnipotent deity in a more rational fashion.

What is the example of Christ? For the Socinians, it is encapsulated by thesermon 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 thismoral seems rather too deistic and rationalist, too much of the eighteenth cen-tury for our Calvinist author, recall that his doctrine of toleration was perhapsthe most obvious sense in which he proved to be the so-called 'arsenal of theEnlightenment.' In any case, Bayle himself thought of toleration in explicitlyevangelical terms. He was at greatest length in his defence of toleration to showthat it was not upset by Luke 14:23. This is the text containing the words of therich man whose dinner invitations were ignored and who instructed his servantsas follows: compel them to enter. It was the text that became the basis for forcedconversions. Despite this literal interpretation advanced by Augustine, Bayleinsisted on a figurative interpretation compatible with the inviolable status ofconscience.

None of this, however, is to be found in the article on Socinus. For theconnection between Socinianism and Bayle's conception of the autonomy ofconscience, 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 notonly Bayle's but Socinus's, as well. He too was born in Italy, in Mantua, in1501, 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 calledupon by some Polish nobility to reform the Church, which he undertook withrespect to iconolatry and the communion rite. He was condemned from Geneva,however, in the person of Theodore Beza, although Stancarus also exchangedcharges 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 thedivine 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 ofthe Arians.' The historical upshot, according to Bayle, was the rise of Socinian-ism: '[The erstwhile Calvinist] Blandrata, and some others, who had fled fromGeneva for some errors concerning the Trinity, took advantage of Stancarus'sobjections, and pretended that since his adversaries could not resolve them, itwas 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, Baylelaconically comments that this accidental assistance to Arianism is 'a subject thatmight afford many reflexions.' Naturally there is a footnote remark that gives hisreflections. He begins with 'the complaints that some make against learning.Were it not better to suppress the universities than to maintain so many professorsin all the faculties? They are the men, who give birth to Heresies, or bring upthose who spread and multiply erroneous doctrines. The people, that is, all thosewho are not called to explain matters of religion, preserve the faith, imparted tothem, sound and undefiled.'46 The unschooled just believe, without making afuss. But the learned generate schism upon schism because of their insistence onbeing 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 theydo 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 nothave exchanged two pages. The obvious drift is toward a simple fideism that isoften attributed to Bayle, but his text takes a typically unexpected turn. For hereplies 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 thatgood things ought not to be suppressed, because some make ill use of them; andtherefore since the improving of one's mind is very worthy of man, and theappointing of matters for that end is a good thing, it ought not to be abolished underpretence, 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 stillmore to be feared. Ignorance would not prevent divisions; some men less ignorantthan others, though they had never been in a university, would be so presumptuousand vain as to sow new doctrines, and might establish them more easily, becausetheir hearers would be silly and ignorant.


The connection here with Bayle's concern for toleration is obvious. Yet thepoint that ought not to be lost sight of is that dispute, which according to Baylederives largely from the desire for philosophical novelty, distracts one fromconsideration of the moral life, which is a necessary (if not sufficient) conditionfor salvation.

For Bayle, chief among these disputes is the problem of evil, as is evidencedby the considerable space Bayle devotes to consideration both of the problemand the many heresies it engenders. This is not to say, however, that Bayle takesheresy and the response to it to be a minor or niggling problem, or the heretichimself never to be at fault.47 Rather, Bayle should be seen as arguing that erroris a necessary consequence of the philosophical examination of religious mys-teries, but that the examination of things is a virtue in itself, and therefore thatthere 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 tothe problem of evil, then, is that there is no solution, properly so called. Thereis, on the other hand, the virtue of the autonomous conscience which wrestleswith 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 recognitionof the value of the autonomous conscience, not indeed in terms of what it bringsabout, 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, hewas plagued by migraine, tuberculosis, and general ill health. Worse was hismoral situation. Because of his reversion to Protestantism, Bayle spent hisentire adult life as an exile from his birthplace, and most of that time in cold anddank Holland. From there, huddled with the community of his co-religionists,he followed the horrors of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, whichfamously 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 thatthe 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. InBayle's world it had a poignancy found in no other thinker. The contrast withLeibniz 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 ofa life to come, those about to die would be happy to live the same life again (aslong as it had a bit of diversity, he says). Not so for Bayle, for whom it is a realand constant question whether for everyone it would be better never to havebeen. Leibniz quotes him in the Manichaean article: 'Man is wicked and miser-able; there are everywhere prisons and hospitals; history is simply a collectionof the crimes and calamities of the human race.' Leibniz continues: '... there isexaggeration in that: there is incomparably more good than evil in the life ofmen, as there are more houses than prisons. With regard to virtue and vice, acertain mediocrity prevails. Machiavelli has already observed that there are veryfew wicked and very few good men, and that this causes the failure of manygreat enterprises.'49 Imagine what consolation such thoughts (especially ex-pressed with the ironical reference to Machiavelli) might have had for Baylewhen, for example, he learned in Holland of the death of his brother, who hadbeen thrown into a French prison because the authorities could not get at Baylehimself 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 ofthe texts examined here. The rational attempts to resolve the problem of evilinevitably end in heresy, spectacularly in the case of Socinus, but even in thecase of Ossiander. The premises that seem to generate the problem must beaccepted, without question, on the basis of faith. But that faith, as has oftenbeen noted in the Bayle literature, is a tepid faith seemingly devoid of tradi-tional content. Certainly, Bayle is no Bible-thumping fundamentalist given toparoxysms 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 doesmore than anything else to explain their opposition.) Instead, faith seems littlemore than a recognition of the value of conscience and the corresponding virtueof toleration. Christ's principal message seems to have been what was thenbeing called libertas philosophandi. However implausible this may be as anaccount 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 Christcannot be brought off by the metaphysical stunt of an omnipotent deity immedi-ately causing them. Given his historical circumstances, Bayle would never haveput 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. Andthis exercise only we can perform. But with this exercise necessarily comes thepossibility 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 Inany case, as the value of such a will would not be the good that it brings about asa means, so the value of toleration is not some truth that it might lead to. Both ofthese 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 realconcern is with autonomy for its own sake. If construing toleration and autonomyin such terms smacks of a rationalist solution to the problem of evil, then we cansee once again why Bayle was a hero to the Enlightenment. But not all mysteryhas thereby been eliminated. There remains the even deeper mystery of what it isto 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 UniversityPress, 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 solelyby virtue of the will of God, it seems to me that we unknowingly destroy all God'slove and all his glory. For why praise him if he would be equally praiseworthy indoing the exact contrary? Where will his justice and wisdom reside if there remainsonly a certain despotic power, if will holds the place of reason, and if, according tothe 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 toacross 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 shouldbe 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 butalmost of univocity' (p. 349). Why just 'almost'?


6 Sup. au Comm. Phil. 24; OD n, 528a; Labrousse, 355. Leibniz and the Manicheesagree: 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 actualcounter-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'ssake. Bayle's fear is that he is among the living damned, with the result that he wouldprefer never to have been.

9 For a study of the types of charges and the groups that were the target of them, seeNorman 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 togovern reasonable Minds, and inspire them with Fortitude' (rem. K, i, 478a). Giventhat heresy is manifestly false, only obstinacy can account for people's adherenceto 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 tohere is not the actual existence of evil (for this would validate the consequence onlythat evil is possible); rather, the appeal is to the actual coexistence of an infinitelygood God and moral evil, an actuality which is not the object of empirical discoverybut 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 tothis hypothesis, is only adopting part of the error of the Manichees; it is saving thegoodness of God at the expence [sic] of his power, and admitting that Matter is anuncreated principle so essentially bad, that it is not in the power of God to rectifyits defects' (Art. Origen, rem. E, iv 419a).


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 backhim 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 justify a given position' but rather asthe 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 well 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 irrationalbecause impossible and unjust. As a mystery, it is the 'most incomprehensible of all.'But without 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 theologiansagree with Bishop King that annihilation is worse than hell, reasons Bayle, then theSocinian 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, Ixxxii; OD in, 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 full pages, Bayle argues that


Moreri gets the position of Stancarus and Ossiander exactly reversed and winds upaccusing Stancarus of Arianism, which is what he was arguing as the reductio adabsurdum of Ossiander's position. Moreri was misled by Gaulteris, who, accordingto Bayle, is typical of Catholic writers of the time: 'I dare say that there are fewbooks that cast a greater blot upon the Church of Rome, than those which contain acatalogue of the heresies of the xvth century ... their account of Stancarus showstheir ignorance more than any other; since, on the one hand, they ascribe to him aheresy 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 ProtestantDivines.' Bayle then unearths Catholic sources for Stancarus's view that it is by hishuman 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 thispresent time; for since the objections of the Socinians have obliged some ProtestantDivines to say that Christ is not adorable as he is Mediator, one would think that theybelieve he is not Mediator as he is God. He is certainly adorable as he is God; andtherefore if he ought not be worshipped as he is Mediator, it is because he is notMediator 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 RuthWhelan, The Anatomy of Superstition: A Study of the Historical Theory and Practiceof 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 ofSaint Augustine' on the Fate ofInfants Who Die Unbaptized

ELMAR J. KREMER

In the Theodicy, Leibniz discusses a great variety of theological positions. Inmost cases, his approach is conciliatory and his criticism is couched in irenicterms. This is not surprising because the Theodicy was part of a lifelong effortto promote the reunification of the Christian churches. But Leibniz's criticismof '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 whatthe Jansenists say about necessity and contingency, but only 'provided that cer-tain odious things, whether in expression or in the dogmas themselves, are setaside' (Theodicy, sec. 280).2

The Augustinian and Jansenist dogma that Leibniz found most odious wasthat infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell. In a letter to Des Bossessome two years before the publication of the Theodicy, Leibniz singles out thisdoctrine 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 onthe grounds that damning such infants to hell would be 'harsh and unjust' (sec.93). Leibniz connects the Augustinian position on unbaptized infants with themore general topic of original sin: 'Among the dogmas of the disciples of St.Augustine, I cannot swallow [gouter] the damnation of infants who are notreborn, or in general damnation arising from original sin alone' (sec. 280).

The dogma that infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell was ratherwidely 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 ininfancy plead at the last judgment that they are innocent of any personal sin, butGod 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 handsAnd 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 Doomwas extraordinarily successful in the colonies; one copy sold for every twentypeople in New England.'4

But for most Christians, the doctrine is no longer a live option. Virtuallyeveryone who reads this paper will agree with Leibniz that the dogma ofAugustine, the Jansenists, and Wigglesworth is false. Nevertheless, the Augus-tinian position and Leibniz's criticism of it are worth the continued attention ofscholars for both theological and philosophical reasons. Theologically, Leib-niz's argument against Augustine and the Jansenists marks a break with theAugustinian doctrine of original sin, which continues to be a live option formany Christians. Philosophically, Leibniz's disagreement with the Augustiniansreflects a deep disagreement with the Augustinian conception of divine justiceand the Augustinian approach to the problem of evil.

1. Augustine and the Jansenists on Original Sin and theDamnation 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 Pelagiansclaimed 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 Pelagiansheld 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 stateof 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 becausehuman 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 fulfilthe commandment to love God with one's whole heart and above all other thingsbecause 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 tothe commandment out of the love of God above all other things.

At the same time, the Pelagians accepted the doctrine that one could enterheaven only through the merits of Christ, and that these merits are normallyimparted 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 bebaptized 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 berewarded with an unending life of natural happiness, short of the bliss of unionwith God in heaven.

Not surprisingly, Augustine's attack on the Pelagian position included adefence 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 mypresent topic, begins with the claim that anyone who is excluded from heaven isipso facto damned to hell. If this is right, then even the Pelagians are committedto the conclusion that infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell. And ifinfants are damned to hell, then they must be in a state of sin, for otherwise Godis unjust.

Augustine and the Jansenists thought that the gospel accounts of the lastjudgment, in which people are divided into two groups, the saved and thedamned, with no mention of any third group, supported the crucial premise thatanyone excluded from heaven is ipso facto condemned to hell.8 But they alsospeak 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 isdamned to hell.

Sometimes Augustine and the Jansenists speak as if damnation to hell isessentially the same thing as the loss of heaven. Thus Pascal says, 'Our truehappiness is to be in [God], and our sole evil is to be separated from him.'9 Theyheld that deep within each human being there is a need for union with God, andthat 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 thisaccount, it is a tautology that anyone permanently excluded from heaven isdamned to hell. At other times, they indicate that hell necessarily includesmisery, as when Arnauld quotes Book 12, chapter 1 of The City of God: '[Thecreature] 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 fromheaven is damned to hell would require the premise that anyone excluded fromheaven 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 thatthe question of bodily suffering is of great importance. For he cites withapproval a pronouncement of the theologians of the Sorbonne that the questionof whether infants will be subject to bodily suffering in hell is not decided andthat there is entire freedom of opinion regarding it.12 Their position seems to bethat 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 enterheaven without sacramental baptism. Indeed, several exceptions are mentionedexplicitly in the Gospels: Moses and Elijah, who are said to appear with Jesuson the mountain at the transfiguration; the 'holy innocents' killed by Herod inhis attempt to do away with Jesus, who were accepted as martyrs; and the 'goodthief,' who was crucified beside Jesus, asked his forgiveness, and received theassurance 'This day you will be with me in Paradise.' Another exception recog-nized by Augustine and the Jansenists, along with all other Christians, are thecatechumens in the early Church who were martyred without having receivedbaptism. Such people, they held, were able to enter heaven because the meritsof Christ were imparted to them in an extraordinary way.13 The position ofAugustine 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 damnedto hell, Augustine mounts an argument against the Pelagians:

1. Infants, like adults, can normally enter heaven only if they are baptized (aseven 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 unjust for an omnipotent God to damn an innocent beingto hell.

5. God is omnipotent and just.

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 actuallysinning.

According to Scripture and the tradition of the Church, the present disorderedstate 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 stateof sin that they inherit from Adam.16

Another defence of the doctrine of original sin offered by Augustine againstthe 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 werecommitted to (1).

But what do the Augustinians mean by an inherited state of sin? According toAugustine, '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 hasbecome 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 thingand loved other things only in relation to himself. All of Adam's descendantscome 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 beingsdeserve reward or punishment. Suppose that Professor Jones and Professor Smithboth commit the same wicked act, say, running down a colleague's reputation outof jealousy. A week later, Jones has repented of his earlier sinful act, but Smithhas not. Both Jones and Smith deserve punishment for their act of calumny, butSmith, unlike Jones, also deserves punishment for his continued acquiescence inhis calumny. Here we could say that Smith, and not Jones, continues in a sinfulcondition or state of sin that was initiated by his act of calumny. On Arnauld'saccount, every descendant of Adam comes into existence in a state of sin that isrelated to Adam's actual sin in something like the way that Smith's continuedacquiescence 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 initiatedby Adam's actual sin, not by the actual sin of the descendant.

According to Augustine, original sin brings with it a disorder of the otherappetites, which is called 'concupiscence.' Because of concupiscence, one isoften 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 inthe sexual appetite. Sometimes Augustine seems to identify original sin withconcupiscence. But in these cases the Jansenists take him to be referring to con-cupiscence together with the 'habitual consent' of the will to concupiscentdesire, 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 andconcupiscence. The Council points out that after original sin has been removedby baptism, concupiscence remains, and adds, 'The Apostle sometimes calls[concupiscence] sin, but the holy council declares that the catholic church hasnever understood it to be called sin in the sense of being truly and properly suchin those who have been reborn, but in the sense that it is the result of sin andinclines to sin.'20 Original sin, in contrast, is truly and properly sin. It isdescribed 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 Incarnationas a fundamental mystery of the Christian religion.21 What they meant by amystery is a revealed truth such that human beings cannot comprehend it or seehow it is true. The Jansenists could accept Leibniz's statement that we can seethat 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 theTrinity or the Incarnation, in order that... we not pronounce words entirely devoidof 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 howa state of sin can come to be in one person as a result of another person's actualsin. Consider the following passage from Pascal:

Without doubt there is nothing that shocks our reason more than to say that the sinof the first man has rendered culpable those who are so distant from that source thatthey 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 ourmiserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of volition, for a sinwhich was committed six thousand years before the infant even existed, so little didthe infant take part in it? (Pensees, section vn, sec. 434)

What seems both impossible and unjust, according to Pascal, is not preciselythe damnation of infants, but rather the transmission of culpability from Adamto 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 fromheaven and hence damned to hell. Indeed, a person in that condition could notpossibly enter into union with God.22 But even if the doctrine of original sin isrevealed, the transmission of culpability from Adam to the infant continues tobe mysterious. It continues to seem both impossible and unjust.

Augustine was also concerned to reconcile God's justice with the many evilsthat 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 reasoncompatible 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 fororiginal sin. He had given a different account in his early On Free Choice of theWill. There he says that the suffering of infants might be justified because it is aschool of virtue for their parents and the infants themselves receive recompensein the life to come.24 But in the letter to Jerome cited above, he explains that hecame to reject the earlier account on the grounds that it does not apply to infantswho die unbaptized and are consequently damned to hell, because for themthere is no recompense in the life to come.25 This reasoning makes it clear thatAugustine holds the following principle of justice:

J: If a human being suffers an evil that is not just punishment for sin, then arecompense 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 passivelyreceived by human beings. Consider the following text, quoted by Arnauld andNicole in Art of Thinking from Augustine's Contra Julianum:

Consider how many and how great are the evils that befall children, and how thefirst 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 themin order to seduce them, labor and pain tempt them to weaken them, lust temptsthem to enflame them, grief tempts them to defeat them, and pride tempts them tomake them vain. Who could explain so easily all the different pains that weigh likea 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 thatwe were born only to suffer the punishment we deserve from crimes committed inanother life ... But this opinion ... is rejected by the Apostle. What remains, then, ifnot 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 unjustnor impotent, there remains only what you are unwilling to acknowledge ... namelythat this yoke, so heavy, which the children of Adam are obliged to bear... wouldnot have existed if they had not deserved them by the offence that proceeds fromtheir origin.27

Not all of the evils mentioned in this passage are instances of suffering. Thusneither 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 allthe 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 Augustineuses the phrase 'original sin' to refer both to original sin proper, which is a stateof the will, and to original sin in a broader sense, which consists of this state ofthe will and its immediate consequence, concupiscence.28

2. Leibniz's Critique

Leibniz's basic objection to the Augustinian position is that it would be unjustto condemn an infant to eternal suffering because infants are innocent: Thedamnation of infants who die without actual sin and without being rebornwould 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, whois 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 arenot 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 simplydeclares that it is shocking.

In a letter written in 1690 to the Landgrave Hessen-Rheinfels, Leibniz saysthat 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 thegospel has not been preached, and who are 'almost innocent,' are condemned tohell. Then he adds:

One cannot escape by saying with M. Arnauld that we ought not form judgmentsabout God by means of our ideas of justice, for one must have an idea or notion ofjustice when one says that God is just, otherwise that would be to attribute to Himonly a word. For my part, I believe that just as the Arithmetic and Geometry of Godare the same as those of human beings, excepting that God's is infinitely moreextensive, so also natural jurisprudence, in so far as it is demonstrative, and everyother 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 representArnauld's position. To be sure, Arnauld puts a great deal of emphasis on theincomprehensibility of God's ways. But nowhere does he say that we cannot

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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 hislife, Arnauld says that one can attribute the virtue of justice, unlike the virtuesof chastity, sobriety, and obedience, to God because 'justice can be conceivedwithout any admixture of imperfection.'30 He adds that it would be better to saythat God is justice rather than that God is just. In the same text, Arnauld saysthat 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 loveof God. But it is clear that Jansen, too, thought that we could apply our idea ofjustice to God.

But what of Pascal's statement that 'there [is nothing] more contrary to therules 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' toPascal is that such infants should be born in a state of sin that results fromAdam's actual sin. But whether this transmission of a state of sin is unjustdepends on whether it would be unjust for God to create human beings witha 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 thatquestions about God's justice in creating what he does create are beyond thecompetence 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 hisbasic case against Augustine and the Jansenists.

The Augustinians would no doubt also object that Leibniz's argument isincompatible with any robust doctrine of original sin. Leibniz accepts the doc-trine that a disposition to sin is transmitted from Adam to his descendants. ButLeibniz's assumption that infants are born innocent implies that there is notpresent 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 twoelements in original sin, the loss of charity or the love of God above all otherthings, and concupiscence. A similar position was taken by the Council of Trentand 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 persondeserve to be excluded from heaven. But Leibniz holds that an unbaptizedinfant is innocent, and hence cannot say that an infant is in any way culpable. Inseveral passages, he suggests that original sin is nothing but a disposition toactual sin. Thus he speaks of 'the disposition that constitutes [quifait] originalsin, 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 sinwith concupiscence.31

The fact that Leibniz's argument commits him to an unorthodox positionregarding 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 acceptableto almost all of the Christian denominations and theological factions - extrem-ists, he would add, like the Jansenists, aside. Leibniz was a master at hiding thetheologically controversial aspects of his philosophy in the service of his effortsto 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 thechurches he wanted to reunite.

Leibniz prefaces his criticism of Augustine and the Jansenists by placing arestriction on his use of the terms 'damnation' and 'hell': 'When I speak hereabout damnation and hell, I mean pain [douleurs] and not a simple privation ofsupreme 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 assumethat 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 uponinfants who die unbaptized, but not that it would be unjust for him to excludesuch 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 aspecial limbo, where they do not suffer, and are punished only by the privationof the beatific vision' (sec. 92),32 and, in particular, 'the venerable ThomasAquinas,' who held 'the doctrine of purely privative punishment of infants deadwithout baptism.' Leibniz seems to have in mind Aquinas's position in theCommentary on the Sentences, that infants who die unbaptized are punishedonly in that 'they are separated from God with regard to that union which isthrough glory' and suffer neither sensible pain nor spiritual affliction (In IISent., 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 excludedfrom heaven is a punishment or penalty - the poena damni. But if exclusionfrom heaven is a punishment, the question arises, why Leibniz thinks that it isjust 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

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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 deserveon account of his or her natural efforts. It is a supernatural good, available tohuman beings only through the merits of Christ. In the texts in which Leibnizgives his grand, summary account of the kingdom of God or the perfect republicof which God is the monarch, the Christian idea of heaven plays no role. Leibnizspeaks simply of a society whose members are God and all rational creatures, andin which every rational creature is rewarded or punished in proportion to his orher virtue and contribution to the common good.33 Nonetheless, in some textsLeibniz does affirm the Christian doctrine of heaven. For example, in the 'Abregede la controverse' appended to the Theodicy, he says that even if more humanbeings 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 asclosely as is possible for a creature, and they make more progress in the good thanthe damned would make by approaching the nature of the demons as closely aspossible' (Second Objection). Assuming, then, that a human being can enterheaven 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. Noris 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 Latzerhas argued persuasively that Leibniz uses the phrase 'metaphysical evil' in aninclusive 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 aletter quoted by Latzer:

'As for metaphysical evil (you say) I do not consider it an evil.' But if you admitthat there is metaphysical good, Sir, the privation of this good will be metaphysicalevil. When an intelligent being loses his understanding [bon sens] without any painand without sin - and therefore without any physical or moral evil - do you notconsider this as an evil?35

The permanent exclusion of infants from heaven would be another instance ofmere metaphysical evil. And the same seems to be true of concupiscence, orwhat 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 moralevil. Poena est malum passionis, quod infligitur ob malum actionis, according toGrotius. We suffer because we have acted; we suffer evil because we have doneevil. It is true that we often suffer from the bad actions of others; but when one doesnot take part in the crime, it is certain that the sufferings prepare the way for agreater happiness.' (sec. 241)

But Leibniz does not accept (J) for mere metaphysical evils. So Leibniz'srestricted version of (J) allows him to hold that concupiscence and the loss ofheaven by infants who die unbaptized are evils visited upon human beings, butnot punishments that they deserve or evils that prepare the way for their greaterhappiness. How, then, is God justified in permitting metaphysical evils to affectunbaptized infants, evils for which they are not later compensated? Leibniz'sanswer is that such evils are justified because without them the world would notbe 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 Augustinianapproach to the problem of evil. Augustine's adherence to (J) for all evils thatafflict 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 highercreated thing. Thus Augustine says, 'Irrational animals [unlike human beings]are given by God to serve creatures of a higher nature.'36 And the final purposeof every subhuman creature is to make its contribution to the beautiful tapestryof nature. But the final purpose of human beings is to be united with God inheaven. Whether or not a human being achieves that purpose is determined bythe state of his or her will at the time of death, and not by the good of any highercreature.37

Leibniz rejects this Augustinian distinction between the final end of humansand of subhuman creatures. Part of this rejection is Leibniz's position on thefate of infants who die unbaptized. Whether someone who dies as an infantgains or loses heaven is determined, in Leibniz's view, by what is required inorder that this world be the best of all possible worlds.38 Thus those who die ininfancy, like subhuman creatures, exist in order to contribute to the good of ahigher creature. For by a world, Leibniz means a collection of creatures, and acollection of creatures is a creature. But it is not only those who die in infancywho are created to serve the good of the best of all possible worlds. This is trueof 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 endup in heaven if and only if that serves to make this the best of all possible

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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 ofgoing to Rome to be crowned ruler and then dying as a sinner, or giving up thecrown 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 toblame for his unhappy end, but presses Jupiter to explain why he did not giveSextus 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 pyramidwhich descends to infinity, each world more perfect than all those below it. Heis 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 perversewill and ends up badly. Theodore is told that Sextus's crime 'is useful for manygreat things; he will give birth to a great empire ... But that is nothing comparedto 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 roleas Jupiter's servant. In Leibniz's view, whether Sextus (or, by extension, anyother human being) dies a sinner or is saved depends on what is required for thegood of the world a whole; hence every human being is created to serve a highercreature, namely, the world as a whole. Thus Leibniz gives up the Augustiniandistinction between God's reason for permitting the evils that affect subhumancreatures, 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, AntoineArnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, and Pasquier Quesnel.

2 All references to the Theodicy can be found in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Essais detheodicee (Paris: Flammarion, 1969). All translations of the Theodicy are my own.

3 To Des Bosses, 12 September 1708, Die philosophischen Schriften von GottfriedWilhelm 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 detheologie catholique, vol. 12, col. 675-715.

6 Liber de haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, Patrologiae Latino 42:47-8. Quoted by Hedeand 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 solidaritythat ties him to the first couple from whom he is descended, is born in a state ofdisorder 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 eitherthe 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' becauseoriginal sin does not make one personally guilty, at least not on some theories oforiginal 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 twoparts, says the Gospel. To those on the left he will say, 'Go you evil ones to theeternal fire,' and to those on the right, 'Come blessed ones of my father, possess theKingdom which has been prepared for you since the beginning of the world.' Hecalls one part the Kingdom, the other damnation with the devil. He did not leaveroom between the two where you could put the infants. He who will not be on theright, will certainly be on the left. Hence he will not go to the Kingdom. Withoutany doubt he will go to the eternal fire. (Quoted in Apologiepour Monsieur L'AbbeSt. 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 ofthe Catholic Church'. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion withGod and the blessed is called "hell"' (sec. 1033).

10 Seconde apologie pour Monsieur Jansenius, in OA xvn: 142. Elsewhere Arnauldmentions other 'spiritual' punishments of those in hell: futile remorse for one's pastsins, 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 soulthat leaves its body without the grace of the Mediator and without his sacrament, nomatter at what age, will be in suffering, and at the last judgment will take up its bodyagain 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 befound in The Letters of St. Augustine, trans. Rev. J.C. Cunningham, O.P., in TheWorks 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'sposition that infants will suffer bodily pain in hell against the complaint that it isheretical. Arnauld writes (in 1639) that the pronouncement of the Sorbonne was'very recent.'

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13 Cf. the Council of Trent: 'The transition [from the state in which a person is born asa 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 Decreesof 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 notionof baptism of desire, see Le renversement de la morale de Jesus Christ par leserreurs 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 isproved by the tradition of the Church, and by this word of Saint John, "Unless one isreborn" etc. From this it is concluded that infants were in sin, because otherwiseit would not be just to exclude them from salvation because they had not receivedbaptism.' He cites Augustine's De correptione et gratia. All of Book vn of Arnauld'swork, entitled 'Refutation de ce qu'ils enseignent touchant le salut des enfants mortssans bapteme' is relevant. It is directed against the Calvinist position that it is notnecessary to baptize the children of Christians.

16 In the twentieth century, the Catholic Church has expanded the teaching that one canenter heaven without sacramental baptism. An important step in this direction wasPope Pius xn's 'Letter to the Archbishop of Boston' in 1949. After quoting theteaching of the Council of Trent that the desire for baptism can replace actualbaptism, Pius says, This wish [votum] need not always be explicit, as in the case ofcatechumens, but where a man labours under invincible ignorance God also acceptsan implicit wish, as it is called, for it is contained in that good disposition of the soulwhereby a man wishes to conform his will to the will of God.' At the same time, theChurch has come to view baptism as the normal means of sanctification only in thesense 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 cangain 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 andtoward 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 difficult tounderstand this in his descendants, because we think of original sin as somethingquite remote from them. But if we attend to the fact that through the original fallthere is transmitted to them that stubborn love of themselves and of creatureswhich, according to a just though hidden judgment of God, is something depravedand vicious in them, we understand more easily that if something flows from thatcorrupt 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 anddepraved will. (Dissertatio Theologica Quadripartita, in OA xx: 273)

19 Thus Jansen says, 'When Augustine teaches that libido or concupiscence is originalsin, he is speaking of concupiscence as including the guilty state [reatum] for whichthe 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 [leformel} is the domination of concupiscence, or better the habitual consent of thesoul to concupiscence, by which the soul prefers the creature to God. This consentincludes the turning away from God and the privation of original justice. (Quotedfrom Nicole's Instruction sur le symbole, i, p. 236, in Jean Laporte, La doctrinede 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 tobe cleansed by the water of rebirth for them to obtain eternal life ... let him beanathema.'

23 Letter CLXVI 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 theirelders as it cultivates their faith and tests their mercy? Who knows what reward Godhas prepared for them in the hidden depths of his judgements?' (On Free Choice of theWill, 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 little children ... Who knows what goodrecompense God may, in the secret of His judgments, reserve for these little ones?" Isee 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 whowere 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 fully solved, unless the answer include also the

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case of those who, without having received the sacrament of Christian fellowship, diein 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, perditionawaits them in the life to come?' (Letter CLXVI to Jerome (A.D. 415), in Letters ofSt. 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 theWill on which Augustine is commenting.

26 The same is presumably true of angels. I have worded (J) in such a way as to allowfor 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 Vance 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 ofman is subject to God. The subjection was first and principally through the will, towhich it belongs to move all the other parts [of the soul] to the end ... Whence fromthe aversion of the will from God there followed the disorder in all the other powersof 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 ifmaterially' (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. Thetext 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 affectedonly by confused sensations of sensible goods and evils, until such time as one iscorrected by experience or instruction.' This statement suggests that original sin is adisposition that may be removed by experience and instruction, and does not need tobe 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 (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989), p. 154. See alsothe Monadology, sec. 84, and Principles of Nature and Grace, sec. 15.


34 Michael Latzer, 'Leibniz's Conception of Metaphysical Evil,' Journal of the Historyof 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, suchas 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 universesuch as geological upheavals, sunspots, and comets (sec. 242-9).

36 Letter to Jerome, A.D. 415, cited in note 22 above, p. 309.37 Aquinas 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 ofthe world are ordered to this [end]... But whatever happens with regard to thenoblest parts is ordered only to the good of those parts themselves, because care istaken 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 careof them in such a way that he doesn't allow any evil for them which he doesn'tturn into their good. (Quoted by Eleanor Stump, 'Aquinas on the Suffering ofJob,' 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 thenatural 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 aninfant in Leibniz's 'Kingdom of God' is determined by what is required in order thatthis world be the best of all possible worlds.

39 I would like to thank Bernard Katz, Samantha Thompson, and Tobin Woodruff fortheir helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations ofTheodicy

DONALD RUTHERFORD

Theodicy is usually conceived as a branch of apologetics: a quasi-legal defenceof the justice of divine action, or of the consistency of God's perfection with hiscreation of a world containing physical and moral evil.1 This is the sense givento it in the title of the Latin summary of Leibniz's Theodicy: 'The Case of GodDefended through His Justice, Reconciled with His Other Perfections and AllHis 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 thatthe knowledge of God's justice also has important implications for human hap-piness, indeed, that one cannot be fully happy without understanding one'sexistence in relation to the justice of God's action. This point is highlighted inthe opening sentence of Causa dei: The apologetic examination of God's caseconcerns not only divine glory but also our advantage [utilitatem], in order thatwe may honour his greatness, i.e., his power and wisdom, and love both hisgoodness and the justice and holiness which derive from it, and imitate these asmuch as is in our power' (G vi 439).

The advantage accruing to those who possess a proper understanding ofdivine justice is suggested in Theodicy, sec. 177. There Leibniz singles out three'dogmas' that contradict the basic principles of his theodicy: that the nature ofjustice is arbitrary; that it is fixed, but it is not certain that God observes it; andthat the justice we know is not that which God observes. These dogmas, hewrites, 'destroy the confidence in God that gives us tranquility, and the love ofGod 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 thisconfidence, we are insulated from the disturbing effects of worldly evil; or if weare disturbed, we have the means of recovering our tranquility through reflec-tion on the nature of divine justice. Second, theodicy is an essential step towardour highest happiness. In comprehending the justice of God's action, we acquireour fullest knowledge of the unity of the divine perfections of power, knowl-edge, and goodness, and this knowledge itself and our consequent love of Godis, 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 Godexercises 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 theessay 'On Destiny': 'with the eyes of the understanding we are able to occupy apoint of view that the eyes of the body do not and cannot occupy' (G vn 120/W572). This change of point of view supplies the basis for what can be describedas a 'philosophical consolation.' In comprehending the underlying order of theuniverse 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 andbecause, while we understand, we are no longer affected in the same way bysuch emotions.

Approaching Leibniz's theodicy in this way, we move its centre outside thesphere of seventeenth-century debates about 'the goodness of God, the freedomof 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 ofBayle; but it is also the basis of a larger philosophical project whose goals oweas much to ancient Greek philosophy as to Christianity. Leibniz maintained thatin 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 incomparing 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 openconfrontation with the theodicy problem:

You have asked me, Lucilius, why, if a providence rules the world, it still happensthat many evils befall good men. This would be more fittingly answered in thecourse 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 besevered 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 caseof the gods [causam deorum agam].4

Leibniz's relationship to Stoic thought is complex. It includes his acquaintancewith and reaction to the ancient Stoics themselves, Greek and Roman; to JustusLipsius and sixteenth-century Christian Neostoicism; and to Stoic currents in thewritings of Descartes and Spinoza, whom he described as the leaders of the 'sectof the new Stoics.'5 In what follows, I shall be concerned primarily with ancientStoicism, insofar as it is the object of Leibniz's criticism. No attempt will bemade to give a complete account of the views of the Stoics themselves. My aimis limited to understanding what Leibniz sees as the essential differences betweenhis 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 theirconceptions 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 whileimportant differences can be found between the views of Leibniz and the Stoics,these differences mask a deeper unity of philosophical outlook which Leibniz hasdifficulty 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 thatpoint more reasonable than is supposed,' Leibniz writes, for they defended onlythe hypothetical necessity of things, as Leibniz himself does (sec. 170; G vi215/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 infavor of determination and against necessity, although they have been accusedof attaching necessity to everything' (sec. 331; G vi 311/H 324). Leibniz isequally supportive of the Stoics' rationale for determinism, their account of fateor destiny as 'the inevitable and eternal connection of all events' (sec. 332; G vi312/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); andhe 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 fromresponsibility for evil by ascribing it to a limitation that is part of the 'originalconstitution' 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 greatlyfrom his own image of a laden boat carried along by the river's current. Thesecomparisons tend towards the same end,' he writes; 'and that shows that if wewere sufficiently informed concerning the opinions of ancient philosophers, weshould 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 ofdivine providence. Given the differences in their theological starting points, wemight expect to find little agreement here. The Stoics identify god with theactive 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 donot regard their god as a transcendent being who deliberates among an infinityof possible worlds and chooses to create that one which his wisdom representsas the best; rather, their god is an immanent being that is eternally one with theworld.8 Yet as significant as this difference might seem, it is not necessarilydecisive in distinguishing the kind of providence that the Stoic and Leibniziandeities 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 othernames 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 thisorder 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 theStoics' conviction that human beings are the one type of being in which matterhas been organized by god in such a way that we are able to understand, andgovern 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 tolive in agreement with nature, or 'right reason,' the 'universal law' that governsthe world as a whole.12 Consequently, the Stoics hold that 'the world itself wascreated 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 thecommon dwelling-place of gods and men, or the city that belongs to both; forthey 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 whichhuman beings flourish - live virtuously and happily - to the extent that theyconform 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 hassaved from contempt... the tranquility of the Stoics which arises from the bestpossible connection of things' (GM vi 234/L 436). Here Leibniz highlights thecontentment 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 issuewith the Stoics for offering a consolation inferior to that provided by his ownphilosophy. In Theodicy, sec. 254, for example, he begins in a seemingly Stoicvein 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 whatdestiny has in store for us, nor to complain of what befalls us. Acquaintance withtrue principles gives us this advantage, quite other than that which the Stoics andEpicureans derived from their philosophy. There is as much difference betweentrue morality and theirs as between joy and patience: for their tranquility wasfounded only on necessity, while ours must rest upon the perfection and beauty ofthings, 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 hedefends the Stoics against the charge of fatalism, here he seems to argue thatStoic consolation is unsatisfactory, precisely because it is limited to a passiveacceptance of the necessity of things as opposed to a proper appreciation oftheir 'perfection and beauty.' It looks, then, as though in this passage at leastLeibniz upholds the charge of fatalism against the Stoics and concludes fromthis 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 withthose of Descartes and Spinoza. In writings from the 1670s, he levels the samecharge 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 ofpatience' 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 thatthey are committed to a fatal necessity concerning all things. This is a point hecontinues to press against Spinoza in the Theodicy:

[Spinoza] appears to have explicitly taught a blind necessity, having denied to theAuthor of Things understanding and will, and assuming that good and perfectionrelate 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 existthrough 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 thiserror. First, in Spinoza's view, God's power is not exercised according to 'theprinciple of Wisdom and Goodness' but by a 'metaphysical and brute necessity'(G vi 218). Second, Spinoza dismisses any objective standard of goodness orperfection against which to judge the lightness of God's action.15

Leibniz holds that the defence of divine justice requires a conception of Godas an intelligent agent who exercises choice, and that the latter is coherent onlyif there is variety of possible worlds from which God may choose. This is notthe Stoics' position. Nevertheless, the Stoics do conceive of god as a purposiveagent, who acts to realize a world in which nature guides rational beings towardthe goal of a virtuous life, or 'a life in agreement with nature.' Epictetus appealsto 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, andnot merely a spectator, but also an interpreter. For this reason, it is shameful forman to begin and end just where the irrational animals do; he should rather beginwhere they do, but end where nature has ended in dealing with us. Now she did notend until she reached contemplation and understanding and a manner of life har-monious with nature. Take heed, therefore, lest you die without ever having beenspectators of these things.16

For the Stoics, the happiness of rational beings does not depend simply on theacceptance 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 activeprinciple of nature and regards such a position as on a par ontologically withSpinoza's monism, the evidence suggests that he absolves the Stoics of the errorof fatalism and concedes to them a notion of providence. If this is correct, thenLeibniz's criticism of the consolation offered by the Stoic philosophy - that it islimited to a patience that falls short of contentment - must rest on othergrounds.

II

Further insight into this question can be found in Leibniz's discussion, in thepreface 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 orpromote a particular outcome is useless, for if anything is destined to happen, itwill 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 metaphysicalnecessity. 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 notdivert men from the care of their affairs, but it tended to give them tranquility inregard to events, through the consideration of necessity, which renders our anxi-eties and our vexations needless. In this respect these philosophers were not farremoved from the teaching of our Lord, who deprecates these anxieties in regard tothe future, comparing them with the needless trouble a man would give himself inlaboring to increase his height. (G vi 30/H 54)

Again, Leibniz ascribes to the Stoics a tranquility that rests on a considerationof the necessity of things, a view that might seem to confirm their associationwith Spinoza. However, Leibniz also notes the closeness of the Stoic philoso-phy to the 'teaching of our Lord,' something he never says about Spinoza. Thatthis 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, thefatum 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 aforced patience, whereas our Lord inspires more sublime thoughts, and eveninstructs 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 toneglect one hair of our head, our confidence in him ought to be entire. And thus weshould see, if we were capable of understanding him, that it is not even possible towish for anything better (as much in general as for ourselves) than what he does. Itis as if one said to men: Do your duty and be content with that which shall come ofit, 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 youhave 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 Stoicsappears to amount to this. In affirming divine providence, one is consoled by thethought 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; onemust bear such suffering with a 'forced patience.' To this extent, Stoic tranquilityindeed rests on an affirmation of the necessity of things: not the strict geometricalnecessity that Spinoza propounds but an unchanging, universal providence towhich all must submit.20 Leibniz's claim against the Stoics is that his theodicyoffers a richer consolation than this, one which provides for a 'contentment' thatsurpasses Stoic 'tranquility.' It is able to do this because of the distinction hedraws between providence and divine justice.21 Although the Stoics support theidea 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 asa '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 withunhappiness. In 'On the Ultimate Origination of Things,' Leibniz describes thespecial relationship between God and rational beings in the following terms:

Just as in the best constituted republic, care is taken that each individual gets whatis good for him, as much as possible, similarly, the universe would be insufficientlyperfect 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 tofind a better standard than the very law of justice, which dictates that everyoneshould 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 thecommon 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 rationalminds 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 inrelation to the other creatures) but also what a prince is to his subjects, and evenwhat a father is to his children' ('Monadology,' sec. 84; G vi 621/AG 223-4). Inthis way, there is constituted 'the city of God,' 'the most perfect possible stateunder the most perfect of monarchs' (ibid., sec. 85): 'a moral world within thenatural 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 integralto 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 belongsto [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 isinseparable from providence, for justice is grounded in the universal law thatgoverns nature as a whole.23 The Stoics can even defend the point, central toLeibniz'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'ssense) governs the actions of rational beings: virtue is necessarily correlatedwith happiness and vice with unhappiness.24

To appreciate the force of Leibniz's case against the Stoics, we must considerit from a broader perspective which brings to light underlying differences intheir 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 ofnatural evil: the suffering caused by earthquakes, drought, disease, etc. In agree-ment with Leibniz's own view of providence, the Stoics regard such suffering asjustified in terms of the contribution its causes make to the orderly operation ofthe universe; the part is justified in terms of the whole. God wills a universallaw that entails, as an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence, events thatcause human suffering. As Epictetus writes:

If you regard yourself as a man and as a part of some whole, on account of thatwhole, 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 fellowcreatures of ours, that such things should not happen, some to one man and some toanother.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 harmonyof the whole.26 Nevertheless, he believes that this providence must be situatedwithin a larger account of God's justice. If a virtuous person suffers because ofnatural evil, an imbalance is created between what that person deserves onaccount of his virtue and his happiness. Since the law of justice dictates a balancebetween virtue and happiness, God must exercise a compensatory (or, in the caseof a wicked person who does not pay for his crime, retributive) justice that servesto correct any temporary imbalance between virtue and happiness. Thus, Godensures that it is never ultimately the case that the virtuous person is unhappy inspite 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 thatdivine 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 andgood 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, nothingis a good in itself except virtue and what partakes of it.28 Thus, the virtuous lifealone is choiceworthy and sufficient for happiness; happiness does not dependon physical well-being or the attainment of external goods. In the Stoics' view,therefore, the suffering produced by natural evil does not create an imbalancethat 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 theycause 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, isconstitutive of happiness, the Stoics regard this account as consistent with god'sprovidential care for human beings. Seneca maintains that the equivalent of thetrials of Job should be seen as an example of god's concern for us, because suchtrials 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 hisconcern for rational beings by allowing our happiness to depend on nothing thatis not within our power, that is, on virtue alone, and not on external goods whichare '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 ofhappiness, 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 orfeeling of perfection' (Gr 579/R 83).32 Virtue can be sufficient for happiness, onhis account, because virtue is the perfection of the will: its disposition to choosein accordance with wisdom, or a knowledge of the good. Thus, a virtuous personnaturally enjoys pleasure - and as it endures, happiness - as a result of beingaware of his virtue.33 Yet while Leibniz believes that a life of virtue is naturallyproductive of happiness, he allows that events outside our control can pre-empthappiness attained in this way. We remain vulnerable to fortune, because otherthings besides virtue (e.g., health, beauty, power) are also goods for us - lessergoods, to be sure, but goods nonetheless. Each of these qualities involves somedegree 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 ofvirtue 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 toplay in his theodicy. The virtuous person always will be made happy by hisvirtue, but this does not mean that other circumstances may not interrupt thathappiness. God as providential creator may have reasons, connected with the har-mony of the whole, for allowing the virtuous person to suffer undeserved evilsand 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 imbalancesthrough the mechanism of nature. God's paternal care for rational beings takesthe form of a harmony between the 'kingdoms of nature and grace,' as a resultof which through the operation of nature no crime is left unpunished, no virtueunrewarded.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 identifydivine justice with the universal law, or providence, that governs nature as awhole, Leibniz sees God's justice as a higher principle which ensures that, inthe course of time, providence serves the interests of rational beings, balancingvirtue 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 universallaw, but a good master who cares for the fate of individual human beings andensures that their virtue is rewarded with happiness. This forms the core of whatLeibniz calls thefatum christianum, which he claims supports a more satisfyingconsolation than is available from the Stoic philosophy. When it seems that ourvirtue 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 thenin the next.

Appearing as it does in the Theodicy, Leibniz clearly intends this descriptionof thefatum christianum to be acceptable to Christian orthodoxy. Stated in thesegeneral terms, it presumably is. When we look more closely at the philosophicalcommitments that support his stance, however, we encounter a set of viewswhose 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 theorder of nature itself. God does not intervene in nature to reward the virtuousperson who has suffered unjustly, nor is this reward reserved for an extra-mundane afterlife; rather, nature itself contains the means for correcting suchwrongs, and reparations are made within an earthly existence.

Leibniz's account of divine justice as a mechanism for balancing merit andreward presupposes a weakening of the Stoics' view of the essential connectionbetween virtue and happiness. This might seem to lend support to the idea ofthe vulnerability of human beings, their inability to ensure their own happinessthrough virtuous action, and the consequent need for divine assistance (orgrace). In some passages, Leibniz appears to accept this inference.38 His fullestdescription of the character of the virtuous person, however, moves in theopposite direction. Although Leibniz insists on the importance of ascribinga compensatory justice to God, he does not believe that the virtuous person'shappiness must remain dependent upon receiving such compensation. The per-son with the most complete virtue, on the contrary, is one whose happinessrequires 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 theimmortal soul placed in the control and protection of God cannot be harmed exceptby itself, and that by loving God or revering his virtue he has been destined for thehighest 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 contentwith all evils but also pleased by the very things that happen. The Stoics also seemon 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 wholeast of all needs to be compensated for suffering. As his virtue grows strongerand his knowledge of divine justice more certain, he enjoys greater happinesshere and now as a result of his virtue and is proportionately less vulnerable tothe suffering wrought by physical evils. Their effect is negligible in the case ofthe 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 necessitybecause he sees that things must be as they are (this is no more comfort than that oftaking a sleeping potion to escape feeling pain), but out of the awakening withinhimself 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 aman feels within himself a strong inclination and readiness for the good and thetrue, and particularly through the profound knowledge which an enlightened under-standing provides us, namely, that we experience the chief source, the course, andthe purpose of everything, and the incomprehensible excellence of that SupremeNature which comprises all things within it. (G vn 87/L 427)40

Although the noble individual remains in principle susceptible to the harmfuleffects 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 thatdepend on the powers of will and intellect, he is capable of a blessedness thattranscends ordinary happiness. Echoing the Stoics' conception of a happinessthat depends solely on things within one's power, Leibniz writes:

Happiness \felicitas] depends on fortune, blessedness [beatitudo] on our will. Wemust, indeed, allow that even our will is dependent on external causes, since reasoncan be corrupted by sickness and in other ways. Nevertheless, it is certain thatgiven 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 fullaccount of the relation of virtue and happiness brings to light a closer affinitywith their position than initially appeared. With respect to physical and emo-tional suffering, Leibniz and the Stoics agree on at least a general formula forconsolation: 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 secureagainst the hardships of fortune. Central to both accounts is the idea that virtuepresupposes an understanding of the order God has willed for the universe, andthat happiness follows when we conform our will to that order.41 This is whatthe Stoics mean by 'living in agreement with nature,' and it is plausible to readLeibniz as affirming a similar view. Despite this common ground, however,Leibniz continues to insist that his philosophy supports a consolation superiorto that of the Stoics. Obviously, there remain significant differences in theirconceptions of divine order and their explanations of how an understanding ofdivine order is effective in securing happiness. What remains to be establishedis 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 betterthings to come. Their prescription for ridding ourselves of these 'diseases' ofthe soul is to pursue a life of virtue, or a life in agreement with nature, supportedby the belief that the only true good is virtue. Disciplined by 'right reason,' thevirtuous person consistently chooses the morally right action for the right rea-son and is unaffected by the hardships of fortune, enduring suffering withpatience and nobility. In this way, one may achieve a happy life, or, in Zeno'sphrase, '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 toattain 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 thetherapy of reducing the harmful effects of the passions, and that the result is asoul that begins to mirror the perfect tranquility of the sage.43

Leibniz's alternative recipe for consolation is best understood as having twoparts.44 In the first place, as we have seen, he insists that his philosophy offers amore 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 theirfate 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 ofGod's justice and the immortality of the soul that our virtue will be rewardedwith happiness. In contrast to many of the Stoics' critics, Leibniz does not takeissue with the general goal of eliminating the passions. However, he doesargue forcefully on behalf of the ethical importance of one passion, hope, ascrucial 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 willbe compensated by future happiness, we are less troubled by that sufferingwhen 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 thenotion of divine justice as retributive, Leibniz's God is fundamentally a God oflove, and our sense of divine justice is most acute when we focus on God'sbenevolence rather than his will to punish.45 In response to the Stoics, Leibnizconsistently maintains that we owe our confidence in God, and the resultingtranquility of the soul, to the thought that God's justice guarantees our futurehappiness, and not to the thought that we might in the end be judged unworthyof happiness.

But Leibniz does not rest his case against the Stoics on this alone. He arguesthat the knowledge of divine justice produces a contentment that goes beyondsimple tranquility or a lack of disturbance. The basis of this contentment is his


conception of happiness as 'a lasting state of pleasure.' As this definitionsuggests, on Leibniz's account, happiness is an inherently dynamic state thatdemands the continuation of pleasure, or the perception of perfection. Leibniz isclear that this will not be merely bodily or sensory pleasure, for such pleasure isby nature transitory and subject to fortune. The pleasures that produce happi-ness are rather those associated with perception of the perfection of the will andintellect, that is, virtue and knowledge. It is these pleasures that endure, secureagainst 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 thisto happen, we must revise our original conception of God's justice and with itour 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 proportionto their goodness (Gr 583). Justice is charity moderated by wisdom, or a goodwill united with knowledge of the good.49 The most important consequence ofthis definition is that divine justice, as the charity of the wise, implies a will toproduce 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 theworld of greatest goodness, or perfection, and to balance the virtue of rationalcreatures 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 ismerely 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 oron 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 understandsGod's justice as the charity of the wise and is disposed to imitate that justice inher own actions, acting justly in relation to other rational beings and endeavour-ing to contribute wherever possible to the common good.52 Rather than simplyaffirming the eternal order of the universe, bearing patiently the hardships itbrings, the virtuous person, following the example of God, strives to contributeto the greater perfection of the world through her own intellectual and moraldevelopment and that of other rational beings.53 Since the effect of such willingis 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 thefoundations for her own contentment. Conscious of her own virtue and of theincreasing perfection of the world, her pleasure not only endures but continuesto grow. Thus, she achieves the state Leibniz identifies with happiness, and thisas 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 ofGod, for the perception of God's perfection is our greatest pleasure and thispleasure can continue indefinitely, as God's perfection is without limit.55 In thefinal section of the 'Principles of Nature and Grace,' he cites this as the keypoint 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 futurefelicity ... [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 tobe patient by force, but one that is produced by present contentment, which alsoassures us future happiness. And besides the present pleasure, nothing can be moreuseful for the future. For the love of God also fulfills our hopes, and leads us downthe road of supreme happiness, because by virtue of the perfect order established inthe universe, everything is done in the best possible way, both for the general goodand for the greatest individual good of those who are convinced of this, and whoare content with divine government, which cannot fail to be found in those whoknow 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 becomplete, because, since God is infinite, he can never be entirely known. Thus ourhappiness 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 perpetualprogress to new pleasures and new perfections. (G vi 606/AG 212-13)

While parts of this passage may suggest the promise of happiness in somefuture life, its concluding sentence unequivocally rejects the attainment of asupreme happiness in which nothing is left to desire. What Leibniz offersinstead is a present contentment, whose effects will continue to be enjoyed inthe future. His account rests, again, on the idea of happiness as a dynamic statethat 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 abeatific 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 andnew perfections.' The love of God symbolizes for Leibniz the optimal means of


ensuring this progress: it leads us 'down the road of supreme happiness [lechemin du supreme bonheur]' (not the road to supreme happiness). To love Godis to adopt God's ends as our own. This means that we strive to contribute asmuch good as possible to the world and accept that whatever happens as a resultof 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 cometo us according to his will. I mean this acquiescence with respect to the past. As forthe 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 logonaergon, the lazy argument. But we must act in accordance with the presumptivewill of God, insofar as we can judge it, trying to contribute with all our power to thegeneral good and especially to the embellishment and perfection of that whichaffects us, or that which is near us and, so to speak, in our grasp. (G iv 429-30/AG37-8)57

The love of God thus requires that we adopt a twofold attitude toward theworld: we must endeavour to contribute to what we understand as the hiddendynamic of that order - the greater perfection of all things58 - and accept, in linewith the traditional notion of consolation, that whatever happens, happens inaccordance with God's will.59 The first part of this formula marks what is mostdistinctive about Leibniz's recipe for consolation: it consoles by putting us towork improving the world, on the assumption that this is in keeping with God'sjustice and the source of our greatest happiness - the contentment that surpassesmere tranquility.

Leibniz's conception of God's justice as the charity of the wise transformsthe character of what he calls thefatum christianum. For the person of completevirtue, or piety, God's role as the redeemer of worldly suffering is of secondaryimportance.60 By conforming his will to the principle of universal justice, thepious person is able to ensure his own continued happiness and independencefrom fortune. The will to contribute to the greater perfection of the world, andthe pleasure we take in the contemplation of that perfection, are goods of thesoul that can be enjoyed whatever fortune brings. Restricting his conception ofvalue to these 'true goods,' the pious person is not merely reassured about hisfate, confident that his virtue will be rewarded in the future, but benefits fromthe continued enjoyment of the best sort of pleasure here and now. This is whatis 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 thelatter, such a person suffers when these goods are threatened by fortune and


consequently takes comfort in the idea of a God who compensates rationalbeings for their suffering, ensuring that virtue finds its proper reward.61 In thiscase as much as in the first, though, God's justice is exercised through the orderof nature. The person who has suffered undeservingly receives compensation bynatural 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 hasbeen created by God such that rational beings naturally enjoy a happiness thatis 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 fullfruits - its enjoyment becomes, as it were, hostage to the furtherance of thegoals of universal providence. By contrast, when virtue is completed through aknowledge of divine justice, one acquires a happiness that is secure against for-tune: an 'enduring progress of pleasure,' or 'a present contentment which alsoassures us future happiness.'

Here we encounter the full ethical import of Leibniz's theodicy: how theknowledge of divine justice serves as a precondition for true happiness. At thesame time, it is clear how ethics itself acquires a larger meaning for Leibniz bybeing comprehended within a conception of divine justice. For Leibniz, God'sjustice is expressed in the fact that rational beings naturally enjoy a greater andmore 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 theUltimate Origination of Things': 'It is impossible in this matter to find a betterstandard than the very law of justice, which dictates that everyone should takepart in the perfection of the universe and in his own happiness in proportion tohis virtue and to the extent that his will has thus contributed to the commongood' (G vn 307/AG 154). What is most striking about this position - and whatreinforces the resonance of Stoicism in Leibniz's philosophy - is that whiledoubts can be raised about whether the fatum christianum is an authenticallyChristian view of human existence, there is no question that it accepts that weare subject to an unyielding fate or destiny. Leibniz stresses that on his accountwe 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 virtuousperson acts under the imperative of virtue, enjoys the happiness that is the natu-ral complement of such action, and accepts that whatever happens, happens inaccordance with the divine will. While it might be argued that this is commonground 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 inour 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 andjustice [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 wisdomtogether 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 = Diephilosophischen 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 ofGod, 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 hewas instrumental in having published in a new German edition. In a 1697 letter, heremarked that Boethius 'says some very beautiful and sensible things about theorder of the universe. For seeing the successes of the wicked, the misfortunes of thegood, the brevity and ordinary evils of human life, and the thousands of apparentdisorders that offer themselves to our eyes, it seems that everything happens bychance. But those who examine the inner natures of things find everything is sowell regulated there that they cannot doubt that the universe is governed by asovereign 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 wishedfor' (G vn 545).

3 'I have always been most satisfied, from my very youth, with the ethics of Plato andin some ways with his metaphysics as well; these two sciences demand each other'scompany' (G in 637/L 659). Cf. D VI. 1, 215; G iv 298-9.1 discuss one aspect ofLeibniz'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 foremphasizing the relevance of this passage. It has been suggested that the doctrine ofprovidence 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, itremains the case that the early Stoics frame their ethics against the background of aconception of nature as divinely governed, in which human beings achieve happinessinsofar as they 'live in agreement with nature.' For an elaboration of this reading, seeA.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/AG281-4). 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 DiogenesLaertius (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'sknowledge of ancient Stoicism are the works of Justus Lipsius. Drawing on Lipsiusin Theodicy, sec. 332, for example, Leibniz cites Aulus Gellius as offering a morefaithful 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. Longand D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1987), vol. 1, ch. 44. Wherever possible translations from Stoic sources aredrawn 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 passagescollected 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 shallreconcile you with the gods, who are ever best to those who are best. For nature neverpermits good to be injured by good; between good men and the gods there exists afriendship 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 dangerousman of this century. He was truly an atheist, that is, he did not acknowledge anyprovidence 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 busycrying against Epicurus for ruining the preconception of the gods by abolishingprovidence. For, they say, god is preconceived and thought of not only as immortaland blessed but also as benevolent, caring and beneficent' (LS 54K).

18 'The Stoics are accused of this error [of fatalism], against which J. Lipsius defendsthem, since everything nonetheless happens as a result of divine decrees, or bythe free will of God and created beings, though in a determinate order which Godinfallibly knows ... This [fatalism] in fact seems to have been the view of Hobbes andSpinoza, the former of whom made all things corporeal, the latter of whom thoughtthat 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, JusteLipse 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 togetherwith the universe that we are swept along; whatever it is that has ordained us so tolive, so to die, by the same necessity it binds also the gods. One unchangeable coursebears along the affairs of men and gods alike' (trans. Basore). See also the passagefrom 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 theuniverse 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 lineof 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 ofJustice is to be found in Law, for Law is a natural force; it is the mind and reason ofthe 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 andGenerosity (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 becontent 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 ofsouls 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 completeseparation or extinction of the soul's body, but only an 'enfolding and diminution' ofits organs, which eventually will develop again as those of a new organism, or thesame organism in a different form (ibid., sees. 72-7). These claims apply to all typesof creatures, and provide no support for the stronger thesis that there is a continuityof memory or self-consciousness across successive lives. Such a continuity, orimmortality, is posited by Leibniz as the exclusive property of rational beings, onthe grounds that the conditions of divine justice would fail to be met if a person inprinciple lacked awareness of the connection between divine reward or punishmentand the deeds of a previous life for which he was held accountable (Discourse onMetaphysics, 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 andpunishment are delivered by natural means within a succession of linked earthlyexistences: 'this globe must be destroyed and restored by natural means at such timesas the governing of minds requires it, for the punishment of some and the reward ofothers' (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 athing which he might have suffered. The fairness of a law does not consist in itseffect 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 noblespirit, such a spirit as befits a good man, so that we may bear up bravely under all thatfortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature's ... This is the law towhich 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 happenand refrain from railing at nature. One can do nothing better than endure what cannotbe cured and attend uncomplainingly the God at whose instance all things comeabout' (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 'totalpleasure which results from all that the soul feels simultaneously' (Gr 582). In theNew 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 continualprogress to new pleasures' (RB 194).

33 Our reason, Leibniz writes to Queen Sophie Charlotte, 'makes us resemble God in asmall 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 theuniverse. It is also in this that our virtue and perfection consists, just as our happinessconsists 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 notaccompanied by pleasure, though its privation may cause us pain: 'we only perceivethe good of health, and other like goods, when we are deprived of them' (G vi 266/H281). 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 Conceptof Justice,' Leibniz restricts the 'true good' to 'whatever serves the perfection ofintelligent 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, otherthings being equal, it is better to have it than not to have it,' but which can lead to evilif 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 individualswhose virtue is incomplete, because they lack an adequate knowledge of God'sjustice and of the true goods of the soul: 'the dignity and glory, and our mind'ssense of joy on account of virtue, to which [philosophers] appeal under the name ofhonor [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 ofevils, 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 thegoods of the mind, whether through a liberal education or a noble way of living, orthe 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, onemust assume the immortality of the soul, and God as ruler of the universe' (G in388-9/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 actionmay be delayed by God until a later earthly existence. See 'Observations on the BookConcerning "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 supremepower, wisdom, and goodness of God, who does everything for the best, that is, withthe greatest order, is sufficient to make all reasonable people content, and to convincethem that contentment should be greater to the extent that we are disposed to followorder or reason' (G iv 508/AG 192). 'Since nature brings everything in order, he whostands closest to that order already can most easily arrive at an orderly contemplationor orderly conception, that is, at a felt satisfaction, precisely because there can be nohigher satisfaction than to consider and see how good everything is and that nothingpossibly 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 virtueand 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 hadnothing 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 andwhich 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 guardianspirit 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 lifeand 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 utterlyhostile to peace of mind and of life [inimicissimi mentis vitaeque tranquilliae]. Forthey cause troubling and severe ailments, oppressing the mind and weakening it withfear. They also inflame the mind with excessive longing ... a mental powerlessness


completely in conflict with temperance and moderation... So the cure for those vicesis situated in virtue alone' (LS 61O).

43 See Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 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 divinejustice as supporting 'the confidence in God that gives us tranquility' and 'the love ofGod 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 ofthe variation in one same degree of perfection' (G 11136/M 171-2). 'Wisdom is thescience 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 toact in such a way that our mind is always in command of the matter with which it isoccupied, that it often reflects on the end or objective of what it is doing. By askingourselves from time to time, what am I doing? to what good is this directed? we arebrought 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 theCommon Concept of Justice' (Mo 41-70/L 560-73).

49 'Justice is nothing but what conforms to wisdom and goodness combined. The end ofgoodness is the greatest good. But to recognize this we need wisdom, which ismerely the knowledge of the good, as goodness is merely the inclination to do goodto 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, sofar as one can, reasonably, but in proportion to the needs and merits of each' (Gr 5797R83).

51 Cf. New Essays iv.viii.12: "universal justice is not merely a virtue - rather, it is thewhole 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, asmuch 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 ourenlightenment' (K x 11/R 105).


54 I argue for this point at greater length in chapter 3 of my book Leibniz and theRational Order of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

55 'One cannot know God as one should without loving him above all things, and onecannot love him thus without willing what he wills. His perfections are infinite andcannot cease. This is why the pleasure which consists in the feeling of his perfectionsis the greatest and the most durable possible, that is, it is the greatest happiness; andthat 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 knowinghis 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 mustknow 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 acertain unending and unbounded progress of the universe as a whole, as a result ofwhich it always proceeds to greater development, just as a large portion of our worldis 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 hangof destiny itself and the incomparable order it includes: first, that we should regard asgood and proper everything that has already happened or is happening, as though wemight be seeing them from the right viewpoint; secondly, that in all future things orevents that are yet to happen, we should seek to do the good and proper thing asmuch as it is possible for us to do. Of these rules, the former gives us every possiblesatisfaction in the present, and the latter paves the way to a future, far greater happi-ness' (G vii 122/W 575-6). 'Then at last we learn that we have reason to find thehighest joy in all things that have happened and are yet to happen, but that we mustalso 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 theability to sustain their own happiness.

61 Irrespective of his virtue, the person who ascribes value to bodily pleasure suffers asa result of his own error. In general, Leibniz accepts the principle that 'a lesser goodis a kind of evil if it stands in the way of a greater good' (Theodicy, sec. 8). The willtends toward good in general; it must strive after the perfection that befits us, and thesupreme perfection is in God. All pleasures have within themselves some feeling ofperfection. 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 inthis privation of a further aspiration that the defect consists' (Theodicy, sec. 33; G vi122/H 142).

62 I am grateful to Jon Miller (my commentator in Toronto), Brad Inwood, and StevenStrange for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

10

Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of theProblem of Evil

ROBERT C. SLEIGH, JR

The primary aim of this paper is to make a contribution toward understandingLeibniz's rich and intricate treatment of the problem of evil. In my opinion, thestudy of Leibniz's treatment of the problem of evil and, more generally, hisphilosophical theology is in its infancy compared to the study of some otheraspects of his philosophy. Hence, the aims of this paper are modest - somethinglike an initial map of selected highlights of the relevant terrain.

There is no doubt that the problem of evil was a life-long preoccupation forLeibniz. In its most general form, the problem of evil concerns the question ofthe consistency of the mere existence of evil in the created world with thecharacteristics 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 problemsarising from the various Christian doctrines concerning divine providence,damnation, salvation, and the consequences of original sin. Four special caseswere 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 preventsin 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 athreat to God's holiness generated by Leibniz's acceptance of the thesis thatGod physically concurs in all actions produced by creatures, including thosethat are sinful; that is, that God causally contributes to each sinful action in suchfashion that, had he not so contributed, that sinful action would not haveoccurred. 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, fora sinful life with the thesis that God exercises complete providential controlover 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 divinegrace 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 hiscreation. 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 allegedto have a problem. Membership in S may vary from case to case, but candidatesfor inclusion are assertions of God's existence, of his various perfections, of hisprovidential control over his creation, and of the gratuity of his grace. Next weconsider a set E of propositions alleged either to be obviously true or, at anyrate, accepted by theists, about what we might call the downside of the life ofcreatures; for example, assertions of the existence of evil in general and sin inparticular, 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 theunion 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 someset of propositions D such that the union of S and D is consistent and entailseach element of E. Such a strategy, if successful, shows that the claim that theunion 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 purportedjustifications Leibniz offered are certain fundamental propositions that heaccepted:

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 ofthese 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 shallalso suggest that there is some hyperbole in Leibniz's claim that the problem ofdivine 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 problemof divine physical concurrence in sin gave him the most grief and was attendedby 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 generalterms. The same cannot be said of then extant purported solutions to theodiceanproblems, even restricting attention to those that could be considered orthodox,in some broad sense. In this section, I note those approaches aimed at providingmaterial for solutions, or partial solutions to theodicean problems that Leibnizmet and rejected, excluding those that he viewed as self-consciously unortho-dox. In this latter category are various efforts of the Socinians, who denied thatGod 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 andaimed 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, asLeibniz 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 theworks 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 ofaffairs that obtains is not willed to obtain by God. This advantage is reached onthe 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 lookupon 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 virtueof God's will alone, it seems to me that we would unthinkingly destroy all love ofGod and all His glory. For why praise Him for what He has done, if He would beequally praiseworthy for doing just the contrary?

1


The second makes use of the infinite gulf between creator and creature. Theidea is that either the notions of duty and obligation have no application to Godso that whatever he does he has not failed to do what he ought to do or, if thenotion 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 hasno straightforward application to God, but he argued that nonetheless some mis-erable states of affairs (e.g., eternal damnation of the innocent) are incompatiblewith divine perfection, and, hence, that there is no solution to any theodiceanproblem 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 wormis before us. In fact, this excuse would not diminish, but would rather increase Hiscruelty. (CD 116)

Turning to the third and fourth approaches to aspects of the problem of evil thatLeibniz met and rejected, the plot thickens. The third is a version of what wemight call the free-will defence. The free-will defence is particularly well suitedto 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 hasuseful 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 ofsomething willed to obtain by God; that is, for any state of affairs a such that aobtains because God wills that a obtains, the conditional (if a obtains then (3obtains) is neither metaphysically nor causally necessary. By Leibniz's lights,accepting a libertarian account of freedom is tantamount to denying that God isthe 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, Leibnizhimself hoped to employ freedom for theodicean purposes. There can be nodoubt that Leibniz believed that human beings sometimes make choices that arefree, that only free choices are sinful, and that these two facts are to be utilizedconstructively for theodicean purposes. I don't see how. Although scholarswhom 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 adeterminist/compatibilist can aid in the solution of any theodicean problem.

The fourth, and last, of the approaches intended to contribute to the solutionof a theodicean problem while preserving orthodoxy that Leibniz rejected, iswhat 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 allegedtheodicean contribution to the solution of theodicean problems, and to explainin derisive terms why the theory cannot so contribute. It was quite commonamong non-scholastic philosophers in the seventeenth century to treat privationtheory with derision. I think that the seventeenth-century deriders would haveaccepted 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 neednot 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 tothe will of a creature, then defects (sins included) of its voluntary actions mustbe 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 itscause.

And, in ST i n Q79, a. 2, ad 2, Saint Thomas considered some sinful act of somehuman person. He concluded:

... man is the cause of sin. But God is a cause of the act in such a manner that He isin no way the cause of the defect accompanying the act; and, hence, He is not thecause of sin.

It is this theodicean use of the idea that evil in general, and sin in particular, is aprivation that Leibniz criticized in The Author of Sin.' Leibniz first set out hisunderstanding 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 apure privation ... and that God is not the author of privations. Toward that end, thefamous distinction between the physical aspect and the moral aspect of sin wasintroduced - a distinction that has been abused somewhat, although it is good inand 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 besaid that it consists ... in the lack of conformity of the action with the Law, whichlack is pure privation. I agree with that, but I do not see what that contributes to theclarification of our question. For to say that God is not the author of sin, becauseHe 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-overfrom 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 manhimself is not the author of sin, since he is only the author of the physical or realaspect, 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 ofan action supervene on its natural features in such fashion that anyone whocausally contributes to every aspect of the natural features of an action isresponsible, at least in part, for its moral features. Leibniz's understanding ofprivation theory, its theodicean uses, and his criticisms thereof - as formulatedin '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 adecent hypothesis that in this matter, as in others in the relevant time period,Leibniz was much under the influence of Hobbes. In general, that influencewaned. In this particular case, it clearly did for ridicule was not Leibniz's lastword on privation theory and its theodicean applications, as we shall see.

Ill

In the concluding section, I consider Leibniz's positive efforts with respect tothe general problem of evil, and the four theodicean knots to which he devotedsignificant attention - problems we may label respectively moral concurrence,physical concurrence, providential control, and grace. I focus on Leibniz's useof 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 deservespunishment, whatever the source of the evil will; and (iv) the ultimate source ofall 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. Thisclaim 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 basicposition is outlined in paragraphs 8 and 9 of the Theodicy; it is also outlined innumerous other passages, but it is pretty much the same short story in eachsuch 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 hisessential omnipotence and omniscience setting the context of choice, the suffi-cient reason must be located in his essential goodness. The consequence isthat he would create no world were there not one best. But there is a world, soit must be the best.

Leibniz was well aware that the orthodox position was that expressed bySaint Thomas Aquinas in ST i Q25, a. 6 - that God has created a very goodworld, but not the best, because there is no best. Leibniz felt the need to counterThomas. Surprisingly, his manner of doing so is as perfunctory as his allegedproof 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 ofwhat Leibniz affirmed here. Thomas's claim that there is no best possible worldoccurs in the latter half of his reply to objection 3 in Q25, a. 6. That reply beginswith 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 constituentindividuals are all and only the individuals in the actual world. Thomas's claimis that the actual world is the best world in a. We can imagine Leibniz reasoningas follows: Surely Thomas would claim to know this a priori. So he must agreethat we can reach conclusions a priori about what God would create in a varietyof circumstances by reasoning of just the sort Leibniz utilized in his proof thatthis 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 ofpossible 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 createthe best. Basically, what separates Thomas from Leibniz on this score is thatThomas held this thesis: For any possible world a there is some possible worldsuch that the set of individuals in a is a proper subset of the individuals in (3 andP is better than a.


Leibniz's first query with respect to this thesis would be how in the worldwould 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 responseis that we know no such thing; perhaps adding good individuals will yielddisaster - a worse world. Who knows?

Suppose Leibniz was on solid ground in rejecting Thomas's reasons in favourof the thesis that there is no best world. Still, Leibniz's claim to know a priorithat were there no best possible world - that is, were Thomas right - then Godwould not have created any world, also appears vulnerable, indeed, open to thefollowing 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 goodGod would have created nothing at all. But Leibniz is mistaken if he supposes thatin 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 surelybe a less excellent state of affairs than the existence of some of the worlds that Godcould have created.2

Whether Leibniz is open to this objection is not my present concern. But it seemsclear to me that he might have thought not. In STia Q25, a. 6, Thomas employeda distinction that resonated throughout subsequent discussions, especially in theseventeenth century. Thomas answered the question - whether God could makebetter things than those that he did make - with a distinction: God could not dobetter considered ex parte facientis - with respect to his manner of making; butGod 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 aboutcreation choices in various imagined settings, we must pay heed both to the valueof an envisaged choice ex parte facientis and to its value ex parte facti. Couplethis with the idea that although God antecedently favours diffusing his goodnessthrough creation, it's not really a big deal from his point of view - there is not allthat 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 contraGentiles to provide an explanation for why God would bother to will things otherthan himself. The problem is allegedly solved in the later Summa Theolgiae byplacing 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 thegood it possesses. (Sric Q19 a. 2)


I think Leibniz would have latched onto the 'as far as possible' clause, arguingthis way: A choice of a very good world than which there is a better worldwould subject God's choice to second-guessing. And he might argue that anychoice subject to second-guessing of the sort available here significantly lowersthe value of the contemplated choice ex parte facientis. Given that there isn'tsufficient value associated with the communication of goodness that wouldensue there just would not be a sufficient reason, all things considered, for Godto 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 importanceLeibniz attributed to the thesis that this is the best possible world. It combinesin a fruitful way with what is surely the most frequently employed theodiceandefence; namely, the greater good defence. Consider the following proposition:

GGD: For any evil state of affairs a that obtains, there is some good state ofaffairs 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 thebest possible world put him in a strong position. Indeed, Leibniz could affirmthe proposition that results from switching the positions of the quantifiers inGGD - a proposition that is stronger than GGD, and which implies GGD. Heneed only take as value for @ the entire actual world, no matter what value for ais 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 handlethe general problem, and both moral and physical concurrence. The ideainvoked 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 thatultimately 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 ofaffairs 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 ofphysical concurrence amounts to invoking the greater good strategy. He cameto see this as inadequate.

In the early going, Leibniz leaned toward employing (iii) - the doctrine thatan evil will deserves punishment, whatever its source - as a solution withrespect to providential control and divine grace - the two problems that raise aquestion about divine fairness in the treatment of creatures. Consider the fol-lowing passage from 'On the Omnipotence and Omniscience of God and theFreedom of Man' (A/6/1/542):

You say, 'Why did God not create me better, why did He not give me a more moderateconstitution, 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...' HereI 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 hiscareer. Consider the following passage from T 64:

... whatever dependence is conceived in the case of voluntary actions - even if therewere 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 usesof (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 implicationsof 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 notyou, 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 aseparate paper.

Even in 'On the Omnipotence ...,' after having affirmed that he need notanswer 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 inyour particular case. (A/6/1/543)

This position - that some global justification for God's decisions with respect toprovidence and the ensuring distribution of divine grace must be provided,although no justification is required in individual cases - is essentially the sameas that of Saint Thomas in ST ia Q23, a. 5, ad 3. Thomas stated the position andset out to explain why no justification, even in general terms, is available inindividual cases. Thomas's view was one orthodox position in the seventeenthcentury. 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 justconsidered 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 certainones ... Yet why He chooses these for glory and reprobates those has no reasonexcept 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 deepestinsights, 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 tojustify God's allowing sins to obtain. The principle - non essefacienda male uteveniant bona - taken by orthodoxy to be implied by Romans 3:8 - held in thecase 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 principleof 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 aduty (that is, morally necessary). This is the case whenever another's sin cannot beprevented 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 thenext paragraph, Leibniz put his cards on the table, noting that there is somethingGod '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 standardScholastic 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 thestrategies 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 thesisthat 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 hascontrol. 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 thejustification 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 forcedthereby to concoct his own complicated version of privation theory.

In the Confessio, Leibniz announced his solution to the problem of the authorof sin as follows:

... although God is the ground (ratio) of sins, nevertheless He is not the author ofsins ... 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 arequite 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 thedivine understanding and causation via the divine will; (b) each state of affairsthat obtains is caused to obtain either by the divine understanding or the divinewill; (c) God is an author of those states of affairs caused to obtain by the divinewill; (d) sins are not caused to obtain by the divine will. So far, so easy. Butwhen we turn to details, the picture becomes murky.

Let's start with a problem concerning the understanding of Leibniz's notionin 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 anystate 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 toLeibniz:

2. For any state of affairs a that obtains, necessarily, if God exists then aobtains.

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 causedto obtain by the divine understanding. Clearly Leibniz held that some states ofaffairs are caused to obtain by the divine will. So, following the present line ofinterpretation, we would reach the conclusion that in the Confessio Leibniz didnot take the two modes of divine causation to be mutually exclusive. Unfortu-nately, many of his remarks therein suggest that he did. Those same remarkssuggest a rather different conception of causation via the divine understanding,one employing the notion of per se necessity introduced in the Confessio. Wemay extract Leibniz's notion of per se necessity from the following account ofper 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 theimpossibility of its obtaining does not result from an incompatibility among itsinternal intrinsic features, but rather from an incompatibility between those fea-tures obtaining and some other state of affairs that obtains of necessity. Leibnizutilized the following example to explain the point. Consider the state of affairsconsisting in some innocent person being damned eternally. Leibniz held thatthis state of affairs is per se possible, although it is metaphysically impossiblein virtue of various necessary features of a necessary being, namely, God. Theconception of causation via the divine understanding suggested by many ofLeibniz'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'smodes of causal operation, (3) would have the consequence that God is thecause of sin via his will; that is, that God is the author of sin - exactly whatLeibniz 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 thatGod's causation via the divine understanding is ubiquitous, the pressure falls onLeibniz's account of causation via the divine will.

Unfortunately, the notion of causation via the will, that is, of authorship, inthe Confessio is also troubled. I think that a careful examination of it leads toascribing the following to Leibniz:

4. Agent A is the author of a's obtaining if, and only if, A is the cause of oc'sobtaining (somehow), and A wills in favour of a's obtaining; that is, A takesdelight in oc's obtaining.

Consider a sin 6 that obtains. Since, given (1) and (2), God is the cause of 6'sobtaining via his understanding, Leibniz's claim that God is not the author of3's obtaining would amount to the claim that pi's obtaining does not delightGod.

This account may seem not to merit Leibniz's claim in the Confessio to havedevised an account that clarifies in a significant way what the Scholasticsshould 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 sinfulstates 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 thatin his mature treatments of the problem of the author of sin Leibniz took refugein 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 ofMan' 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 responseis 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 ofthe 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 divinewill. 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 forsin 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 toMolanus:

... every creature is essentially limited; I call this limitation or negation a privativeimperfection, and I add that this is the source of evil, not only of the capacity forsin, 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 byseries and volume. Thus, 'A/6/1/537-46' refers to pages 537 through 546of 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, pages437-62.

Grua G.W. Leibniz. Textes inedits. Ed. Gaston Grua. 2 volumes. Paris: PressesUniversitaires 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 ofFaith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1987), p. 63.

3 Gaston Grua, Jurisprudence universelle et theodicee selon Leibniz (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1953; reprint, New York: Garland, 1985), p. 274.

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