Discourse on Metaphysics
by Gottfried Leibniz, translated by George Redington Montgomery
Discours de métaphysique (1686) GP iv 427-463
via
Wikisource
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote this treatise in 1686 during a letter exchange with a French fellow philosopher, Antoine Arnauld. It wasn't published until over a century later. So I surmise it didn't play a role in founding Leibniz's reputation as a philosopher who rather heartlessly argued that the world is perfection and that, by implication, anyone who suffers or rebels against it is too thick to understand God's machinery. Leibniz was 40 at the time of writing; his influential work
Monadologie was produced about 30 years later, and
Candide, Voltaire's riposte, was published in 1759.
Turning to Bertrand Russell's
History of Western Philosophy, I see that Leibniz's chapter begins on a firm note: firstly, the German philosopher was apparently "not admirable" as a person. Also, part of Leibniz's work was meant to appeal to his royal patrons and not to 'rock the boat,' which mined its worth from a philosophical point of view.
It was the popular Leibniz who invented the doctrine that this is the best of all possible worlds
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Here Leibniz sets out his Logical God, and a Connect The Dot metaphor:
VI. That God does nothing which is not orderly, and that it is not even possible to conceive of events which are not regular.The activities or the acts of will of God are commonly divided into ordinary and extraordinary. But it is well to bear in mind that God does nothing out of order. Therefore, that which passes for extraordinary is so only with regard to a particular order established among the created things, for as regards the universal order, everything conforms to it. This is so true that not only does nothing occur in this world which is absolutely irregular, but it is even impossible to conceive of such an occurrence. Because, let us suppose for example that some one jots down a quantity of points upon a sheet of paper helter skelter, as do those who exercise the ridiculous art of Geomancy; now I say that it is possible to find a geometrical line whose concept shall be uniform and constant, that is, in accordance with a certain formula, and which line at the same time shall pass through all of those points, and in the same order in which the hand jotted them down; also if a continuous line be traced, which is now straight, now circular, and now of any other description, it is possible to find a mental equivalent, a formula or an equation common to all the points of this line by virtue of which formula the changes in the direction of the line must occur. There is no instance of a face whose contour does not form part of a geometric line and which can not be traced entire by a certain mathematical motion. But when the formula is very complex, that which conforms to it passes for irregular. Thus we may say that in whatever manner God might have created the world, it would always have been regular and in a certain order. God, however, has chosen the most perfect, that is to say the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypotheses and the richest in phenomena, as might be the case with a geometric line, whose construction was easy, but whose properties and effects were extremely remarkable and of great significance.
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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, c. 1700
Portrait by Johann Friedrich Wentzel (1670–1729)
via Wikimedia Commons |
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Russell argues against using God as a logical solution to philosophical problems.
The God of the Old Testament is a God of power, the God of the New Testament is also a God of love; but the God of the theologians, from Aristotle to Calvin, is one whose appeal is intellectual: His existence solves certain puzzles which otherwise would create argumentative difficulties in the understanding of the universe. This Deity who appears at the end of a piece of reasoning, like the proof of a proposition in geometry, did not satisfy Rousseau, who reverted to a conception of God more akin to that of the Gospels.
Leibniz, I gather, runs the risk of not loving his fellow man enough to consider God's purpose in light of man's welfare, and of seeing God in the bloodless way Russell describes.
Furthermore, the British philosopher counters the 'best of all worlds' argument as efficiently as Voltaire. First he recapitulates the Leibnizian reasoning: God made a world that has evil too, rather than all good, he writes; and
That is because some great goods are logically bound up with certain evils.
He further explains Leibniz's point with this example: a drink of water would not be appreciated as a great good if one were not thirsty.
In short:
The world that resulted [from God's decision] [...] has a greater surplus of good over evil than any other possible world; it is therefore the best of all possible worlds, and the evil that it contains affords no argument against the goodness of God.
But Russell then argues that this line of reasoning is self-interested. It might appeal to Leibniz himself and to Leibniz's patrons, but not to much of the rest of the world:
This argument apparently satisfied the Queen of Prussia. Her serfs continued to suffer the evil, while she continued to enjoy the good,* and it was comforting to be assured by a great philosopher that this was just and right.
My father and I once talked about a different metaphor for an organized/disorganized world: If we inspect a carpet from beneath, as human beings do when we look at the world, we see the frayed ends of yarn, the unfinished appearance, etc. Whereas a being who is looking at the carpet from the top, like God, is seeing and understanding the pattern. Not that I remember Papa presenting this belief as his own; he was discussing it as an illustration.
I like the Connect the Dot metaphor, too. But I think I'd substitute the modern metaphor of 'not seeing the forest for the trees.' When the world is composed of many elements, it can be hard to see patterns and organization that may exist.
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"Bertrand Russell Smoking A Pipe"
"The Welsh philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell smoking the pipe while sitting on an armchair. 1954 (Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)"
via Wikimedia Commons |
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My two cents: I'm not entirely opposed to the idea that "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter" — that it is possible to believe in a God whose reasoning is not always understandable but might be explained to us in the afterlife. That said, I object very much to human beings explaining away the hardships of others, by attempting to intuit God's reasoning themselves. I think that it's nicer to have the sense to see that this is a tricky endeavour, and have the compassion to see that it should not be undertaken if it makes people feel even worse.**
Sources:
"Discourse on Metaphysics" [
Wikipedia]
"Monadology" [
Wikipedia]
"Leibniz" in
The History of Western Philosophy, 2nd ed., by Bertrand Russell (London: George Allen + Unwin, 1979), pp. 563-576
John 13.7,
King James Bible [
Kingjamesbibleonline.org]
* (His premise that Queen of Prussia was happier than her subjects because she was richer is not watertight. But I agree that the world might make far greater sense to her, because it feels materially fulfilling, than it would to a peasant to whom it feels materially precarious.)
** I should state that I am not thinking of specific examples of this behaviour! — this is not a passive-aggressive allusion or 'subtweet.'
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