The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy 9781442682146

Table of contents :
Contents
Contributors
1. Introduction
2. Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts
3. Descartes's Theodicy of Error
4. Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?
5. Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil
6. Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism or Philosophical Courage?
7. Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil
8. Leibniz and the 'Disciples of Saint Augustine' on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized
9. Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of Theodicy
10. Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil

Citation preview

The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy

This page intentionally left blank

The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy

Edited by

ELMAR J. KREMER AND MICHAEL J. LATZER

U N I V E R S I T Y OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2001 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3552-3

Printed on acid-free paper Toronto Studies in Philosophy Editors: 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. 3-5,1999 ISBN 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

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contents

Contributors

vii

1 Introduction 3 Elmar J. Kremer and Michael J. Latzer 2 Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts Alfred J. Freddoso 3 Descartes's Theodicy of Error Michael J. Latzer 4 Spinoza: A Radical Protestant? Graeme Hunter

10

35 49

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

66

6 Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism or Philosophical Courage? 81 Denis Moreau 1 Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil 101 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon 8 Leibniz and the 'Disciples of Saint Augustine' on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized 119 Elmar J. Kremer

vi Contents 9 Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of Theodicy 138 Donald Rutherford 10 Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil Robert C. Sleigh, Jr.

165

Contributors

Alfred J. Freddoso Graeme Hunter Elmar J. Kremer D. Anthony Lariviere Michael J. Latzer Thomas M. Lennon Denis Moreau Steven M. Nadler Donald Rutherford Robert C. Sleigh, Jr,

University of Notre Dame University of Ottawa University of Toronto Lakehead University Gannon University University of Western Ontario Universite de Nantes University of Wisconsin, Madison University of California, San Diego University of Massachusetts, Amherst

This page intentionally left blank

The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy

This page intentionally left blank

1

Introduction ELMAR J. KREMER AND MICHAEL J. LATZER

The essays in this volume are about the problem of evil as it was understood and wrestled with in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Or perhaps 'problems' of evil would be a better designation, since many distinct issues are to be found within the labyrinthine twists and turns of this momentous issue. For the philosophers of the period, the task of theodicy was both philosophical and theological. Philosophically, evil presented a challenge to the consistency and rationality of the world-picture disclosed by the new way of ideas. But in dealing with this challenge, philosophers were also influenced by the theological debates about original sin, free will, and justification that were the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, and that exercised a formative influence on European 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 is malevolent. 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 inconsistent triad: God is omnipotent; God is benevolent; and yet evil exists. It seems that any two parts of the triad taken together are inconsistent with the third. The existence of an almighty and benevolent God is consistent with the appearance of evil, if evil is an illusion. Similarly, the existence of an omnipotent but malevolent God is consistent with evil, as is the existence of a God at once benevolent and limited in power. And, of course, if the divine attributes are held to be beyond 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 any way humans can understand; hence the alleged compatibility of God and evil could not be established. Classical theism, however, disallows the abandonment of any part of the triad, and insists that we can express the divine attributes at least analogically in human language. Thus the conditions for a genuine theodicy 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 was a lifelong preoccupation: A genuine theodicy must consist of a set of propositions, not just hypothetical but actually true, capable of showing the ultimate consistency of the existence of God and evil without sacrificing the attributes of God as classically defined. If it is possible to speak of a 'consensus' or 'mainstream' approach to theodicy in the Christian West, such would be the theodicy of Saint Augustine, to whom Leibniz himself owed a great deal. The intellectual struggle with the problem of evil defines the philosophy of Augustine to an enormous degree. As he records in his Confessions, as a young man Augustine was attracted to the sect of the Manichaeans precisely because of their rational solution to the problem of evil: cosmic dualism. Rather than fruitlessly endeavouring to show how a single all-good principle could account for evil, the solution of the Manichaeans was to posit an evil god as the source of evil, leaving good alone as the product of the good god. In the seventeenth century, Pierre Bayle will ironically hail the 'hypothesis of the two principles' as indeed the only truly reasonable solution to the problem. But Augustine found the answer to Manichaeism in his discovery of the 'nothingness' of evil. Because evil is literally no-thing, but simply the privation or absence of a good which ought to be present, there is no need to trace its presence to any evil god, still less to the positive will of the one good God. God merely 'permits' the privatio boni which his power could easily prevent, but which his goodness allows, for his own good reasons. What are these reasons? One of the most famous and influential Augustinian contributions, with roots in both pagan philosophy and biblical revelation, is the so-called 'aesthetic' theme: that whole consisting of evil and the good made possible by and drawn out of evil is better than a condition simply good to begin with, just as shadows are needed in paintings and dissonance in musical compositions. Along with this theme, Augustine developed what has come to be called the 'free will defence.' God is able to draw good even out of the disordered (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 evil around us. As perennial as the themes of Augustine's theodicy are the challenges to them, 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 even the best of all possible worlds - does this not amount to a denial of the reality of evil? Is the appearance of evil not in the end a function of the limitation of human perception, such that, to an unclouded mind, 'whatever is, is right'? And if God incorporates human choices, good and bad, in the plan for creation conceived from all eternity, does not the inevitability of this plan imply that no creatures are really free? So acute is this problem, and so contentious in the history of Christian dogma, that Leibniz calls it a 'labyrinth' wherein human reason goes inevitably astray. In the two centuries following the Protestant Reformation, the problem of freedom and predestination reached an unsurpassed degree of crisis, involving not just a plethora of excruciatingly difficult and sophisticated attempts at solution, but social and cultural upheaval as well. Thus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the theodicy problem was no mere idle puzzle of dogmatics, but a problem of immense social significance, a problem which cut to the heart of the philosophical and theological projects of the very best minds of the age. II

The problem of theodicy is urgent within the philosophy of the early modern period because the dream of the new scientists was for a complete explanation of reality without remainder, a physico-mathematical modelling of the worldpicture without any irrational surd to spoil the picture. It is striking that Descartes, in the Meditations on First Philosophy, tries to limit his dicusssion of the problem of evil to the problem of error, or a problem concerning the trustworthiness of clear and distinct ideas. Of course, this restriction of the problem cannot hold, since error is intimately connected with sin or moral evil, and Descartes is impelled to wrestle with evil like any traditional theodicist. In the Fourth Meditation, he offers a version of the 'free-will defence,' locating the origin of evil in the will of the erring creature. However, as Michael Latzer argues, Descartes's free-will defence founders on his conception of God's absolute and inscrutable predestination of all events, including human acts of thought and will. Descartes presents this conception in his correspondence with Princess Elizabeth as consoling - there is a Providence that shapes our ends. But tracing evil to its source in utterly unfathomable divine decrees, and placing God above the laws of mathematics and logic, as Descartes does, spells the end of a rational theodicy. Descartes would have wanted to avoid such an outcome. But Spinoza, by contrast, makes a conscious and systematic effort to undermine the traditional preconditions of theodicy in favour of what he regards as a more truly philo-

6

Elmar J. Kremer and Michael J. Latzer

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' that Spinoza's denial that God acts by free choice, that God is 'good' (as defined by classical theism), and that God acts for the sake of ends, places him outside the domain of traditional theodicy. But Spinoza is also interested in the project of consolation. Nadler locates Spinoza in the context of medieval Jewish theodicies, and notes that although Spinoza rejects such elements as post-mortem recompense for good deeds done and injustice suffered, he sees in Gersonides hints of his own prescription for happiness: freedom through scientia intuitiva, or knowledge through essences, related to their infinite causes. Through possession 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 good realized. However, as Graeme Hunter points out in 'Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?' Spinoza also had close ties with some of the radical Protestants in the Netherlands, and in some passages presents his work as part of a new and more radical Protestant reformation. Hunter rejects the traditional reading of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus through the lenses of the Ethics, and examines Spinoza's dicta in the Tractatus concerning the spirit of Christ, the essentials of Christian belief, and the principles of Christian reformation on the premise that they were sincerely held and seriously intended. Hunter argues that against the crude anthropomorphism of Cartesian divine voluntarism, the Spinoza of the Tractatus offers an orthodox understanding of divine providence, ruling all things by grace, mercy, and pity. Leibniz is another of the moderns whose Christian orthodoxy seems to sit uneasily with his philosophical principles. The tension in Leibniz's case is brought out by Donald Rutherford in 'Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of Theodicy.' Like the Stoics, Leibniz teaches a doctrine of consolation based on the pursuit of virtue grounded in the knowledge of divine justice. Leibniz insists that his conception of the Fatum Christianum offers a richer consolation than the Fatum Stoicum, because the Fatum Christianum includes an affirmation of God's providential care for individual human beings. In the last analysis, however, Leibniz does not locate beatitude in resignation to the Redeemer of worldly suffering, or in the timeless beatific vision, but in the 'perpetual progress' of the unending development of substances, and the independence from fortune which true virtue, and conformity with the universal will, provide. Recognition of the seriousness of Leibniz's consolatory and apologetic aims in theodicy is a welcome corrective to caricatures of Leibniz's theodicy as shallow and merely popular. And, in fact, as Robert Sleigh notes in his essay, serious scholarship concerning Leibniz's undertakings in theodicy is in relative

Introduction

7

infancy, compared to other aspects of his system. Sleigh's contribution traces some of the developments in Leibniz's thinking from the time of the early Confessio Philosophi, through the Discourse on Metaphysics, and finally the Theodicy, particularly with regard to Leibniz's handling of the classical themes of the free-will defence and of evil as privation. As always in the work of the great polymath, natural theology is never far removed from the abstruse doctrines of his metaphysics, such as his theories of contingency and of individuation. His genius is in bringing together in synthesis his own idiosyncratic metaphysical doctrines and the classical themes of Augustinan theodicy, including the doctrine that the created universe as a whole reflects God's perfect wisdom and power. That there is nothing to be improved upon in God's creation is common to the theodicies of the moderns. But as Denis Moreau argues in 'Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism or Philosophical Courage?' Malebranche is a notable exception. For, in a striking way, Malebranche is willing to allow that God's governance of the world through simple 'ways,' while unimpeachable and wholly worthy of the Creator, may (and indeed does) involve dysteleological 'surd' evils, instances of suffering of which we can say, without any qualification, nuance, or excuse, 'It's evil.' Arnauld claimed that in this respect Malebranche's theodicy is Manichaean. It can also be viewed as a precursor of the theodicies of the age of the Holocaust. Like a good Cartesian, Malebranche highlights the connection of error and moral evil. But, unlike Descartes, he shows a tolerance for an unredeemed remainder of physical evil. In abandoning a pristine world-picture, Malebranche thus credits the phenomenological experience of suffering. Ill

Another reason for the seventeenth-century preoccupation with evil and theodicy, equal in importance to the Rationalist dream of a perfect science, involves the labyrinthine problem of freedom and predestination, particularly in the causation of sin. Although a problem with a biblical lineage, the contingencies of history brought it, by the early modern period, to a near-crisis level of acuteness. The denial of human freedom and the determinism imposed by divine predestination which Martin Luther read in some of the Pauline epistles was key to the Reformer's rejection of the efficacy of good works, and of the whole sacerdotal-sacramental system of the Roman Church. The first attempt at a reasoned refutation of Luther on freedom, Erasmus's On the Freedom of the Will, was crushed by the more powerful reasoning of Luther's mighty Bondage of the Will. Although the Church devised what was meant to be a definitive answer to

8 Elmar J. Kremer and Michael J. Latzer Luther at the Council of Trent, the more than a century of rancorous struggle over grace and freedom which Catholics fought with Evangelical and Reformed Churches spilled over into battles among Catholics. The most important debate on these topics within the Catholic Church occurred in the meetings of the Congregationes de Auxiliis. These were ad hoc committees of cardinals called together to resolve a dispute that began in 1588 with the publication of the Jesuit Luis de Molina's work on the agreement of free will with grace, and related matters, 'according to Several Articles in St. Thomas,' and its repudiation by Domingo Banez, a more traditional Thomist and the leading Dominican theologian of the time. The meetings lasted from 2 January 1598 until 28 August 1607, and ended without a resolution of the issues. Dispute broke out again among Catholics after the publication of Jansen's Augustinus in 1640 and continued into the eighteenth century. Alfred Freddoso's essay, 'Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts,' illustrates the degree of complexity that the problem had reached in the Jesuit camp at the threshold of the seventeenth century. Suarez's finely tuned analysis of the concurrence of God in the sinful acts of creatures is an attempt to walk the razor-thin line between ascribing the causation of evil acts to God (and so violating divine goodness) and ascribing their causation to creatures (and so violating omnipotence). The disputes between the various Christian denominations, as well as within the Catholic Church, provided much material for Pierre Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary. Bayle's massively erudite work intensified the theodicy problem on many fronts, and, whatever Bayle may have intended, provided ammunition for atheology well into the late eighteenth century. (Its influence is felt, for example, in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.) Some of Bayle's aporetic challenges on the freedom-foreknowledge issue are discussed by D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas Lennon in 'Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil.' Typically cloaking his views in commentary on the views of others, Bayle voices his dislike of classical solutions by approving the Socinian denial of foreknowledge. This move seemed to Bayle at least more reasonable than the unfathomable affirmation of both divine foreknowledge and human liberty of indifference, to be found, for example, in the theodicy of William King. More generally, the theodicy problem is given acute focus by Bayle through his insistence on two theses: first, that 'good' can be applied univocally to God and creatures, so that we cannot get away with claiming God's goodness is quite unlike ours, subject to different rules; and, second, that God is utterly free to make any world, unfettered by any need to achieve plenitude of being, or any other quasi-aesthetic result. These theses generate the haunting fear that perhaps God is not good at all.

Introduction

9

Leibniz's Theodicy, written in response to Bayle, was the last instalment in Leibniz'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, he expresses his pleasure at the favourable reception of the Theodicy by 'excellent theologians of the three religions.' Yet, as we have seen in connection with Donald Rutherford's essay, Leibniz's own theological views were sometimes sufficiently unorthodox to threaten his project. Elmar Kremer, in 'Leibniz and the "Disciples of Saint Augustine" on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized,' argues that Leibniz's repudiation of the Augustinian position on this particular point led him to a markedly unorthodox position on original sin. Kremer also argues that Leibniz's position on the fate of infants who die unbaptized reflects an important break with the Augustinian division of the problem of evil into two parts, one dealing with humans (and other intelligent creatures) and one dealing with subhuman creatures. Leibniz's discomfiture is archetypical of the early modern philosophers in their dealings with the problems of theodicy. Their philosophy tended to put them at odds with all of the important Christian theological positions on sin, grace, and justification. Yet they were forced, for practical as well as theoretical reasons, to stay in touch with the ongoing theological discussion. It is our hope that the studies in this volume will stimulate further research into the resulting struggles of the early modern philosophers to resolve this most poignant and troubling of problems. The papers in this volume were delivered at a conference on the problem of evil in early modern philosophy held at the University of Toronto during 3-5 September 1999, and sponsored by the SSHRC, by the Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, and by St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. We would like to thank Sebastien Charles and Syliane Charles of the 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 provided commentaries on the papers, as well as those who attended and took part in the discussion at the conference.

2

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts ALFRED J. FREDDOSO

1. Introduction: Evil and God In this paper I will explore certain key features of Francisco Suarez's account of God's action in the world, with an eye toward explaining his view of the precise way in which God concurs with - that is, makes an immediate causal contribution to - free action in general and sinful action in particular. Suarez agrees with his mainly Thomistic opponents that God is an immediate cause of every effect produced by creatures - including every free act and, a fortiori, every sinful act elicited by creatures with a rational or 'free' nature. But he differs markedly from them in his account of how it can be plausibly maintained that God permits sin without causing sin or, to put it somewhat differently, how it can be plausibly maintained that the moral defectiveness of a sin is not traceable to God as a source. The heart of the paper will be drawn from sections 2-4 of Disputation 22 of the Disputationes Metaphysicae (DM), but I want to begin by defining the problematic in light of Suarez's general discussion of the metaphysics of evil in Disputation 11. Suarez agrees with traditional writers that what is 'evil in itself is either (a) the privation of some good that ought to belong to a given subject in view of its nature and powers or (b) the subject itself insofar as it suffers such a privation. Beyond this, however, he notes that a positive entity can be 'evil for another' in the sense that its presence in a particular type of subject entails the absence of some good which that subject ought to have. Such an entity might be a natural evil, that is, a positive entity that deprives its subject of some natural good it ought to have according to the standard set by its own nature. For

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

11

instance, from the perspective of Aristotelian science heat is a positive entity that is naturally bad for water, since water is by its nature cold; again, a sixth finger 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, more generally, 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, entities that are bad for a free nature precisely insofar as it is free. Moral evil is divided into the evil of sin or fault (malum culpae) and the evil of punishment (malum poenae), a distinction that Suarez characterizes as follows: We can say succinctly and clearly that the evil of sin (malum culpae) is a disorder in a free action or omission - that is, a lack of due perfection as regards a free action - whereas the evil of punishment (malum poenae) is any other lack of a due good 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 rational will, is defective because by its nature it induces a privation of the due ordering to God that its subject - a free and rational creature - ought to have. An evil of punishment, on the other hand, can itself be either a sin that is causally connected with other sins or some other type of suffering that God directly inflicts or at least permits. Although Suarez concedes that from outside the Christian perspective it seems that human beings suffer natural evils that are in no way connected with sin, he nonetheless notes that, according to the Faith, all the natural evils that befall us as human beings in fact stem ultimately from sin and especially from original sin, since God's antecedent intention was that we should be free from sin and suffering and death: Even though, leaving aside divine providence, one could conceive of some natural evil in a rational creature which was not inflicted because of any fault and which would thus be neither a sin nor a punishment, nonetheless, we believe that in conformity with divine providence no lack of a due perfection can exist in a rational creature unless it is a sin or else takes its origin from sin. It is for this reason that Augustine, In Genesim ad litteram, chap. 1, says that every evil is either a sin or a punishment for sin. In fact, it is not only the evil that exists formally in human beings, but also that which exists in irrational and inanimate things, to the extent that it results in harm for human beings themselves, that pertains to the evil of punishment - not punishment with respect to the lower things but with respect to the 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 Christian dispensation the evil of punishment loses its character as punishment when it is willingly embraced in atonement for sin out of supernatural love for God and neighbour 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 discussion is subtle and complex, and so I will limit myself to just a few relevant points. Some natural evils are the per accidens or incidental by-products of the 'perfect' action of unimpeded and non-defective created (or secondary) agents on non-defective patients, and as such they are traceable to God's immediate influence in the same way that they are traceable to the immediate influence of their proximate secondary causes. By contrast, other natural evils find their direct source in a defect of power in the agents that cause them or in various external impediments that keep their agents from 'perfectly' producing the effects at which they are aiming. Such evils are not causally traceable directly to God, but they are traceable to him indirectly and in the final analysis, since the various 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 natural evils and evils of punishment are such that God, as an intelligent and provident agent, can directly intend them for the sake of some good, even if he cannot be a per se and immediate cause of them (DM 11.3.21). So on Suarez's view there is in principle no metaphysical or moral problem with God's being a causal source in some way or other of natural evils and evils of punishment. Sinful actions, however, are a different story because they constitute a free agent's rejection of God's unfailing love and impede the agent's union with God and with other rational creatures. As such, they have a special repugnance to God's goodness and are directly contrary to what he intends. Thus, even though God might use our sins as instruments in bringing us to true humility and repentance, he cannot directly intend sin or be a causal source of sin or in any way induce 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, but only permitted. On the other hand, the other kinds of evil, wherever they come from, 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. And so it is only the evil of sin that God cannot be a cause of, whereas he can be a cause of the other kinds of evil. (DM 11.3.24)

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

13

So as far as the causal origin of evil is concerned, the only daunting general metaphysical problem, according to Suarez, is to explain in a precise and persuasive way how God makes an immediate causal contribution to each sinful act without its being the case that the moral defectiveness of such acts is causally traceable 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 his account of God's general concurrence in Disputation 22 of the Disputationes Metaphysicae. By the end of Disputation 21, Suarez takes himself to have established that every effect depends on God per se and immediately for its conservation. One way to broach the topic of Disputation 22 is to ask whether every effect likewise depends on God per se and immediately for its production. When the production takes place directly through creation ex nihilo, the answer is obviously affirmative. But the more problematic case is production through the communication of an accidental or substantial form, since such production is normally effected by the action of secondary causes. The question can be put in a slightly different way by asking whether God acts per se and immediately in every action of a created or secondary cause. To be sure, God per se and immediately conserves created agents with their active powers at the very time when they are engaged in their productive activity. But from this it follows only 'that God's influence is required ... remotely andperaccidens for the action of any created cause' (DM 22.1.1). The question now being posed is whether every action of a created agent is literally a single cooperative action with the First Agent, an action in which both God and the created agent are per se 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 'concurrentist' tenets that he shares in common with his Thomistic rivals. These constitute 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 produced 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 these two tenets, it follows that in each case of secondary causality, a unitary effect is immediately produced by God and the relevant secondary cause through a single cooperative action. In other words, the effect is not divided into a part caused by God and a part caused by the created agent; nor do they act by separate actions. There is just a single effect produced by a single action, and that action belongs to both God and the secondary cause.

14 Alfred J. Freddoso The third tenet is that even though there is just a single action, God and the secondary agent act by different powers within diverse orders of causality. More specifically, the secondary agent acts by its created or natural powers as a particular cause of the effect, whereas God acts by his uncreated power as a general or universal cause of the effect. (Hence the designation 'general concurrence.') This tenet requires careful unpacking. Concurrentists are committed to the view that when God cooperates with a secondary agent to produce a given effect, God's immediate contribution and the secondary agent's immediate contribution are complementary. The problem is to formulate a satisfactory metaphysical characterization of this complementarity that will not render superfluous either the secondary cause's immediate contribution or God's immediate contribution. The only viable way to do this is to claim that certain features or aspects of the unitary effect are traceable exclusively or primarily to God and that certain other features of the effect are traceable exclusively or primarily to the secondary agents.1 Accordingly, the concurrentists claim that God acts as a universal cause whose proper effect is being or esse as such, while the secondary cause participates in God's universal agency by directing it toward its own proper effect, that is, toward a particular effect to which its intrinsic powers are ordered in the relevant concrete circumstances. This should not be understood to mean that God's concurrence is exactly similar in every instance of secondary causality or that it is, as it were, an 'indifferent' influence that is somehow 'particularized' by the secondary cause. To the contrary, in each instance God's action and the secondary cause's action are one and the same action, and so just as the actions of secondary causes are obviously multifarious in species, so too God's concurrence varies in species from one circumstance to another.2 Rather, the point of calling God a universal cause of the effects of secondary agents is, in part, that any communication of esse by a secondary agent is a participation or sharing in God's own communication of esse as such, and that God's manner of allowing for this participation is to tailor his proper causal influence in each case 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 to write you a letter. It seems clear that both the pen and I count as joint immediate causes of a single effect, though in different 'orders of causality.' More specifically, I am a principal cause of the letter, while the pen is an instrumental cause.3 Yet the fact that the letter is written in black rather than in some other colour depends primarily on the causal powers of the pen as an instrumental cause rather than on any of my powers as a principal cause. (Remember that we are concentrating on my action just insofar as it is identical with the pen's

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

15

action; my further reasons for choosing this particular pen do not enter into that.) On the other hand, the fact that the word 'philosophy,' rather than some other word, occurs at a certain place on the piece of paper - or, even better, the fact 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's as an instrumental cause. Similarly, it seems reasonable to claim that one and the same effect is primarily from God insofar as it is something rather than nothing, and primarily from its secondary cause insofar as it is an effect of one particular type rather than another. For example, a newly conceived armadillo is from God insofar as it is something rather than nothing, and from its parents insofar as it is an animal of the species armadillo rather than some other sort of effect.4 This formulation seems to capture both (a) the idea that a secondary cause's communication of esse presupposes God's contribution and (b) the idea that the particular type of esse communicated in any instance of secondary causality stems from the natures of the relevant secondary causes. In summary, then, the effect is undivided and yet such that both its universal or general cause and its particular causes contribute to its production in distinctive and non-redundant modes. By contrast, if God had acted by himself to create the baby armadillo ex nihilo, then he would have been a particular cause of the new armadillo (see DM 22.4.9). As it stands, however, his cooperative influence is merely general or universal in the sense that he allows the active powers of the relevant secondary agents to determine the specific nature of the very same effect that his own influence plays an essential role in producing. In short, the manner of his concurring is adapted in each case to the natures of the relevant secondary agents and is different from the mode of acting he would have engaged in if he had caused 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 general concurrence, since its power, even if sufficient for the effect within the order of secondary causes, needs God's concurrence in order to be exercised. As Suarez puts it, God's readiness to grant his concurrence to a created agent in a set of concrete circumstances is one of the prerequisites for that agent's acting in those circumstances. But an agent is 'proximately able' to act, or 'in proximate potency' for acting, only when all the prerequisites for its acting have been posited in reality. It follows that even though a created agent might have a power which is sufficient within its own order for a given effect, it is not proximately able to produce the effect without God's readiness to grant his concurrence for that very effect.5 Thus, in holding that God acts as both a universal and immediate cause of the effects of secondary agents, the concurrentists delineate a mode of cooperative

16 Alfred J. Freddoso action that defines a middle position between occasionalism, which in essence holds that God is a particular cause of every effect produced in the world, and the 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 distinction between universal and particular causality gives concurrentists the resources to explain how two agents, operating by different powers and in different orders of causality, can produce one and the same effect by a single cooperative action. The distinction between universal and particular causality also provides concurrentists with at least a foothold for the claim that the moral defectiveness of a sinful action is traceable exclusively to the rational agent who is its secondary cause. 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 defect is traceable to the pen as an instrumental cause and not to my influence as a principal cause. In like manner, the fact that a sinful action exists at all is traceable primarily to God, whereas the fact that it is morally defective is traceable exclusively to the rational agent. (Indeed, Suarez himself takes it to be distinctive of rational agents that they are capable of being the sole originating source of their own moral defects, whereas the defects of natural agents must always be derived in the final analysis from the positive action of some other agent or agents [see DM 11.3.23].) However, as noted, the distinction between universal and particular causality provides only a foothold for the claim that God is not a source of the moral defectiveness of sinful actions. For the basic account of concurrence needs to be fleshed out more precisely, and it remains to be seen whether the other elements in a full account of God's general concurrence will themselves cohere with this claim. The fourth tenet is that the secondary cause's contribution to the effect is subordinate 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 First Cause and the action insofar as it is from the secondary cause, then the action can be said to be from the First Cause in a prior and more principal way than from the secondary cause; and, similarly, the First Cause will be said to have his influence on 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 more noble and more independent way. Second, the First Cause is related to the action per se and primarily under a more universal concept, since the First Cause has an influence on every effect or action whatsoever precisely because every effect or action has some share in being. The secondary cause, on the other hand, always has its influence under some posterior and more determinate concept of being. (DM 22.3.10)

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

17

Later I will raise the issue of whether this account of subordination is strong enough as it stands, but all parties would agree to at least as much as Suarez asserts here. The fifth and final tenet is that in any given case the cooperative action of God and the secondary cause with respect to a given effect is such that the influence actually exercised by the one would not have existed or effected anything at all in the absence of the influence exercised by the other. This follows from the fact that a secondary cause is unable to effect anything without God's concurrence, taken together with the fact that in any given concrete situation God's general concurrence complements the particular concurrence of the secondary cause and hence does not overdetermine the effect. This, then, is the sort of divine cooperation with secondary causes that both Suarez and his opponents are concerned to defend.6 I want to turn now to the differences between them that emerge from the attempt to fill out this basic account. 3. The Thomistic Gambit In section 2 of Disputation 22, Suarez tries to show, against unnamed 'later Thomists' (DM 22.2.7), that God's general concurrence involves nothing other than his actual influence on the secondary cause's action and effect. More specifically, he argues at great length that God's general concurrence has no effect within the secondary agent itself that is in any way prior to the cooperative action by which that agent's own effect is produced; rather, God's concurrence is just his contribution to that cooperative action, that is, to the cooperative production of the joint effect. In the words of the title of section 2, Suarez's claim is that God's general concurrence is 'something in the manner of an action' and not 'something in the manner of a principle of action.' But what is it to claim that God's concurrence involves 'something in the manner of a principle of action' ? And why do many Thomistic authors make this claim? To answer these questions, we should begin by noting that the theories opposed to Suarez's take their inspiration from a model that many scholastic thinkers associate with certain traditional axioms regarding the subordination of finite agents to God, namely, that of a craftsman using a tool in order to produce an artifact - not unlike the example of the pen and the letter I used above to illustrate the difference between universal and particular causality. The craftsman fashions the artifact through the tool as an instrument, and this in turn suggests that the craftsman does something to the tool even while using it in the production of the effect. In other words, the craftsman is not only engaging in a

18 Alfred J. Freddoso cooperative or joint action with the tool, but is also unilaterally imparting to the tool 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 two possible answers to this question, corresponding to the two theories that Suarez criticizes in section 2. According to the first answer, in using the tool the craftsman imparts to it a power that 'completes' or 'perfects' its intrinsic power and makes the tool proximately able to act on the relevant patient in such a way as to produce the artifact. So on this view the tool's intrinsic power is insufficient for the effect even within its own order of causality - namely, instrumental causality - and so that power needs to be supplemented by a 'higher agent,' the craftsman. Moreover, the power conferred by the craftsman is best thought of as temporary in the sense that it is not a type of power that could be had by the tool as an accidental form or characteristic that endures beyond the temporal interval during which the craftsman is using it; that is, it is a type of power that the tool has when and only when it is being moved by the higher agent in the cooperative action by which the artifact is produced. According to the second answer, in contrast, the craftsman does not empower the tool, but simply applies the tool's intrinsic power to the patient in such a way as to produce their joint effect. On this view, the tool's power is antecedently sufficient within the order of instrumental causality and does not need supplementation. Instead, the tool, with its pre-existent power, simply needs to be moved or directed in the appropriate ways by a higher agent in order to be proximately able to participate in the production of the effect. In technical terms, this motion is variously called an 'application' or 'pre-motion' or 'predetermination' which has the tool as its subject and is prior in some obvious sense - even if not temporally prior - to the cooperative action by which the artifact is produced. So the answer to the original question is this: The relevant principle of action conferred on the tool by the craftsman is either a power or the application of a power. And it is the reception of this principle of action that constitutes the tool's subordination to the craftsman during the time of their cooperative action. When we turn now to God's general concurrence with secondary causes, this model, articulated in one of the ways just explained, yields the standard interpretations of the following scholastic axioms: (a) 'A secondary cause does not act unless it is moved (or: pre-moved) by the First Cause'; (b) 'A secondary cause is applied to its action by the First Cause'; (c) 'A secondary cause is determined (or: predetermined) to its effect by the First Cause'; (d) 'A secondary cause acts in the power of the First Cause'; and (e) 'A secondary cause is subordinated in its acting to the First Cause.' And it is precisely these standard

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

19

interpretations that give rise to the two theories of God's concurrence that Suarez finds wanting.7 According to the first of these theories, by his concurrence God first 'completes' the secondary cause's power and then proceeds to produce the effect in cooperation with the secondary cause, where the completion of the power is causally (rather than temporally) prior to the cooperative action. Suarez gives two descriptions which, taken together, capture the most plausible version of this theory: The concurrence is a certain entity that emanates from the First Cause and is received 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 concurrence is said to be something 'in the manner of principle' is that it is the secondary 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 and infused power ... The concurrence begins, as it were, with the conferral of this power and yet does not consist in this conferral [alone], but rather proceeds further right to the creature's very own action, with the result that what influences the action immediately is not only the power communicated to the secondary cause but also the divine and uncreated power itself. (DM 22.2.24)

Suarez begins his critique of this theory by insisting that the powers of secondary causes are usually complete or perfect within their own order of causality just in virtue of God's having created and conserved them. Hence, secondary agents 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 technical terms, secondary agents are as a general rule 'perfectly constituted in first act within 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 cause needs to be supplemented by God or some other higher agent at the very time of the action, this supplementation is naturally prior to God's general concurrence and not apart of it: It is true that God sometimes, at least supernaturally, makes up for a secondary cause's imperfection by supplementing its power to act; he does this especially in our own case when he infuses the supernatural habits. But this falls outside of our present topic, since such an infusion of power has to do not with the First Cause's concurrence, but rather with the secondary cause's being elevated or perfected

20 Alfred J. Freddoso through the First Cause's action. Accordingly, if we are speaking of a secondary cause that has been perfectly constituted in first act within its own order, then it is pointless to add to it some other principle of acting that is received within it. (DM 22.2.4)

In other words, God's general concurrence always presupposes that the secondary cause's power is complete and sufficient within its own order of causality, regardless of how or when this completion is accomplished. It is only when the secondary cause proceeds from 'first act' into 'second act' - that is, only when it proceeds from already having sufficient power to actually exercising that power - that God's concurrence comes into play. And in reply to the objection - again inspired by the model of the craftsman and the tool - that the power conferred by God on the secondary cause is indeed part of his general concurrence because that power is an instrument through which he himself acts, Suarez asks whether or not God's contribution to the effect is exhausted by his producing this 'instrumental' power within the secondary cause. If the answer is yes, then God is merely a remote cause of the secondary agent's effect, since the only power by which he acts is a created power that inheres, even if only briefly, in the secondary cause. On the other hand, if God's contribution to the joint effect is not exhausted by the production of this alleged instrumental power, but includes as well an independent and immediate exercise of his own uncreated power, then any instrumental power is wholly superfluous: If ... in addition to the influence of this instrumental power, God is also said to influence 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 that remains on God's part would be. For the divine power is intimately present there through itself. And by its own eminence this power is sufficient to have, and proportioned for having, a per se influence on the action; indeed, it must necessarily have such an influence in order for the creature to be able to effect any action whatsoever. Therefore, an instrumental power of the sort in question on God's part is unnecessary; therefore, such a power is wholly irrelevant to the First Cause's concurrence, which is necessary per se and pertains to the secondary cause's essential subordination to the First Cause. (DM 22.2.6)

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

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

21

the argument goes, the secondary cause's essential subordination to God can be preserved only if God is thought of as acting on and through it. This brings us to the second and more sophisticated theory, which corresponds to the second opinion about the craftsman's relation to the tool. Suarez characterizes this theory as follows in two different places: The second position is that the First Cause's concurrence is something in the manner 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 necessary condition for acting. This seems to be the position of all those who claim that God's concurrence occupies itself with the secondary cause prior to the latter's action, 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 application of the secondary cause, but is consummated in the immediate and per se causing 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 the secondary cause, but instead produces a motion by which God applies the secondary cause to its action. Still, this application or pre-motion must be 'at least causally prior' to the secondary cause's action (DM 22.2.7). For even though the application is temporally simultaneous with the action by which God and the secondary cause cooperate in the production of the latter's effect, it has the secondary cause itself as its subject and hence cannot be identical with the cooperative action. This is why Suarez calls the application a 'necessary condition' for the cooperative action. Each of the arguments for the second theory invokes one of the scholastic axioms noted above, and the model of the craftsman and the tool looms prominently in the background throughout. Like the tool, the secondary cause must be pre-moved or applied to its action; that is, it must be directed or determined by the art and power of the divine craftsman to produce the effect that its own intrinsic power is proportioned to. And just as the tool acts in the power of the craftsman, 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 can participate in producing the craftsman's proper effect - namely, the artifact - so too the secondary cause is elevated by the First Cause's application so that it can participate 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 to call the alleged application (or pre-motion or predetermination) 'neither neces-

22 Alfred J. Freddoso sary nor fully intelligible' (DM 22.2.14). He argues in effect that while the model of the craftsman and the tool might help us to appreciate certain general features 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 the tool into the appropriate spatial relations with the patient. By contrast, God's general concurrence already presupposes that the secondary agent is suitably proximate to its patient. For this proximity is one of the prerequisites for the secondary agent's action, and God's general concurrence presupposes that all the necessary conditions for acting are already satisfied. Again, the craftsman's application of the tool has as its direct formal terminus or effect a series of spatial locations that belong to the tool as accidental forms. By contrast, there is no plausible analogue for such an effect in the case of God's putative application of the secondary cause: If [the application] is an instance of real efficient causality, then it will be a real movement or change belonging to the secondary cause. What terminus, then, does it have? Not a spatial terminus or a terminus in any category other than quality, as seems per se evident. But neither can the terminus be a quality. For if this quality is bestowed as a power of acting ... the arguments made above [against the first position] will be brought to bear again. On the other hand, if the quality is not bestowed in order to effect anything, then it has nothing to do with acting, and there is no possible reason why it should be called a necessary condition. You will object that it is necessary for conjoining the secondary agent to the First Agent in the way that an 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 the conjoining in question is neither a real union nor a more intimate presence, but only some new effect, the role of and need for which in the secondary cause's action is what we are scrutinizing. (DM 22.2.23)

So unlike the craftsman's application of the tool, God's alleged application of the secondary cause has no obviously relevant effect within the secondary cause. Suarez's conclusion is that God's concurrence does not, after all, involve an 'application' of the secondary cause in any non-metaphorical sense. Again, whereas the tool's acting in the power of the craftsman is perhaps identifiable with the craftsman's application of it, a secondary cause's acting 'in the power of God' is nothing more than its acting 'through a power that participates in a higher power and ... with a dependence in [its] action on the actual influence of that power' (DM 22.2.51). But this is compatible with the claim that by his concurrence God acts with the secondary cause rather than, literally, on or through it.

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

23

The model of the craftsman and the tool is especially troublesome when applied to the free actions of rational creatures. According to Suarez, an agent is free just in case, with all the prerequisites for acting having been posited, that agent is (a) able to act - that is, to will - and also able not to act (freedom with respect to exercise); and (b) able to will an object and also able to will some contrary object (freedom with respect to specification).8 8 His charge in the present context is that because the pre-motions or predeterminations posited by his opponents are causally prior to the secondary cause's action and ordered toward 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 with respect to specification: The condition called a 'predetermination' is not only unnecessary for a free cause in light of its peculiar mode of acting, but is also for that very reason incompatible with it if it is going to act freely with respect to both exercise and specification. For the use of freedom would be impeded on both these counts by such a predetermination. This claim is explained, first, for the case of indifference with respect to the specification of the act: Since the First Cause alone is said to effect the predetermination 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 indifferent, in the way that matter is indifferent with respect to various forms. For, as we showed above, there is no freedom in a passive faculty as such. Therefore, it is not within the will's active and free power to receive this or that determination; therefore, 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 has been explained, if the sort of predetermination in question is necessary, then before it is received, the will does not have it within its active and free power to exercise the relevant act, since it is not yet a proximate principle - that is, a principle that is complete and accompanied by all the prerequisites for acting. It is not yet even a remote active power (as I will put it), since it does not have it within its power to do anything to acquire the condition or predetermination in question. Instead, it is merely in passive potency with respect to that condition - which is not sufficient for freedom. Again, once the condition called a 'predetermination' is posited in the will, it is impossible for the will not to exercise the act, and it cannot resist the determination or its motion; therefore, at no time does the will have both the power to exercise the act and also the power not to exercise the act; therefore, its indifference with respect to exercise, which consists in this power, is destroyed. (DM 22.2.37)

24 Alfred J. Freddoso As we shall see below, the rejection of predeterminations does not by itself guarantee freedom as Suarez defines it. But the affirmation of predeterminations does seem to destroy freedom so defined, since, according to Suarez's opponents, the predeterminations are themselves necessary prerequisites for a secondary cause's acting in any way at all. But if that is so, then Suarez's arguments seem to be right on the mark. First of all, the pre-motion or predetermination is always ordered toward the exercise of the relevant power, in this case the faculty 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 freedom with respect to exercise. Second, any predetermination is ordered toward a particular species of effect. And here it seems to follow that the agent cannot will any object other than the one toward which the predetermination is ordered - 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 be imputed to it that it does not receive a determination to will against that object? For this cannot be imputed to it because of some prior act, both because it is possible for there not to have been any prior act, and also because the prior act could not have been effected without some other predetermination, with regard to which the same problem arises again; nor, again, can it be imputed to the will because of the absence of some act, both because (a) the predetermination to that act is likewise not within the will's power and so neither can the absence of the act be imputed to it, since without exception the primary root of the will's not operating, even when all the other prerequisites have been posited, is that it does not receive the predetermination 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 of some required prior act; rather, [in some cases] the one act is omitted at the very same time the other is being chosen. (DM 22.2.36)

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

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

25

secondary cause. For to predetermine just this act in just these circumstances involves willing the act by an absolute volition. As Suarez puts it in a related context: The [formal] element follows from the [material], since the created will's free act with respect to this object in these circumstances cannot exist without having the badness that is concomitant with it. Therefore, if someone wills by an absolute volition that such an act be elicited by a created will with respect to this object in these circumstances - and especially if he wills this in such a way that he carries the 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 the act 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 the case of sinful actions only if one's full-blown account of God's concurrence with sinful acts absolves God of predetermining the sinful act with which he concurs or of willing it 'absolutely' in some other way. Otherwise, it will render God guilty of 'carrying the created will along with him into the exercise of the act.' 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 this account, free acts cannot be predetermined by any temporally antecedent causal activity but are compatible with God's contemporaneous predeterminations, which are coordinated by divine providence with the rational agent's own intentions and choices. Hence, it is not the case that an act is free only if all the prerequisites for action are compatible with its not being exercised or compatible with some other contrary act of will being exercised; rather, an act is free only if all the prerequisites for action other than God's contemporaneous predeterminations are compatible with its not being exercised or with some other contrary act of will being exercised.10 What's more, the Thomists contend, it is still the rational agent's own intentions and choices that serve as the root of moral defectiveness, despite God's predeterminations. Here, as earlier in Disputation 19, Suarez tries to show that the Thomistic replies to his arguments are unsatisfactory. However, I will not pursue the dispute over predeterminations and the nature of free agency any further here, except to note that it cannot be understood in isolation from the whole nest of interrelated issues involving providence, predestination, foreknowledge, and grace that set Dominican and Jesuit thinkers at odds with one another in the last half of the sixteenth century.'' In any case, Suarez has his own distinctive way of dealing with free actions in general and sinful actions in particular, and to this I now turn.

26 Alfred J. Freddoso 4. God's Concurrence and Free Action According to Suarez Broadly speaking, Suarez's account of God's general concurrence runs parallel to the account published by Luis de Molina a few years before the appearance of the Disputationes Metaphysicae.12 However, with respect to free acts of will Suarez's account represents a genuine advance in precision and detail. Suarez begins section 4 of Disputation 22 by explaining how God concurs with secondary agents that act naturally, or by a necessity of nature, rather than freely.13 These natural agents are necessarily such that they act in a given set of circumstances to produce a given effect when and only when all the prerequisites for their acting are satisfied in those circumstances. These prerequisites include both (a) 'internal' conditions such as the potential agent's possession of 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 to the agent, the absence of impediments, and, as we have seen, God's concurrence in first act - that is, God's offer of, or readiness to grant, his concurrence for the action.14 Given that God always accommodates his concurrence to the nature and requirements of created causes, the manner in which he concurs with naturally acting causes is straightforward. In each case, he simply gives the relevant secondary agent the sort of concurrence that it requires in order to produce the type of effect to which its nature is determined in the relevant circumstances. And although God does this freely, he also does it, says Suarez, 'in the manner of a nature' - that is, he does it as a matter of course (DM 22.4.3). For having willed to create and conserve naturally acting causes as part of his providential plan, God freely adopted from eternity a general policy of granting them the concurrence which is 'owed' to them by a 'debt of connaturality' - that is, a concurrence that satisfies the requirements of the natures with which God has endowed them (DM 22.4.3). To be sure, this general policy admits of exceptions, as when God works miracles by simply withholding his concurrence (as well as the offer of concurrence) from secondary agents. (This is the way in which the scholastics generally interpret the miracle of the fiery furnace in Daniel 3, to cite just one example.) But in addition to the general policy, God's providential plan includes his willing 'efficaciously,' in each particular case of natural secondary causality, to concur with this particular natural agent in these particular circumstances for this particular action in order to produce this particular effect: Just as God decided from eternity to produce these particular [naturally acting] entities and not others, and to produce them at this particular time and in this particular

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

27

order and with these particular motions, etc., and not in any other way, so too he also decided to concur with these same entities in their actions according to their capacity. 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 each individual thing according to its capacity and need; therefore, in giving his concurrence, he decided from eternity to concur with this cause, in this place, and with respect to this subject for this individual action and effect in particular, and to concur at 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 'deterministic natural tendencies,' their actions occur by a necessity of nature.15 For this reason, God wills 'in an absolute and determinate way' to concur with both the exercise of their power and the species of action to which that power is uniquely determined in the relevant circumstances (DM 22.4.5). That is, each action of a natural agent is such that God (a) wills it unconditionally and (b) offers for it only a concurrence that corresponds to the agent's deterministic natural tendency in the circumstances. Thus, it is a necessary truth that God offers his concurrence to a natural agent for a particular action and effect if and only if the agent 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 second act as well. Suarez argues, however, that if God offered his concurrence in this very same way to agents capable of free action, their freedom would be destroyed with respect to both exercise and specification, even in the absence of the sort of premotions or predeterminations posited by his opponents. For if God offered his concurrence to a free agent for just a single act of will in a given set of circumstances, and if he willed 'in an absolute and determinate way' the one act for which that concurrence were offered in those circumstances, then the agent in question would, first of all, have to elicit an act of will, and so would not be free with respect to exercise: In order for two free causes to concur per se and in a fixed order with respect to a single action, the antecedent intention or volition of just one of them is not sufficient unless it has enough power over the other cause to carry it along wherever it pleases. Therefore, if, in the case of the concurrence under discussion, the only thing that precedes it is the divine act of will by which God efficaciously wills to concur with the secondary cause for a given effect, then in order for that effect to follow per se, this act of God's will must have enough power over the free secondary cause to carry it along with it into action. And so the free cause's indifference in the exercise of the action is destroyed. (DM 22.4.10)16

28 Alfred J. Freddoso 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 was offering his concurrence, and so would not be free with respect to specification. Suarez notes that there have been two principal ways of dealing with this problem within the Catholic intellectual tradition. Some authors, accepting a single account of divine concurrence for both natural and free causes, have claimed that the freedom of rational agents is preserved by the mere fact that God gives his concurrence freely. Suarez rejects this reply outright, contending that the cooperative action in which God concurs can be free with respect to God and yet not free with respect to the relevant created cause. As we saw above, this is exactly how things stand with regard to the actions of natural agents; God freely concurs with such actions, and yet they occur by a necessity of nature. So this way of responding to the problem fails to preserve creaturely freedom. A second ploy is simply to claim that in giving his concurrence God wills not only the action but the mode or modality of the action, so that in the case of free agents he wills that their acts be elicited freely. Suarez agrees with this sentiment, but argues that it is not sufficient by itself. The metaphysician must give a coherent account of just how it is possible for God to concur causally with an act that is elicited freely, that is, an account of just how it is possible for a rational 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 certain that when God wills something to happen in a certain determinate mode, it pertains to his wisdom and efficacy to apply causes that are suited to that mode of acting. For he would be at odds with himself if he willed something to happen in a given mode and then in some other way impeded or removed the causes for that mode 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 he able 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 and agreeableness of divine providence. Rather, one must either explain how it is that there is no contradiction between them - which the present reply does not do - or else look for some other mode in which God can move the creature 'efficaciously and 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 own ingenious alternative. Stated simply it is this: When God offers his concurrence for a particular free act of will A, he, first of all, makes this offer conditionally on the free agent's cooperation, so that even with the offer of concurrence in

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

29

place, the agent is still able not to elicit A; and, second, he simultaneously offers his concurrence with respect to at least one other particular act A* that is contrary to A, so that even with the offer of concurrence for A in place, the agent is still able to elicit A* instead. The first point preserves freedom with respect to exercise, while the second preserves freedom with respect to specification. I will now elaborate on each in turn. When God offers his concurrence for a particular free act of will that lies within the power of a rational agent, he does not will that act in the 'absolute and determinate way' in which he wills the actions of secondary causes that act by a necessity of nature. Rather, as far as his own causal contribution is concerned, he wills a free act only conditionally: God does not, through the act of will by which he decides to give his concurrence to a free cause, decide altogether absolutely that the free cause will exercise the act in question; nor does he will absolutely that the act exist. Instead, with a sort of implicit condition he wills the existence of the act to the extent that the act proceeds 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 the condition that the secondary cause - that is, the created will - should likewise determine itself to that action and issue forth into it. For by its freedom the will is always 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 does with acts that occur by a necessity of nature - automatically result in the cooperative action; in technical terms, the concurrence can exist in first act even if it never exists in second act, that is, even if the act of will for which it is offered is never exercised. Still, because God's readiness to give his concurrence completes the prerequisites for a free act of will, the agent is in the strict sense proximately 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, since the agent is able to refrain from eliciting the act even though all the prerequisites for action - including the concurrence in first act - have been satisfied. This, he contends, is the way in which God's concurrence is accommodated to rational 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 acts can preserve the truth that even though God is a cooperating cause in acts that are sinful, he is not a cause or source of the defectiveness of such acts. Like any other effect of a secondary cause, a sinful act cannot occur without God's general concurrence. Indeed, in order for God to have creatures who can freely love him in this life, he must offer his cooperation with respect to acts that are sinful;

30

Alfred J. Freddoso

otherwise, created rational agents would never be proximately able to turn away from him. Nevertheless, God's offer of concurrence for such acts does not imply that he intends them or approves of them or in any way induces free creatures to elicit them. In technical terms, the fact that he offers his concurrence for a sinful act does not itself entail that if the act is in fact elicited, God wills it by his 'providence of approval' (providentia approbationis)', rather, in offering his concurrence he wills such an act only conditionally and, if it is elicited, it falls only under his 'providence of permission' (providentia concessionis). So God's permission of a sinful act consists precisely in (a) his willing it only conditionally, (b) his offering his general concurrence with respect to it in the manner just explained, 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 of concurrence, because it is important to keep in mind that God's general concurrence is not his only contribution to free acts (see DM 22.4.30). Out of love, he almost always prompts us antecedently toward good acts by various means, both natural 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 precisely the fact that this sort of special divine assistance - over and beyond general concurrence - is offered prior to every good act of will that preserves the thesis, so dear to his opponents, that God is the originating source of all moral goodness and 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 concurrence is such that the secondary agent is proximately able to refrain from eliciting it. And Suarez is able to give a coherent metaphysical account of how this is possible. Let us turn briefly to freedom with respect to specification. When God offers his concurrence to a free agent, he offers it for two or more distinct acts that are contrary to one another: God offers concurrence to each secondary cause in a mode accommodated to its nature; but the nature of a free cause is such that, after all the other conditions required for acting have been posited, it is indifferent with respect to more than one act; therefore, it must also receive the concurrence in first act in an indifferent mode; therefore, it must be the case that, from the side of God, the concurrence is offered to a free cause not just with respect to one act but with respect to more than one act ... If this were not so, then the created will would never be proximately capable of effecting more than one act; therefore, it would never be free with respect 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

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts

31

elicit any of the acts of will for which God offers his concurrence in a given set of circumstances. The further point that Suarez makes here is that in any such set of circumstances, God offers a free agent numerically and specifically distinct concurrences for numerically and specifically distinct acts of will, so that the agent is proximately able to will any one of those acts. This preserves freedom with respect to specification. Once again, then, the way in which God offers his concurrence to a free agent is accommodated to the secondary cause's mode of acting. And what was said about sinful acts in the discussion of freedom with respect to exercise applies, mutatis mutandis, to freedom with respect to specification. In particular, given that one or more of the acts for which God offers his concurrence on a given occasion 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 a source of its moral defectiveness. This, then, is the way in which Suarez understands Saint Thomas's claim that while an act that is sinful is from God, God is not a cause of sin.17 To revert to the manner of speaking introduced above, the fact that a sinful act is something rather than nothing is traced back primarily to God as a universal cause, but the fact that it is morally defective rather than morally upright is traced back entirely to its secondary agent as a particular cause. And, according to Suarez, it is only his own full-blown account of God's concurrence with sinful acts that succeeds 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 with free acts preserves the claim that in such acts the rational agent's causality is subordinate to God's causality. Suarez, of course, claims that it does. But recall that his own explanation of subordination limits it to God's acting 'in a more noble and more independent way ... under a more universal concept.' Is this strong enough? Isn't it rather the case that on Suarez's view God's concurrence is subordinated to the rational agent's influence, since it is ultimately up to the rational agent (a) whether or not God actually concurs with an act and (b) just which act he 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 is accepted. Suarez's opponents will point out that this is precisely one of the results that their pre-motions or predeterminations were designed to prevent. But Suarez does not lack the resources for an interesting reply. First of all, he will insist that the dignity of rational agents lies, at least in part, in their ability to be self-determiners - though always, of course, with God's concurrence. So it

32 Alfred J. Freddoso is hardly an embarrassment to have propounded an account of God's concurrence with free action that captures the distinctiveness of rational agents. Indeed, from Suarez's perspective it is a weakness in the position of his opponents that their full-blown account of God's general concurrence treats both natural agents and free agents in exactly the same way. Second, as we have seen, Suarez joins with his opponents in accepting the Catholic doctrine that God exercises particular providence over the world, so that every particular action - including every free act - effected in the created world is either (a) explicitly and knowingly intended by God from eternity or (b) explicitly and knowingly permitted by God from eternity. In answering objections to his account of God's concurrence with free acts, Suarez acknowledges that in order for this account to cohere with the orthodox understanding of God's particular providence, it must be the case that from eternity, and naturally 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 they were offered divine concurrence for their free acts. Such knowledge is necessary because God's conditional offer of concurrence for free acts does not by itself settle the question of just which free acts will be elicited. And so because he does not know exactly how free creatures will act just on the basis of his own intention to offer his concurrence for their actions, God needs middle knowledge in order for his providential plan to be complete - that is, in order for him to be able to intend or permit particular free acts antecedently.18 Given this picture, the points most relevant in the present context are (a) that God's offer of concurrence is independent of the rational agent's causal contribution to any particular free act, (b) that it is ultimately up to God whether to allow particular rational creatures to be in the circumstances in which, as God foresees, they will elicit particular free acts of will, and (c) that God antecedently provides for the very acts which will in fact be elicited. So even though Suarez's account of the subordination of the causality of free agents to God's causality is weaker than that of its opponents, his complete account of God's general concurrence is nonetheless strong enough to allow for God's complete sovereignty over the free acts, including the free sinful acts, of his creatures. Notice, too, that the doctrine of God's middle knowledge solves the problem of how God's causal contribution to a free act can, without constituting a predetermination or pre-motion, be temporally simultaneous with the rational agent's contribution - as indeed it must be if the act in question is from both God and the secondary cause. We should not imagine that on Suarez's account the free agent begins to act temporally prior to God's causal contribution and that this initiation of the act is, as it were, a sign to God of how he himself should act. Rather, God

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts 33 always knows exactly which act the rational agent will elicit in the relevant circumstances, and so he himself is able to act simultaneously with that agent. One final point. Suarez denies that God's having middle knowledge renders otiose his offer of concurrence for free acts that are never in fact elicited. For, he argues, unless the concurrence is actually offered for such acts in the way stipulated above, no act that is in fact elicited will be free - and this because it will not satisfy the causal prerequisites for freedom.19 Notes 1 I develop this theme at more length in 'God's General Concurrence with Secondary Causes: 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 concurrence is the fact that the form produced is this singular form rather than some other exactly similar form. So while the kind or species of the effect is traced back to the secondary 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 first act,' as opposed to 'the concurrence in second act,' which is the actual concurrence and identical with the cooperative action between God and the secondary cause. This distinction 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 have examined them at some length in 'God's General Concurrence with Secondary Causes: Why Conservation Is Not Enough,' Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 553-85, and in Part 7 of 'Suarez on Metaphysical Inquiry, Efficient Causality, and Divine 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 interpretations of them, in part because they are obscure and in part because, as he sees it, they undermine the relative autonomy of secondary agents - an issue that becomes especially 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.

34 Alfred J. Freddoso 10 See DM 19.4.2-7. There Suarez attributes to his opponents the claim that a free faculty is one that remains 'indifferent,' given that all the things required on its own part - or just on the part of the rational intellect and will - have been posited, but not all the things required on God's part. 11 For an overview of the debate between the Jesuits and Dominicans, see the introduction to Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge (Part iv of the 'Concordia'), translated, with an introduction and notes, by Alfred J. Freddoso (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). Also, the interested reader should look at DM 19.2 and DM 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 can act indeterministically, and so he does not distinguish natural agents from agents that act by a necessity of nature. However, the focus of this part of section 4 is on actions that occur by a necessity of nature. If some natural agents are able to act indeterministically, Suarez would have to deal with them in a way analogous to the way in which 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 that God concurs freely in actions that occur by a necessity of nature. Suarez expresses this by saying that the actions are free for God but necessary for the relevant secondary agents. So the whole framework of natural modality presupposes God's free actions of creating, conserving, and concurring with secondary agents. 16 It is a bit unclear here just how God's efficacious will would 'carry [the secondary agent] 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 in effect 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 Metaphysical Inquiry, Efficient Causality, and Divine Action.' I thank Sarah Beyers and Robert Sleigh for their helpful comments and questions at the conference on which this volume is based.

3

Descartes's Theodicy of Error MICHAEL J. LATZER

I have called my paper 'Descartes's Theodicy of Error' in deference to Descartes's claim in the synopsis to the Meditations that the Fourth Meditation has to do only with error, not with sin. In fact, it may seem strange to consider the Fourth Meditation as a theodicy at all. Considering the 'order of reasons' of the Meditations, the point of Meditation Four could well be seen as narrowly epistemological. Having proven the existence of his almighty, supremely good Creator, Descartes now needs to use this concept to undergird his criterion of truth; the fact of human error creates an immediate problem for the concept of the non-deceiving God. In contrast to cognitive mistakes, or misapprehensions of the true and the false, which define the overt problem of the Fourth Meditation, Descartes defines sin as error in the pursuit of good and evil. And the study of moral failings is properly theological. In his effusive dedication to the theology faculty of the Sorbonne, which prefaces the Meditations, Descartes draws a line between philosophy and theology by restricting the attention of the philosopher to the questions of the existence of God and of the soul. He calls them the chief of those questions 'that ought to be demonstrated by the aid of philosophy rather than of theology.' The questions of sin and the soul's salvation belong to a completely different order of inquiry, one in which the philosopher must defer to the theologian. There is surely some validity in Descartes's distinction between philosophy and theology, between the analysis of cognitive mistakes and of sins. Any analysis of sin must include the questions of divine grace granted or withheld, of the effects of concupiscence and original sin, and finally of the larger and vexing questions of divine foreknowledge and predestination. These are all theological

36 Michael J. Latzer problems, and tremendously volatile ones at that. It is understandable that Descartes should not want to wade into such a whirlpool. It should be recalled that Cornelius Jansen's Augustinus was published in 1640, one year before the Meditations, and within a short time the rancorous battles between Jansenists and Jesuits were in high gear. In a 1642 letter to Mersenne, Descartes indignantly protests against accusations that he is a follower of Pelagius, whose opinions he claims never even to have heard of. Descartes claims it is possible to know by natural reason that God exists, but he never said that this natural knowledge, by itself, is enough to merit supernatural glory. In fact, it is evident, he says, that since the future glory is supernatural, more than natural powers are needed to merit it.1 In this letter, he seems to make the same rather uncomplicated distinction between the proper domains of theology and philosophy. However, the distinction proves to be one that Descartes himself cannot maintain, and despite what he had specifically said in the Synopsis about leaving sin out of the discussion, we find him in the Fourth Meditation actually describing the causes of sin as well as of falsehood.2 The distinction breaks down in other ways, too, when we recognize that divine grace is just as surely needed for cognitive clarity and the attainment of truth as it is for moral integrity and salvation. And since Descartes believes the human mind, properly used, is infallible, to make judgments in the absence of certain knowledge is, as he says 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 project of theodicy, and as offering a solution to the problem of evil as complete, in its own succinct way, as Leibniz's is on a grander scale. (In fact, the theodicy of the Fourth Meditation anticipates many of the most important themes of Leibniz's theodicy.) How, once again, does the problem of evil arise for Descartes, or more particularly, how does it arise according to the order of reasons of the Meditations'! A saying of Saint Teresa of Avila is that the soul ought always to consider that only it and God are in the world. Descartes has placed himself in just that situation by the end of the Third Meditation, and, strikingly, no sooner has he done so 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 necessary 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 compatible with the existence of the veracious God, and how God is not responsible for 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 being and 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 Descartes up the ladder of argument to the recognition of an unlimited and independent being on whom he depends for his existence. However, his finitude is recognized as the precondition for moral and cognitive lapses. The second thrust is to emphasize the role of the created will. According to Descartes, the will is a faculty so great that it is the principal way in which we bear an image and likeness of God. But the will is free: as Descartes writes in the Fourth Meditation, 'when something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun, we are moved by it in such a way that we sense that no external force could have imposed it on us.'5 Errors and sins are therefore matters of the sinner's personal responsibility, of his failure to restrain the will within proper bounds, namely the bounds of what is clearly and distinctly perceived. The final theme of Descartes's theodicy connects with the first. It is to consider the sinner within the context of the wider world. From that perspective it emerges that, to quote Descartes again, 'it might be, so to speak, a greater perfection in the universe as a whole that some of its parts are not immune to error, while others are, than if they were all alike.'6 In other words, the greater perfection of the universe as a whole might be served by the existence of erring and sinning individuals, in the sense that variety and plenitude of being are greater than stale uniformity 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 world than one containing sinners alone or saints alone. There is an interesting tension in the Fourth Meditation theodicy between the latter two themes (which themes might for convenience be dubbed the free-will defence, and the principle of plenitude). Brian Calvert has argued that the tension, or the 'internal difficulty,' is serious enough to render Descartes's theodicy ineffective. The problem is that, at the cosmological level, Descartes suggests it is fitting for God to have made humans prone to error, since it is fitting there be every sort of creature in the universe. But, at the personal level, Descartes is determined to map out a way to avoid ever falling into error, and he suggests that always restraining the will to assent only to what is clearly and distinctly perceived can serve as a foolproof means of error-avoidance. Thus, in Calvert's words, 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 be universally heeded, this would entail the possibility of there being a world in which no actual mistakes were ever made.'7 The question arises: what if all rational beings succeeded in avoiding error?

38 Michael J. Latzer Would this not, paradoxically, be a frustration of God's plan, and a tarnish on the perfection of the universe? And since it is inconceivable that God's works could be frustrated, does this not show that God must infallibly destine some creatures 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 made explicit if we restate Descartes's theodicy as: 'This is the way all men can and ought 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 his theodicy is not an original creation. In fact, Gilson states that there is absolutely nothing original in the Fourth Meditation, calling it a 'tissue of borrowings from the theology of St. Thomas and of the Oratory,'9 of which only the ordering of the parts can make any claim to originality. So the problems of Descartes's theodicy are problems endemic to traditional Christian theodicy, allied with, and intractable as, the problem of reconciling human freedom with divine foreknowledge and predestination. Nonetheless, there is interest in examining what Descartes has to say in answer to this problem, in part because this exercise helps display the resources of Christian philosophy in wrestling with the problem of evil, and in part because Descartes's own argumentative twists and turns illustrate both the tensions in the air in the 1640s, and some of the implications of Descartes's fundamental theological positions. In particular, Descartes's extreme understanding of divine omnipotence adds an unusual element to his otherwise orthodox solution. I will argue three points in defence of Descartes's theodicy. First, let us consider the unlikely eventuality of all human beings attaining infallibility. Would this indeed spoil the world, by reducing its variety and plenitude? I see no reason for thinking so, and, in fact, a careful look at Descartes's language shows that he does not think actual errors are necessary to bring about a world worthy of its divine architect. Rather, the condition of fallibility, of the capacity for error, is what makes for plenitude of being. Descartes is thus not guilty of any inconsistency in intending to bring about the eradication of error. Second, I believe that Brian Calvert's objection suffers from the fallacy of fatalism. That is, the objection mistakenly assumes that the necessity that there be sin entails the necessity of some actual sinner's sin. Descartes argues convincingly that there is no such entailment. And third, I will argue that even if the critic insists that actual error is necessary in a metaphysically perfect world, even that my own particular errors and sins are necessary, Descartes's handling of the problem of human freedom and divine foreknowledge allows him to defend a robust sense of human freedom in a world completely dictated by divine decree. To begin with, does invocation of the principle of plenitude somehow commit Descartes to the claim that a perfect world must include moral evil? L.J. Beck in

Descartes's Theodicy of Error

39

The Metaphysics of Descartes judges that it does, and that the principle is ineffective in providing a theodicy for moral evil. He writes: One might have expected him to have admitted that a whole is more perfect, the greater and richer the diversities which its systematic unity combines. But it is not clear at all how a whole such as the universe is more perfect because its parts are not merely diverse, but some are perfect and others imperfect.10

In other words, defects like error and sin cannot be justified on the principle that a perfect world needs variety, since mere diversity in and among the strata of being 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 the Meditation that God could have brought it about that, while remaining free and having finite knowledge, he might nonetheless never err. And he cites two ways this might have been brought about: if God had given his intellect a clear and distinct perception of everything about which he would ever deliberate; or if God had permanently stamped on his memory the resolution never to make judgments about anything not clearly and distinctly perceived. Now God did neither. Descartes lacks a clear and distinct perception of everything about which he would ever deliberate, and he forgets never to make judgments about anything not clearly and distinctly understood. These are two expressions of his finitude. But the limitations appropriate to the human place in the great chain of being are not themselves evil. They are the preconditions for our mistakes and sins. In claiming that the principle of plenitude is ineffective for Descartes's theodicy, Beck is misconstruing the explanatory role the principle is invoked to serve. Descartes is not committed to the claim that there must obtain actual error and 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 is that he says only that it is a greater perfection in the universe that some of its parts are capable of error; the Latin is, 'ab erroribus immunes non sit,' that they are not immune from error. He does not say that plenitude demands actual sin or error.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 being miserable completes the perfection of the universe, it will lose something of its perfection if we should become eternally happy.' In answer Augustine says: '... neither the sins nor the misery are necessary to the perfection of the universe; but souls as such are necessary which have the power to sin if they so will, 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

40 Michael J. Latzer be read as saying much the same, and hence there is no justification for thinking that actual infallibility would somehow spoil the perfection of the universe. However, this answer does not totally silence the critic. For it might be argued that the possession of freedom entails the inevitable commission of actual errors. For example, in question 48, article 2 of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae, Saint Thomas says that 'the completeness of the universe requires 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 in consequence on occasion do.' Also, in the reply to the third objection in the same article, he says: 'That whole composed of the universe of creatures is the better and more complete for including those things which can and do on occasion fall from goodness without God preventing it.'13 Now it may be that Saint Thomas is thinking here not of moral evil, but only of the decay of corruptible beings. Perhaps he is merely contrasting the celestial intelligences with terrestrial mortals. And he may not mean that what can fall inevitably does, but instead may be making merely an empirical generalization.14 And as an empirical fact, an actual aspiration to infallibility seems absurdly unrealistic. Can Descartes be serious about this, after all? In the correspondence with Elizabeth, he makes some revealing comments that suggest he himself is doubtful about this possibility. First he notes the difficulty of finding truth: 'Our nature is so constituted that our mind needs much relaxation if it is to be able to spend usefully a few moments in the search for truth.' (I'm always telling my wife this: I need much relaxation if I am to search for truth!) Then he advises: There is nothing to repent of when we have done what we judged best at the time when we had to decide to act, even though later, thinking it over at our leisure, we judge that we made a mistake ... It does not belong to human nature to be omniscient, or always to judge as well on the spur of the moment as when there is plenty of time to deliberate.'15 In this light, the promise of infallibility through the prescription for erroravoidance 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 does not require actual sin and error. Nonetheless, experience shows that sin and error seem very much to be 'permanent and ineradicable features of the universe.' I might pessimistically (or gleefully!) think on this basis that I am foredoomed to error and sin. Since it seems that God wills there to be a world containing erring individuals, there is no point in my trying to avoid error, since I may be one of those reprobate souls whose errors contribute to the general good. The practical consequences of such a line of thought can be imagined. A chilling illustration of the dangers of fatalism is to be found in the experience of Christian Wolff, greatest of the dogmatic metaphysicians, who in 1723 was dis-

Descartes's Theodicy of Error

41

missed from his post at the University of Halle by Emperor Frederick William I, because His Majesty had been convinced that Wolff's philosophical views implied that deserters from the army should not be punished because they could not help deserting.16 There is, however, something distinctly fallacious about this reasoning. The fallacy involved is a venerable one. A version of the fallacy of fatalism, it is as follows: Necessarily p or q. Notq. Therefore, necessarily p. If Cain and Abel are the only two free creatures in the world, and it is hypothetically necessary that there be sin, given the plan God has freely adopted, and Abel does not sin, does this mean that Cain sins necessarily! He does not. It was necessary (again, in this hypothetical sense) that one or the other of them sin. To use Julian of Norwich's famous phrase, 'sin was behovely' - it behoved that there should be sin. But it was not necessary in the same sense that any given individual be that sinner. The free choice of the agent determines that. Leibniz discusses this fallacy under the titles fatum mohametum and the 'lazy sophism.' Suppose it is true, and even assured from all eternity, that a given man will sin. Leibniz writes: 'Could this soul, a little before sinning, complain about God in good faith, as if God determined it to sin? Since God's determinations in these matters cannot be foreseen, how does the soul know that it is determined to sin, unless it be actually sinning already ... But perhaps it is certain from all eternity that I shall sin? Answer this question for yourself: perhaps not; and without considering what you do not and cannot know ... act according to your duty, which you do know.' 17 I believe that Descartes's theodicy can be defended on just this basis. An interesting parable on freedom found in Descartes's correspondence with Elizabeth provides a good model for what Descartes is doing in prescribing his formula for error-avoidance. In this parable, a king has forbidden duelling but has arranged for two noblemen, whom he knows will duel if they meet, to meet by chance in a given town. Although the king has arranged the rendezvous, which will lead inevitably to the forbidden duel, Descartes reasons that the king in this fable does not in any sense constrain the noblemen, nor does he impair the freedom and voluntariness of their duel, nor are they any less culpable for disobeying the prohibition. 18 Similarly, in defence of Descartes's theodicy, we may posit that Descartes has hit on the correct formula for error-avoidance, and proclaims it as such, and the fact that he knows that it will not universally or

42 Michael J. Latzer consistently be heeded does not affect its validity. Infallibility is at least theoretically possible, given the epistemology of the Meditations, and the only coherent way to recommend the infallibility formula is to recommend it universally. Calvert is right that it would be senseless to say, 'Heed it, those of you who are foreordained to heed it; the rest may ignore it.' Even if some rational creatures will inevitably fall into error, they remain free in doing so, and the prescription 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 genuine sense 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 ourselves capable of ever doing anything which he had not ordained beforehand.'19 His correspondence is full of edifying counsels on resignation to the decrees of providence. In a letter to Elizabeth of September 1645, he lists as the first of the truths '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 to calmly accept all the things that happen to us as expressly sent by God ... we even rejoice 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 to the ill-will of men. In reply, Descartes argues in the strongest terms that God is not 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 mind without God's willing, and having willed from all eternity, that it should so enter.'21 Unaided philosophy is able to discover this fact, he says, 'for the only way to prove that he exists is to consider him as a supremely perfect being; and he would not be supremely perfect if anything could happen in the world without coming entirely from him.' We are faced with the problem of what possible meaning freedom could have in a world thus predetermined by God in every last particular. The Fourth Meditation had breezily assumed that my acts of will, including acts of judgment, are within my own power, and that I am responsible for these acts. But is my putative freedom to avoid error and to choose the good and the true a genuinely unconstrained power, given that, in the very strident language of Descartes's letter to the princess, 'the slightest thought could not enter into a person's mind without God's willing, and having willed from all eternity, that it should so enter' ? Would the parable of the king and the duelling noblemen not have to be

Descartes's Theodicy of Error

43

read very differently if the king not only knew infallibly that the noblemen would duel, but had himself planted the inclination to duel in their minds? Perhaps Pierre Bayle, in his gloss on Descartes's parable, is right in saying, 'There would not be in this monarch any degree of will, either small or great, that these two noblemen should obey the law, and not fight. He would will entirely and solely that they should fight.' 22 Descartes adds to the problem in the Fourth Meditation itself by defining freedom as incompatible only with extrinsic determination. Freedom is compatible, on the other hand, with inward determination, whether it be by our own perceptions, or by the secret prompting of God. He writes: '... willing is only a matter of being able to do or not do something (that is, of being able to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun), or better still, the will consists solely in the fact that when something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun, we are moved by it in such a way that we sense that no external force could have imposed it on us.'23 Anthony Kenny notes that this definition offers a confusing mixture of two conflicting conceptions of liberty: liberty of spontaneity (we are free to do something if and only if we do it because we want to do it), and liberty of indifference (we are free to do something if it is in our power not to do it).24 What is Descartes's true opinion? Commentators in the seventeenth century, among them Leibniz and Spinoza, believed the second conception just cited to be the genuine Cartesian position. That is, they read Descartes as affirming a 'strongly indeterministic or "hard" libertarian conception of the freedom of the will' (I borrow this phrasing from John Cottingham).25 Human freedom, on this reading, is an absolute, contra-causal power, and so in the judgment of both Leibniz and Spinoza, an absurd fiction. Contemporary scholars, on the other hand, have tended to emphasize the second part of the definition, and to put weight on those passages in which Descartes describes indifference as the lowest form of freedom. For example, immediately following the definition of freedom in the Fourth Meditation, Descartes writes that 'the more I am inclined towards the one direction, whether because I clearly know that in it there is the reason of truth and goodness, or because God thus internally disposes my thought, the more freely do I choose and embrace it.'26 A little further on, he writes: 'I could not help judging that what I understood clearly is true; not that I was coerced into holding this judgment because of some external force, but because a great inclination of the will followed from a great light in the intellect.'27 Even more startlingly, Descartes even suggests, anticipating J.L. Mackie, that God could have so made me as to be free, yet guaranteed never to err - strongly implying that freedom is perfectly compatible with divine determinism.

44

Michael J. Latzer

Now, if this were the last word, the problems of theodicy would be much simplified for Descartes. The bottom line would be to focus, as Leibniz does, on the overall fitness of God's plan for the world, with the understanding that God providentially directs the wills of rational agents to fulfil their parts in the cosmic plan. Strictly speaking there would be no problem of reconciling human freedom with divine preordination, since human freedom would be understood as perfectly compatible with predetermination. In fact, the more determined the will, the more free it is. But interestingly, Descartes does insist that there is a problem in reconciling human freedom with divine preordination. It is a problem so acute, he writes, a mystery 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 of all things, and the impossibility of reconciling these two seemingly incompatible 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 the free actions of men indeterminate ... It would be absurd to doubt of that of which we are fully conscious, and experience as existing in ourselves [i.e., the power of free choice], because we do not comprehend another matter which, from its very nature, we know to be incomprehensible.28

If Descartes were an uncomplicated compatibilist, there would be no need for him to acknowledge any mystery here. He could simply say that we are free when not constrained by any external force, although God is at every moment inwardly inclining our wills toward his own ends. What he affirms, rather, is that we have good reason both to think that God is the full, supreme, and immediate cause of all states of being and action, and that human beings are able to initiate their own acts of will in a radically indeterminate way. Hence, the appeal to mystery: we cannot intellectually reconcile what seems to our finite perception to be a flat-out contradiction. The conception of the freedom-preordination problem sketched in the Principles is supported in several letters of the same period written to Descartes's friend and supporter, the Jesuit scholastic Mesland. The following quotation seems to offer a most robust defence of liberty of indifference, or of freedom conceived as a contra-causal power of self-determination: Perhaps others mean by 'indifference' a positive faculty of determining oneself to one or other of two contraries, that is to say, to pursue or avoid, to affirm or deny. I

Descartes's Theodicy of Error

45

do not deny that the will has this positive faculty. Indeed, I think it has it not only with respect to those actions to which it is not pushed by any evident reasons on one side rather than on the other, but also with respect to all other actions; so that when a very evident reason moves us in one direction, although morally speaking we can hardly move in the contrary direction, absolutely speaking we can. For it is always open to us to hold back from pursuing a clearly known good, or from admitting a clearly perceived truth, provided we consider it a good thing to demonstrate the freedom of our will by so doing.29 This model of freedom is not obviously consistent with the doctrine of the Fourth Meditation. The Meditations offers a critique of liberty of indifference; the Principles, and the letters to Mesland, defend it. What has happened to bring about this change? According to Gilson, the support for liberty of indifference found in Descartes's later writings is a product, purely and simply, of his desire for acceptance by the Society of Jesus. As Gilson tells the tale, Descartes abandoned the Jesuit doctrine of Middle Knowledge he had learned as a schoolboy at La Fleche upon his reading of Gibieuf's De Libertate Dei et Hominis in 1630. Gibieuf presents a strongly Thomist and Augustinian attack on liberty of indifference. However, by the early 1640s, to attack indifference was to attack the Jesuits, the champions of Molina and Middle Knowledge, and to support the Jansenist faction in the battles de auxiliis gratiae. Descartes was thus careful to present himself as indifferentist for Jesuit eyes, ever hopeful that his Principles would be adopted as the curriculum for Jesuit schools.30 Obviously, the story Gilson tells is quite unflattering to Descartes. Singlemindedly determined to win acceptance for his physics, and to overthrow Aristotle, Gilson's Descartes will cynically alter or abandon any aspect of his system not integral to the success of his physics, as occasion dictates. He emerges as a most slippery philosopher - a Thomist in the Fourth Meditation and in the conversation with Burmann, a Molinist in writing to Mesland or Elizabeth. We simply cannot look for any consistent doctrine of freedom in this man. While I have no particular bone to pick with Gilson's persuasive and detailed historical argument, I do want to suggest that a case can be made in support of the integrity and overall consistency of Descartes's doctrine of freedom. It is interesting, in particular, to connect Descartes's later support of liberty of indifference, such as is found in the Principles, with one of his earliest distinctive doctrines: that of God's absolute omnipotence.31 We recall that in Descartes's estimation, the power of God is so immense that even the truths of logic and mathematics are subject to it. In the famous letter of April 1630 to Mersenne, he writes that 'the mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on him entirely no less than the rest of his creatures ...

46

Michael J. Latzer

Please do not hesitate to assert and proclaim everywhere that it is God who has laid 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 about that not all the radii of a circle are equal, why would he hesitate to ascribe to human beings a liberty so radical that it seems to contradict the truth of God's foreordination of all things? It would after all be an easy matter for God to endow us with a will at once independent and contra-causal, yet dependent and totally determined. Like Walt Whitman, Descartes's God is large, and he contains contradictions. And harmonizing this conception of the will with the 'compatibilist' and anti-indifferentist model is perhaps not so difficult. With Augustine and Thomas, Descartes can agree that the will has a natural orientation toward the true and the good. With Gibieuf, he can agree that the will is free when it is enslaved by its maker; that it is unfree when enslaved by the Evil One; and that to be rendered by grace incapable of sinning is the acme of freedom. Yet to make sense of the inward experience of our freedom (to say nothing of morality, reward, and punishment), he can insist on a mysterious and unfathomable core of radical self-determination. Of course, this is a resolution of the problem which we can state, but which we cannot understand. In essence, it is taking refuge in the sanctuary of ignorance. But is that always a disreputable defence? To quote from the Fourth Meditation: I must not be surprised if I am not always capable of comprehending the reasons why God acts as he does ... for knowing already that my nature is extremely weak and limited, and that the nature of God, on the other hand, is immense, incomprehensible, and infinite, I have no longer any difficulty in discerning that there is an infinity 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 'so essentially Cartesian')34 of leaving mystery where it properly belongs. Where the being and action of the infinite God are concerned there must be intractable mystery for intellects such as ours, which are by any measure feeble and limited. As suspect as appeals to mystery or to ignorance may in general be, I think that in this case Descartes can justify making such an appeal. Ultimately, though, while this move wins Descartes some breathing room in the endgame of his theodicy, he faces ultimate checkmate if his doctrine of God's absolute omnipotence is brought in. Many writers35 have noted the problems this doctrine produces for Cartesian science; it creates problems no less troubling for his natural theology. For if God is not bound by the logically possible, if there are literally no limits to what his omnipotent power can accom-

Descartes's Theodicy of Error

47

plish, then no possible theodicy will be effective. For no matter what good is invoked for which evil is the price or the precondition, God could have achieved this good without the evil.36 In Descartes's case, the principle of plenitude is eviscerated. He claims that the world containing fallible creatures may be more perfect than one in which they never err. But God is bound by no such constraints. The omnipotent God who decides what is itself logically possible could easily have brought it about that the most perfect world is one containing no evil at 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); English translation in John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, ed. and trans., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. HI: The Correspondence (Cambridge, 1991), p. 210 (cited hereafter as CSMK). 2 Meditation iv, AT vn, 60-1; English translation in Donald Cress, trans., Rene Descartes: 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 of Reasons, vol. 1, The Soul and God, trans. Roger Ariew (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), p. 209. 5 Meditation iv, AT vn, 57; Cress, p. 81 6 Meditation iv, AT vn, 61; Cress, p. 83 7 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.

48 Michael J. Latzer 16 James C. Morrison, 'Christian Wolff's Criticisms of Spinoza,' Journal of the History of 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.

4

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant? GRAEME HUNTER

The dabbler's Spinoza is, and probably will long remain, an atheist, though a virtuous one. Scholars, of course, construct a figure of greater spiritual complexity, taking into account the pronouncedly religious, even 'god-intoxicated,' character of much of his writing. Yet even among those who have studied Spinoza 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 is the complete lack of evidence of his membership in any Christian denomination (see, for example, Laux 1993, 254f; Mason 1997, 208; Nadler 1999, 291; Zac 1985, 116/490). There is however a minority view according to which Spinoza may have been a Christian of some kind. For example, Victor Brochard allows that Spinoza might have been one, 'in a sense' (1954, 342), and Richard Popkin concedes that he might have held views comparable to those of Socinians or Quakers (1996,401). One way of mediating between the majority and the minority view might be to argue that Spinoza was a non-denominational or, in Leszek Kolakowski's phrase, an 'unchurched Christian' (Kolakowski 1969). But that is not exactly what I shall propose. Certainly I have seen nothing to suggest that Spinoza was a member of any denomination, but neither do the facts demand that Spinoza be classified under the Kolakowski label, 'unchurched.' I shall present the significant body of evidence suggesting that Spinoza was a would-be reformer of the Christian Church. This would make him a radical Protestant, one of a good number of eccentric figures in the Netherlands' so-called 'second Reformation.' Once having presented the evidence for this case, I shall briefly consider its ramifications for understanding Spinoza, taking his theodicy as my test case.

50

Graeme Hunter

1. Direct Evidence for Spinoza's Christianity The simplest way of proving Spinoza a Christian would be to find that he somewhere claimed to be one. Did he? At least two places in his writings have been read as confessions and may be examined first. la. First Person Plural In 1675, at the instigation of a leading Netherlands public figure, Conraad Burgh, Spinoza wrote a letter to his son, Albert, attempting to discourage him from persevering in his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Spinoza's letter was also a reply to one he had received from the younger Burgh, containing a strident defence of his new faith. One of Burgh's arguments, which Spinoza counters, is the claim that the ability of Jesus' low-born and ill-educated disciples to convert the whole world to Christianity is a potent argument in favour of the Roman Catholic Church. Spinoza replies that it not only speaks for Roman Catholics but 'for all who call ourselves Christians' (pro omnibus qui Christianum nomen profitemur [Ep. 76, (1925) iv, 322.32T]).1 At least that is how it reads in Leibniz's handwritten Latin copy of this letter, which Carl Gebhardt uses as one of the two originals reproduced in his now standard edition of Spinoza's writings. A similar first person plural expression appears in the Dutch of the Nagelagte Schriften (see Gebhardt's account in G iv, 429). Leibniz thought 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. The same 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 Roman Church, but the common property of all. And because through it we know ... that we remain in God and God in us, it follows that whatever distinguishes the Roman Church 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. (My emphasis) The latter instances of the first person plural are alike in both Leibniz's copy and the Opera Posthuma.

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?

51

However, in the Opera Posthuma the crucial word 'ourselves' in the first context discussed above becomes 'themselves.' Thus it reads: 'for all who call themselves 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 what Spinoza really wrote. Although Gebhardt's conjecture concerning the scribal error which must have led both to Leibniz's copy and that of the Nagelagte Schriften is not compelling, still his editorial authority is great and he raises sufficient doubt about the other copies to prevent any conclusive case being made on the basis of the intriguing occurrences of first person plurals within them. There are other places in Spinoza's writings where the first person plural occurs in what appear to be confessional contexts. One of them is mentioned later in this paper. But at present I do not see how any one alone or even all together could be held up as conclusive evidence of Spinoza's including himself among the Christians. Ib. The Words 'True Faith' Angela Roothaan has recently claimed that Spinoza characterizes his own presentation of the fundamentals of faith in chapter 14 of the Tractatus TheologicoPoliticus (henceforward TTP) as 'vraie foi' and that his doing so implies his own 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. Spinoza does not in fact speak of 'vera fides' (the Latin equivalent of 'vraie foi') anywhere in chapter 14. But even if he did, it is quite clear that anyone might distinguish between 'true' and 'false' Christian beliefs without being a Christian. Furthermore, 'true' and its counterparts in other languages can also have the sense of 'authentic,' and authentic beliefs of a given faith can be identified by anyone who knows the faith without implying either that he or she is a believer or 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 we begin to look for indirect evidence. Scattered throughout Spinoza's writings, but particularly in the TTP, are numerous references to the Christ. They and their contexts 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 Steven Nadler (1999). Steven Smith, on the other hand, calls them 'careful and studied ambiguities' (1997, 105). Popkin says amusingly (1996, 401): 'Jewish readers often ask me: Why? Who is [Spinoza] trying to kid? Did he have to say such things to please the censor, or the audience? They assume that he could not have been serious or sincere.' To see how Spinoza might have been both serious and sincere, it is easiest to begin with TTP, chapter 14. To lay a great deal of weight on chapter 14 is actually to follow Spinoza's instructions to the reader. At the end of that chapter, he counsels us to read it over and over again, together with chapter 7 (titled 'On the Interpretation of Scripture' and presumably a propaedeutic to 14), because it (chapter 14) contains the main points (praecipud) which Spinoza wants to establish (G in, 180.6ff). The title of chapter 14 poses three questions which are answered 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, in conformity with the method established in the TTP, are to be sought from 'the whole 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 under discussion, since it is the only faith that recognizes both Testaments as authoritative. After defining faith in general terms as obedience (175), Spinoza speaks of the necessity of measuring faith by works, and criticizes those sects who measure faith by verbal adherence to their own dogmas. In light of this rejection of dogma, his next move is initially puzzling, because he goes on to propound seven of what he himself calls 'dogmas of the universal faith' (fidei universalis dogmata [177.14]). One wonders how someone who has just declared dogma superfluous can so boldly propound new dogmas of his own. Yet Spinoza commends them to the reader in the highest terms. If these dogmas are accepted, he boasts, they will leave no room for controversy in the Church (nullum locum controversiis in Ecclesia relinqui [177.13]). In rejecting all dogma while proposing seven new ones, Spinoza appears to be paradoxically active at both of what Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan regards as the opposite poles of seventeenth-century religious controversy. In his study of the development of Christian doctrine in the modern period, Pelikan depicts the seventeenth-century 'crisis of orthodoxy' as having come about through a clash of opposites - the rejection of all dogma by some, and the plentiful assertion of new dogma by others (1989, 9ff). In TTP, chapter 14, Spinoza seems 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 he has 'left no room for controversy in the Church,' and capitalizes 'Church'

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?

53

(Ecclesia), he shows that he is neither being inconsistent nor even a novelty in his age. He was attempting, not to prescribe new dogmas as such, and thus to found a new church, but instead to formulate with lapidary precision what he claims were the traditional dogmas of the primitive Church (cf. TIP, ch. 14; G in, ISO.lOff). And in the Reformation context, the primitive Church was the only one that could lay undisputed claim to universality. Here again Spinoza did not 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 the norm was a presupposition shared by all parties at the beginning of the eighteenth century.' Spinoza is no sectarian. He explicitly rejects the false doctrines introduced by innovators in 'a blind and rash passion for interpreting the sacred writings and excogitating novelties in religion' (77P, ch. 7; G in, 97.20ff). What Spinoza proposes, on the contrary, will bring harmony because it expresses 'the mind of the Holy Spirit' (ibid.; also 102.18f). One consequence of defining faith as Spinoza does, in terms of obedience, is that the only pertinent dogmas of the Catholic faith (fides catholicd) are those pertaining to God and our obedience to him (TTP, ch. 14, 177). According to Spinoza, they are seven: (1) that God exists, (2) that he is unique and worthy of devotion; (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 he saves 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 God who 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 dogmas and Maimonides's explanation of the fundamental principles of the Law in the Guide for the Perplexed (m, 27f). However, although these texts coincide at several points in their teaching, they differ markedly in intent. Maimonides's aim is to 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 he thinks to be universal in character.3 In its form of presentation, Spinoza's list of dogmas bears much closer resemblance to the creeds or 'symbols' proposed by the leaders of the great Reformation traditions - for example, the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglicanism or Melanchton's Augsburg Confession. Nearer to Spinoza's own time, place, and thinking would be the Five Articles of the Remonstrants, the condemnation of which by the Synod of Dort in 1618 led to the formation of the Collegiant congregations, with whom Spinoza was connected at least by strong bonds of friendship.

54 Graeme Hunter 3. Deism or Christianity? However, even if the resemblance to Reformation creeds is conceded, it might be said that little or nothing in my summary of Spinoza's articles of faith is explicitly Christian. Perhaps, as the Utrecht physician and polymath Lambert van 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 about deism) is dismissive (Ep. 43, G iv, 219.32-220.4). Moreover, closer scrutiny of several of his proposed dogmas will reveal a great deal that is Christian about them. The first (177) deals with the existence of God. But what kind of God? Those of us who learned our Spinoza from the Ethics expect to find an impersonal and indifferent 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 applicable to Christ (cf. Ep. 75, G iv, 314.13-16). According to dogma 4, God does all things not only by his good pleasure, but also 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 understood in its generally accepted theological sense of 'the free and unmerited act by which God restores his estranged people to himself (cf. Harvey 1964, art. 'Grace'). Indeed the idea that grace is free, unmerited, and restorative is suggested by its being coupled here with God's sovereign 'good pleasure,' and elsewhere with God's 'pity' (cf. 178.7f). The fifth dogma defines worship of God and obedience toward him in terms of the practice of justice and charity toward one's neighbour (177). It echoes unmistakably Jesus' famous summary of the Law (Matt. 22:37^0), though slanting it toward the value Spinoza, following the apostle James, attributed to works over faith (cf. 175.21-32). The seventh and final dogma, namely that God pardons the sins of those who repent, 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, by which 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 personal level ('by pity and grace'), is providential ('directs all things'), and, most important of all, is a God whose pardon is intimately connected with the indwelling of Christ. Spinoza's credentials as a reformer are established at the end of chapter 14,

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?

55

where he writes that his intent is 'not to introduce novelty, but to rectify corruptions' (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 foolhardy desire to interpret Scripture and think up novelties in religion' (97.20f). If Spinoza is Christian, then he belongs to the tradition of the great reformers of the first Reformation, such as Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, who were not attempting to found a new religion, but only to purify the old. He belongs to that tradition, not in the sense of accepting its achievements, but of emulating its spirit. His dissatisfaction with what the first Reformation accomplished was no doubt conditioned at least in part by that of his Collegiant friends, who thought that the proliferation of warring Protestant sects following the Reformation demonstrated the insufficiency of its reforms (Fix 1991, 91). Like Spinoza, many of the Collegiants thought that a new reformation was required. Some believed it would come from within the established Protestant churches; others thought 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 reformation would come by some human apostle (op. cit., 89) or only after the return of Christ himself (op. cit., 100). In chapter 14 of TTP, Spinoza seems to present himself 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, is elaborated in the rest of that work. For example, that picture of Spinoza puts what he says about the apostles into its proper context. In chapter 11, Spinoza shows 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 letter to the Romans (15:20) not to have built on other men's foundations. At the end of chapter 11, Spinoza tells us that this fateful principle of the apostles in fact sowed the seed of the very religious discord which flowered so riotously and with such devastating effect in his own time. Dissent will never be overcome, he continues prophetically, until 'religion is separated from philosophical speculations and reduced to the fewest and simplest dogmas that Christ taught to his followers' (158.12). Such a reduction of dogma to the bare essentials of the early Church is, of course, precisely what Spinoza himself will propose three chapters later in the same book. Is Spinoza in chapter 11 therefore engaged in nothing more than an act of cheap self-promotion: Spinoza, his own John the Baptist, heralding the messiah he himself will become three chapters later? Fortunately, we are not obliged 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 outlook he sympathizes. The same hypothesis also helps to make proper sense of Spinoza's closing words in chapter 11: 'Happy indeed would be our age,' he writes, 'if it too [like the churches founded by Saint Paul] were freed from all superstition' (158.13ff). If Spinoza is expressing the felt need of a genuine religious community, it is perfectly natural that he should also offer them whatever he can to address that need. But if he has no such community in mind, then Spinoza must be simultaneously creating the need he hopes to satisfy, like a hawker of unwanted consumer goods. Thus, much about the TTP makes more sense when it is conceived as the work of a religious reformer addressing a situation crying out for reform within a community that expects and longs for it. If understanding Spinoza this way enables us to put some passages in context, it also allows us to escape the interpretive errors that even some careful readers have made. Lewis Feuer, for example, cites a passage in one of Spinoza's letters to Oldenburg as evidence that Spinoza was 'spiritually excommunicate among the Christians [of Holland]' (Feuer 1966, 149). The passage which 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 Modern Christians are wont to defend. For I maintain that God is, as they say, the immanent cause of all things, but not the transeunt cause. Like Paul, and perhaps also like all ancient philosophers, though in another way, I assert that all things live and move in God...

How does this indicate that Spinoza is 'spiritually excommunicate among Christians'? Feuer obviously took Spinoza's critical reference to 'modern Christians' to mean all Christians contemporary with Spinoza and Oldenburg. But since that would have included Oldenburg himself, whom Spinoza had no intention of criticizing, that interpretation is quite unlikely. Spinoza is not trying to 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 offers Christians a better standard, one that is in conformity not only with Spinozistic doctrine, but which also enjoys the backing of ancient philosophy and of the primitive Church in the person of Saint Paul. Feuer is right to see Spinoza as non-sectarian, but wrong to infer from it that he was (or thought himself to be) an outsider to the Christian faith. Kolakowski cautions wisely against precisely that kind of inference (1969, 208): 'One must

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?

57

proceed with caution when distinguishing between Christian reformers and "freethinkers," particularly in Protestant countries. It is a characteristic of reformers, who are absorbed in religious questions, to free themselves of confessional affiliations.' On this evidence, Spinoza once again looks less like a heretic and more like a radical reformer. 5. Spinoza's Orthodoxy To make the best case for considering Spinoza as a 'radical Protestant,' the term should be taken in a generic sense, one that would cover many Collegiants, Mennonites, Quakers, Socinians, etc. Measured against the orthodox, Spinoza will always be a radical, but it is certainly possible to overestimate his religious independence. A surprising number of his teachings, particularly those concerning the person of Jesus Christ, are impeccably orthodox. For example, Christ is elevated far above Moses. For Christ was the voice of God, which Moses only heard (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 is universal. To be saved, for Spinoza, means neither more nor less than 'to have the 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 in Spinoza's eyes than the historical Jesus, 'le Christ selon la chair.' Indeed, Spinoza explicitly says that Turks and other heathens, if they worship God by exercising justice and charity toward their neighbours, have the Spirit of Christ and are saved (Ep. 43, G iv, 226.1-4). It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss this religious inclusiveness of Spinoza's as heterodox. While it is true that the doctrine 'nulla salus extra ecclesiam' met with almost universal agreement in the seventeenth century, it is also true that most sects were careful not to limit salvation to their own members. Article 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 saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of Nature. For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us 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), thus making it difficult to rule out the possibility of salvation without conscious knowledge of Christ.

58

Graeme Hunter

But Spinoza also makes Christ unique in the stronger sense of being superior to 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' (sapientiam, quae supra humanam est [7TP, ch. 1, G HI, 21.10f]). And without Christ no 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 Spinoza alludes in his gloss of dogma 7. He was sent to all nations to free them from bondage to the Law (TTP, ch. 3, 54.24f), and also to proclaim a universal law to them (TTP, ch. 5, 71.1). Therefore he is part of a providential plan unfolding in history. Spinoza holds that Jesus Christ is not really or bodily present in the Eucharist, which would place him beyond the pale of orthodoxy as far as both Roman Catholics and the main Reformed denominations were concerned (Ep. 76, G iv, 319.15ff). But to hold that the Eucharist was merely symbolic was considered orthodox teaching both by Zwinglians and by many of the radical Protestant sects. Finally, and most surprisingly, one can find in Spinoza both early and late statements which, though not endorsements of the Trinity, seem to presuppose Trinitarian doctrine. The earlier instance occurs in the Cogitata Metaphysica, published in 1663 as an appendix to the Principles of Descartes' Philosophy. Its context is Spinoza's effort to show what is wrong with the inference from the actual eternity of the Son of God to the possible eternity of creatures. Those who make this argument are mistaken both about the nature of eternity and the nature of the Son of God, he says. The refutation of the latter mistake brings out Spinoza's almost Trinitarian teaching. Note also another use of the first person plural, suggesting the writer's personal commitment to the belief under discussion (CM H, 10; G i, 271.25-30): We respond that it is most false [to say] that God can communicate his eternity to creatures, 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 ab aeterno genuisse), we mean nothing more than that the father has always communicated his eternity to his son.

This passage relates the Father to the Son in a way clearly consistent with, if not actually modelled upon, the relevant clause of the Nicene Creed: ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula (begotten of the Father before all worlds). In another place, Spinoza relates the Son to the Holy Spirit, writing to Albert Burgh in 1675 that Christ is always co-present with the fruit of the Spirit (Ep.

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?

59

76, G iv, 318.11-15). This puts Spinoza in conformity with Saint Paul's teaching in Galatians 5:22-6, for whom the fruit of the Spirit belongs to Christ because the Spirit is Christ's spirit. 6. The Unorthodox Spinoza Not all Spinoza's teachings, of course, are orthodox. But what is most interesting about Spinoza's unorthodoxy is that much of it, too, is better understood as intending the reformation of Christian doctrine, rather than the simple refusal of it. For example, Spinoza rejects the incarnation, saying to Oldenburg that for God to take on human nature is no more possible than for a circle to take on the nature of a square (Ep. 74, G iv, 309.2-6). Neither was there any physical resurrection, according to Spinoza (Ep. 75, 314.9-13; Ep. 78, 328.8-16). Yet both of these unorthodox doctrines are explained to Oldenburg in a context that affirms both 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 list of Christian doctrines he declares inessential. He gives what he implies is only a partial list of these in chapter 14 of the TTP, just after his presentation of the seven dogmas. Apparently Christians do not need to know: (1) what God is; (2) why God is the exemplar of true living; (3) whether God is actually or only 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 eternal laws; (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 of all of them. Surely one's ability to be a follower of Christ is connected with being free (6). And does not belief, for example, in the efficacy of prayer presuppose some opinion about the freedom of God and man (4)? Finally, it is imperative to know in what way God (does he mean Christ?) is the exemplar of true living, if we are to conform our lives to his in the obedience which Spinoza recommends. Spinoza's contemporaries certainly found him too cavalier with doctrine, and it is not difficult to see why. Some of the doctrinal points he dismissed were passionately debated in the religiously charged atmosphere of his day. It is easy to see how dismissing them could create a reputation for atheism. But Spinoza's concern with doctrinal matters can also be taken to mean that his fault was not religious indifference but zeal. Did his fault lie perhaps, not in believing too little, but in reforming too much? Indeed, can there be adiaphora and no diaphora?

60 Graeme Hunter Would it make sense to point out superfluous doctrine, if nothing was deemed indispensable? The list of inessentials seems to underline Spinoza's earlier assertion 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 must remain external to them. But it is pertinent to wonder how Spinoza's reformed Christianity appeared to its apostle from the inside. Here there is insufficient material for certainty, but just enough for conjecture. It is not unlikely that Spinoza saw himself as part of what is now called the 'second reformation' and as having much in common with many of his friends who were Collegiants. Though Collegiants have ancestors in the Schwenkfeldian and Franckian spiritualism of the early Reformation (Fix 1991, 86), the Collegiant movement originated as a reaction to the dismissal of Remonstrant preachers following the condemnation of their doctrine by the Synod of Dort in 1618 (Kolakowski 1969, 168). I do not claim that Spinoza was a Collegiant, but it is safe to say that he was sympathetic particularly with their radical wing. Andrew Fix describes the range of Collegiant religious thought as follows (1991, 115): While the more moderate of the new reformers proposed to work within the established Protestant churches to carry out a further reformation of these churches that would build upon and extend the work of the first reformers, the radical new reformers rejected the work of the original Reformation as a failure and called for a reconstitution of Christian religious life on earth that went far beyond the reform of individual congregations or churches to encompass a complete reorganization of universal 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, words applied by another twentieth-century scholar to Spinoza's friend, the Collegiant Jarig Jelles, fit Spinoza equally well. Hubertus Hubbeling writes (Hubbeling 1984, 159f): 'Jelles was in many respects a typical "reformer," i.e., someone who deviates from the official line of the Church, who wants to push the Reformation further in an ethical and spiritual direction, but if possible without any great break with the tradition.' It is unusual for radical reformers to understand themselves as such. Typically, often comically, they see themselves as the soul of moderation and reason. And Spinoza is no exception. He sees the universal Church he champions as occupying a middle ground between Protestant enthusiasm and Roman Cath-

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?

61

olic 'superstition' (Ep. 76, G iv, 317.17-318.11). The necessity of taking such a stand may have been suggested to Spinoza by the controversy which saw two of his Collegiant friends, Pieter Serrarius and Pieter Balling, locked in dispute with their erstwhile Quaker allies concerning the religious meaning of the phrase 'the light.' Spinoza attempts to turn off the dim and subjective light of the Quakers and hold up the bright and objective one of Scripture. At the same time, he tries to uphold what is original in the Christian faith, without lapsing into superstitious veneration of the merely traditional. His are the instincts of a reformer. They are the responses that a radical reformer could be expected to make 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 distinct difference in tone between the TTP and the Ethics. But few have found the two books easy to reconcile. Although the TTP was published in 1670 and the Ethics not until after Spinoza's death, in 1677, they were written too close together for one to be a youthful, the other a mature, doctrine. Spinoza's numerous allusions in the Tractatus to doctrines of the Ethics suggest that he was working on both texts simultaneously during the 1660s (cf. Brochard 1954, 333). One cannot absolutely discount the possibility that Spinoza was of two minds, torn between a more materialistic, scientific philosophy, which he expressed in the Ethics, and a more uplifting, spiritualistic one, developed in the TTP. Against such an understanding, however, stands the unusually systematic nature of Spinoza's thought. And if one is to understand all Spinoza's writings as illustrations of one philosophical system, then there must be some single course on which Spinoza's two philosophical flagships are bound. Angela Roothaan complains that when reconciliations of the two texts do occur, they inevitably (and unjustly) privilege the Ethics (Roothaan 1998, 270). However, Victor Brochard is a notable exception to her rule, for he, though only briefly, sketched an interpretation of the Ethics in the light of the TTP (Brochard 1954, 347-61), claiming that there are 'no contradictions or essential differences' between them, and taking the TTP as his standard of reference. It would be a book-length task to work out that project in full,5 but I would like to try Brochard's method very briefly on the thematic question of theodicy. Among the concepts entailed by theodicy, are those of goodness, evil, and providence. And yet is not that entire family of concepts put massively in question by the austere proof of 1E33 and its scholia, and then dismissed with little more than derision in the Appendix of Ethics i? Spinoza appears to be a strict necessitarian, for whom the consolations of providence and all terms of value

62 Graeme Hunter are at best subjective fantasies. There is not space here to go over these rich texts in the detail they merit. But in closing I will look at two concise refutations which Spinoza deploys in the second scholium of 1E33, probably aimed at the theodicies of Descartes and Leibniz.6 The Christian interpretation of Spinoza outlined so far puts this critique and the Spinozistic alternative offered to Descartes and Leibniz in a new light. In the last paragraph of 1E33S2, Spinoza sets his own position off against positions that in ethics would be called voluntarism and intellectualism, but which in theodicy were best represented in Spinoza's day by Descartes and Leibniz respectively. Each philosopher had tried to give an account of the goodness of God which paid sufficient attention to the existence of evil. The Cartesian voluntarists say that goodness and evil 'depend solely on the will of God.' Spinoza thinks them right insofar as they recognize nothing outside of God capable of constraining him, but wrong to imply that God could have 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 consider the Leibnizian intellectualist to be right in thinking that God could not have chosen any differently.7 His error lies in supposing an ethical reality independent of God, a kind of moral pattern (or exemplar) which determined or even influenced his will. Nothing external could influence Spinoza's God for the simple reason that nothing is external to him. The two refutations taken together show Spinoza's God to lack both internal flexibility and external choice. It is easy to conclude that the only middle ground for Spinoza to occupy between Cartesian voluntarism and Leibnizian intellectualism 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 Descartes than Leibniz recognized. Spinoza in the Ethics is committed to God's being immutable within and sovereign without. But neither of those qualities requires that a brutal and inclement destiny rule our lives. God's immutability and sovereignty do not preclude his 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 to the penitent and grace abounds to the weak. On the present interpretation, the harsh criticism of final causes in the Appendix of Ethics i would be directed only against anthropomorphic conceptions of providence which make it a crude extension of human purposes. Nothing in the Appendix prevents one holding that God both sustains all things and governs their intercourse with one another. In other words, nothing prevents a Christian

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant? 63 view of providence from fitting comfortably between the rejected positions of Descartes 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 is abbreviated as 'G,' following a common practice. References to the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (abbreviated TTP) are to be understood as referring to Spinoza 1925 (i.e., G), vol. 3, and will supply in each case the page and line number of that edition. For ease of reference to translations and other editions, the names of individual works, chapters, and sections of Spinoza's writings are identified as fully as possible, following the standard reference procedure of Studia Spinozana. 2 'Nous sommes surpris de lire alors que dans son Traite theologico-politique, Spinoza tente de trouver une definition de la "vraie foi." S'il avait simplement voulu decrire la croyance des hommes vue de 1'exterieur, il eut etc vain et meme impossible de parler de la verite de cette croyance.' 3 Steven Smith's study of Spinoza's Jewish identity (1997,114f) points out two further disanalogies. 4 The definition offered in the Ethics is not helpful, for there 'gratia' is understood in one of its classical senses as equivalent to 'gratitudo.' That sense is lost in the English word 'grace,' except in its use to mean the prayer of thanksgiving said before meals. 5 I shall devote a large section of a forthcoming monograph to the reconciliation of the two texts. 6 Cartesians are the obvious targets of Spinoza's criticism of 'those who say that good and bad depend upon the will of God,' but many may wonder whether Leibniz could really have been the target of Spinoza's denial that 'God does everything in pursuit of the good'? It will be said that in 1677 Leibniz was still several decades away from becoming the most famous supporter of that doctrine and that Spinoza probably had in mind the long tradition of 'intellectualism' in ethics. That may be true. Nevertheless there are several reasons to suspect that Spinoza had 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 in Amsterdam in 1676 and spent several days with him discussing metaphysical questions. (3) Spinoza could easily have learned of Leibniz's philosophy from mutual friends such as Schuller or Tschirnhaus. (4) If meeting Leibniz did goad Spinoza to reply to the intellectualist position, in his already substantially completed Ethics, one would 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 an argument still fresh in his memory. 7 To say that Leibniz is the target of this criticism does not imply, however, that the criticism hits home. Even the early Leibniz, in fact, attenuates this claim significantly, 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: Carl Winter. - 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 etde philosophic 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 Enlightenment. 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 of Chicago Press.

Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?

65

Popkin, Richard. 1996. 'Spinoza and Bible Scholarship.' In The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 383^07. Roothaan, Angela. 1998. 'Spinoza releve-t-il de la theologie naturelle?' Revue de theologie et de philosophic 130: 269-83. Smith, Steven. 1997. Spinoza, Liberalism and the Question of Jewish Identity. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Zac, Sylvain. 1985. 'Le probleme du christianisme de Spinoza.' In Essais spinozistes. Paris :Vrin. 105/479-117/491.

5

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 theodicy problem should appear misguided, if not downright absurd. After all, should not Spinoza reject the whole question of theodicy as incoherent, and grounded in a false 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 system, and that thus it is worthless to investigate anything other than why that is so. And yet, as I hope to show, I think there is more to it than that. I

For the project of a theodicy even to begin, there are a number of essential ingredients required. First, of course, there is the claim that there is a God and that God is 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, to use Leibniz's categorization, there must nonetheless be some order of imperfection in that world, especially relative to human beings. Sometimes that imperfection will be the sins committed by moral agents. At other times, the imperfection will consist in the suffering of the innocent and the flourishing of the wicked. Birth defects, natural disasters, and undeserved punishment are all undeniable and (apparently) inexplicable features of the world. In and of itself, this is not problematic. It becomes problematic - and generates the set of questions known, following Leibniz, as 'theodicy' - only when taken in conjunction with a number of claims about God, claims that also prevent any kind of simplis-

Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil

67

tic solution to those questions. First, God is omnipotent; that is, God can do whatever God wills to do, and God's will is, at least absolutely speaking, of infinite scope. This prevents one from saying that God could not do anything about the evils in his creation. Second, God is omniscient; God knows everything, including the alleged apparent defects in his work. This prevents one from saying that God could (and would) do something about the evils in his creation, if only he knew about them; and since he obviously has not done anything about them, he must not know about them. Third, God is benevolent and just; God wills only what is good. This prevents one from resolving the conundrum simply by saying that God knows about the evils, and is capable of preventing them, but simply does not care to do so. How then can we reconcile the existence of evil, pain, and suffering 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 friends excised from the posthumous Dutch edition of his works) - is not omnipotent in the classical sense. While Spinoza's God is, to be sure, the ultimate and infinite cause of everything that exists, it is not, on the other hand, a free God who acts by will and choice. As he explicitly notes, God, while free, 'does not produce any effect by freedom of the will.'' All aspects of the universe follow necessarily and with 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 entirely devoid of any moral characteristics. God is nature, or at least the active, generative, eternal, and infinite aspects of nature - what he calls Natura naturans - and is 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, neither within nature nor for nature as a whole. All ascription to God of 'acting for the 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 the organized superstitions that pass for the major sectarian religions. Without a free, good, and just God, the whole question of theodicy does not even get off the ground. Or maybe it would be better to say that the question is answered immediately. There is suffering and disaster in the world because there is no wise and providential God watching over the world, a world all of whose events are necessitated simply by the laws of nature. So why even discuss Spinoza in the context of the theodicy problem? Moreover, Spinoza at times seems to evince nothing but contempt for those who would waste their time engaged in trying to resolve the problem of evil with a theodicy (much as Job's friends attempt to explain the rationale behind his suffering):

68

Steven M. Nadler

See, I ask you, how the matter has turned out in the end! Among so many conveniences in nature they had to find many inconveniences: storms, earthquakes, diseases, etc. These, they maintain, happen because the Gods (whom they judge to be of the same nature as themselves) are angry on account of wrongs done to them by men, or on account of sins committed in their worship. And though their daily experience contradicted this, and though infinitely many examples showed that conveniences and inconveniences happen indiscriminately to the pious and the impious alike, they did not on that account give up their longstanding prejudice. It was easier for them to put this among the other unknown things, whose use they were ignorant of, and so remain in the state of ignorance in which they had been born, than to destroy that whole construction, and think up a new one. So they maintained 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 enlightenment. What I intend to show is that, in fact, Spinoza was not entirely unconcerned with the problem of evil and suffering. What he offers us, however, is not so much a theodicy, but rather a response to a particular kind of attempt at theodicy. This, by itself, is not particularly novel or surprising. Any careful reader of the Ethics could figure this out for herself. But what I do find especially interesting are two things: first, that the kind of theodicy to which Spinoza is responding is a very prominent one in medieval Jewish philosophy and even earlier rabbinic texts; and second, that the seeds of Spinoza's response to that kind 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 happiness is offering a reductio upon a particular theodicy found in Jewish rationalism. Basically, what I take Spinoza to be saying is that certain classic Jewish thinkers 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 in Spinoza's thought that, strictly speaking, are peripheral to my discussion but that nonetheless bear on the problem of theodicy. First, there is Spinoza's definition of 'good' and 'evil.' Spinoza famously claims 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

Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil

69

are accustomed to feign because we compare individuals of the same species or genus to one another ... We call them imperfect, because they do not affect our Mind as much as those we call perfect, and not because something is lacking in 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 do not denote anything real about things themselves. 'As far as good and evil are concerned, they also indicate nothing positive in things, considered in themselves, nor are they anything other than modes of thinking, or notions we form because we compare things to one another.' By 'good,' all that is meant is 'what we know certainly is a means by which we may approach nearer and nearer to the model 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 that model' (Ethics iv, Preface, n.208; C 545). What is good, in other words, is simply what is regarded by some creature as being useful; what is evil is simply what that creature 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 'true knowledge of good and evil,' suggesting of course that one can be correct or mistaken about what is truly good or useful.2 In fact, Spinoza's moral philosophy requires that there be a certain kind of pursuit - namely, the acquisition of adequate ideas and the third kind of knowledge - that truly is our good as rational beings. Good and evil may be relative to some standard or model that we set before ourselves - in this case, a model of a human being - but there is also a specific and objective model of the human being, namely, Spinoza's 'free person' or 'virtuous person,' that we ought to strive to emulate. 'Knowledge of God,' he says at Ethics ivP28, 'is the mind's greatest good.' And it is good, not just because we believe it to be conducive to our well-being and supportive of our conatus, but because it really is so. To be sure, this 'true knowledge of good and evil' is as much an affect as the merely subjective conception of good and evil, 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 conceptions. This is a notorious problem in interpreting Spinoza's ethical theory, and I shall not pursue it here.3 But what it does show, I think, is that Spinoza's resolution or dismissal of the theodicy problem does not consist in his simply eliminating the reality of good and evil altogether, reducing them to mere modes of our thought. The other issue that I want to mention here, but not discuss at length, concerns 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 powerful and all-knowing God, there is sin and suffering and all creatures do not get to enjoy their highest deserved perfection, but rather as a question as to why God created a world distinct from God in the first place. If God is perfect and self-sufficient, what could possibly move God to create anything outside of God's being? For Spinoza, this question cannot even be raised. First, God does not choose to create at all; the world follows necessarily from the eternal attributes and the infinite modes, and could not possibly have not existed. There was 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 the substance of the universe, the immanent cause - and not a distinct transitive cause - of all that exists. There is, of course, a long and hallowed tradition for thinking in this way about the relationship between God and creation, both in Jewish and Arabic philosophy and, even earlier, in Greek thought. And it would be most interesting to carry on Wolfson's project of seeking the precedents in those traditions for Spinoza's dismissal of this aspect of the theodicy problem.4 But in this essay I must leave that issue behind. Ill

When Job is overcome by his sufferings, when he has been robbed of everything that was dear to him, when all finally seems lost, he raises his voice to complain to God about the way he, to all appearances an upright man, has been treated. His friends come and try to offer him consolation, or at least a rationalization of why he has been visited with such disaster. There must be a reason for Job's tribulations, they argue, either because he or his relations have sinned or because God has some other reason that transcends our cognitive powers. One of his companions believes that our judgment about God's justice should not be limited to what we see in this life, where often the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. If Job is truly innocent, Bildad suggests, then he should consider that he will be rewarded in the long term - not just in this life, which for the 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 rekindle; the light fades in his tent, and his lamp dies down and fails him ... His roots beneath dry up, and above, his branches wither. His memory vanishes from the face of the earth, and he leaves no name in the world. He is driven from light into darkness and banished from the land of the living. He leaves no issue or offspring among his people, no survivor in his earthly home. (Job 18:5-20)

Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil 71 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 may suffer in this life, should enjoy the knowledge that the fruits and rewards of his virtue will persist long after he is gone from this world. As Zophar insists, 'the triumph 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 be swept away utterly, like his own dung' (Job 20:5-7). This biblical text bears no explicit mention or even implication of an immortal soul or an afterlife, something that appears in Judaism only later. But it does suggest a theodicy that has the following general structure: do not judge God's justice without taking a long-term perspective on a person's fate, including their death and what happens afterwards. When Judaism does finally develop, over the course of the rabbinic period, a well-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) and eternal punishment in hell (Sheol or Gehinnom), this basic message can be expanded into a full-blown theodicy. The true domain of divine justice is not this world, but the world-to-come, Olam ha-Ba. That is where or when real reward and punishment are allocated to the righteous and wicked. The innocent may suffer in this life, they may undergo pain and misfortune, perhaps because of their few sins; but they will be more than compensated for their sufferings in the hereafter. Conversely, the wicked may flourish in this world, usually at the expense of the righteous; but whatever gains they acquire in the here and now are nothing in comparison to the suffering to be inflicted upon them either after their death or at the end of days. When we take all of this into account, we can understand the larger context of the suffering of the innocent, and, more importantly, realize the true justice of God's ways. When we take the long-term perspective, we see how everyone ultimately receives their just desserts, and we will no longer be tempted to question God's goodness, wisdom, and power. There are even figures in the Talmud and Midrashic literature for whom suffering in this life appears to be a welcome prelude to blessedness in the world-tocome.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-tocome but in the world we live in, stressed the importance of punishment and reward for sin and righteousness in this life - it is one that holds a powerful attraction for some important Jewish religious authorities and philosophers. The tenth-century philosopher, and head (or gaori) of the academy in Babylonia, Saadya ben Joseph, presents this kind of theodicy in particularly clear and systematic terms. If God is just, Saadya asks, why do we see pious persons experiencing 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 could reasonably attribute to a rational and non-arbitrary God. A 'pious' person, he claims, is someone in whose conduct 'the good deeds predominate,' while the 'impious' person is someone most of whose deeds are wicked. Some pious people commit a greater number of sins than others (with those sins still constituting only a minority of their actions overall), while some impious persons commit more righteous acts than others. Now there is, he insists, a 'second world' beyond this one, 'the world of compensation.' It comes into being 'only when the entire number of rational beings ... will have been fulfilled. There [God] will requite all [rational beings] according to their deeds.'6 But it would be unjust not to 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 individuals will be requited in this world for the minority of their deeds, leaving the majority of their deeds to be requited in the world-to-come. 'He therefore instituted recompense in this world only for the lesser portions of a person's conduct... while the totality of his merits is reserved for a far-off time.'7 This explains 'why it often happens that a generally virtuous person may be afflicted with many failings, on account of which he deserves to be in torment for the greater part of his life. On the other hand, a generally impious individual may have to his credit many good deeds, for the sake of which he deserves to enjoy well-being for the greater part of his earthly existence.' When all is said and done, everyone gets exactly what they deserve: everyone gets some reward and some punishment, either in this world or the next, perfectly proportionate to their deeds. Saadya admits that sometimes it happens that a completely blameless person nonetheless suffers in this world. Saadya responds simply by saying that they will be compensated 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 or suffering in this life - although a life of true virtue will, because of the nature of virtue, 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 worldto-come, in the life hereafter. This is, of course, also a standard feature of many a Christian theodicy, as well. But what is particularly important for our study of Spinoza is the intellectualist twist that the Jewish rationalists Maimonides and Gersonides give this doctrine. Although I believe that much of what I have to say is true of Maimonides, let me focus here only on Gersonides (Levi ben Gershom), the fourteenth-century rabbi and philosopher from Provence. In his philosophical masterpiece, The Wars of the Lord (in Hebrew, the Sefer Milchamot ha-Shem), Gersonides argues that one should not judge concerning God's providence on the basis only of what one observes in this world, particu-

Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil

73

larly the distribution of good and evil.8 For what we commonly see is clearly a lack of order and equity in their distribution, with people apparently not receiving their due rewards. Evil happens to the righteous, and good to sinners. 'Hence,' he insists, 'the following dilemma necessarily ensues: either God can arrange 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 so arrange this, which would be an imperfection in God.'9 The solution to this conundrum is that 'the true reward and punishment do not consist in these benefits and evils that we observe. For the reward and punishment that occur to man insofar as he is a man have to be good and evil that are [truly] human, not good and evil that are not human.'10 The goods and evils that 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 with other creatures. These may not be distributed in accordance with a person's dessert, but by chance and nature. The 'true' human good, on the other hand, consists in 'the acquisition of spiritual happiness,' being tailored to what is a human being's highest and most proper perfection. 'Since human evil consists of the absence of this spiritual happiness, i.e., in its imperfection, it is evident that true reward and punishment in man as man consists of the achievement or lack of achievement of spiritual happiness, not of these sensuous goods or evils that are ordered by the heavenly bodies.'11 What this spiritual happiness consists in, for Gersonides, is the acquisition of knowledge 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 that can be had by its material intellect, working in conjunction with the senses. But through the Agent Intellect - that is, through the separate Intellect or Soul that governs this world and the innermost sphere to which it belongs - the human mind can arrive at the knowledge of more general truths. It can know eternal verities 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 the apprehension of the intelligibles, of the forms of things without their matter.12 Through this process, the human mind comes to an understanding of the true order of the world. Its knowledge grows to mirror the knowledge that is in the Agent Intellect itself. Now these eternal truths that the mind can grasp constitute its 'acquired intellect,' a part of the mind that is distinct from the material intellect. The human soul is, for Gersonides, simply a part of the body; it is not a separate, incorporeal substance. Thus, the human soul itself is corruptible.13 But the acquired intellect, since it consists only in this eternal knowledge, is not corruptible. In fact, it is 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 nature that is embedded in the world that is governed by that Intellect - the acquired intellect is eternal and immaterial. When the body perishes, so does the human soul and the acquisition of knowledge. But the acquired intellect remains. It is, as Gersonides insists, immortal. In fact, the immortality of any human being consists only in this persistence of the acquired intellect after the death of the body.14 Now true human happiness consists in the intellectual achievement represented by the perfecting of the mind, by the attainments of the acquired intellect. In this life, we can enjoy some measure of this perfection. But the demands of the body and the force of empirical circumstances often stand in the way of the achievement and enjoyment of true perfection. Thus, even virtuous people those who have devoted their lives to the search for true knowledge - are subject to the elements, to the disturbances and imperfections of this world. When they die, however, they are capable of enjoying their highest happiness to the highest degree: It is important to realize that each man who has attained this perfection enjoys the happiness resulting from his knowledge after death. We have some idea of this pleasure from the pleasure we derive from the little knowledge we now possess which subdues the animal part of our soul [so that] the intellect is isolated in its activity. This pleasure is not comparable to the other pleasures and has no relation to them at all. All the more so will this pleasure be greater after death; for then all the knowledge that we have acquired in this life will be continuously contemplated and all the things in our minds will be apprehended simultaneously, since after death the obstacle that prevents this kind of cognition, i.e., matter, will have disappeared ... After death, [the intellect] will apprehend all the knowledge it has acquired during life simultaneously.15

The true reward for virtue, for pursuing the life of knowledge and intellectual achievement, will be in the world-to-come, not in a life free of evil and suffering in this world. Our highest happiness comes only after death. The view of our rabbis is that true reward and punishment occur in the world-to-come and that there is no necessity for reward and punishment in this world to be such that the righteous and the sinner receive material benefits and evils, respectively. They say "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 elements in place for just the kind of theodicy that we find in Gersonides. In fact, it

Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil

75

is fairly clear that Spinoza's views on knowledge and happiness were strongly influenced by what he read in Gersonides and Maimonides.17 But it is equally clear, I believe, that Spinoza denied the personal immortality of the soul. And by 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 a host of other philosophers, Jewish and gentile. If there is no life after death, if we do not persist after the corruption of the body and the end of its durational existence, then there can be no true reward to hope for (nor any true punishment to 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 that Gersonides says about the soul, its intellectual achievement, and happiness - all of which Spinoza accepts - there can be no true reward for virtue in any alleged world after this one. Rather, virtue must be its own reward in this world, as a source of abiding happiness and of freedom from the vicissitudes of chance and fortune. Spinoza, in other words, takes Gersonides's theodicy to what he sees as its logical conclusion. The main project of Spinoza's Ethics is to show us how we can achieve some measure 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 we acquiesce in such a state, we are subject to the control offerees outside our control, to the comings and goings of external objects as determined by the laws of nature. As long as we identify our well-being with the possession of those temporal and mutable objects and states of affairs in which we place value, it is an unpredictable and unsteady thing. Now we cannot control nature. But we can control our response to nature. We can try to reduce the sway that our passions have over us, and thereby achieve a modicum of freedom, that is, of eudaemonistic independence from the outside forces acting on us. 18 The way to do this is through knowledge. By understanding ourselves and the world, and especially by seeing how all things relate to the eternal natures that constitute the one substance - God or Nature - and how they follow necessarily from those natures or attributes, we will be led toward a stoic peace of mind. The force of the passsions will be diminished and we will be less subject to the vicissitudes of the world around us.19 We will, in other words, be moving towards an abiding state of happiness and well-being. What we 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 to the partial and defective acquaintance with things that we have through our senses 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 existence, but through their essences, their unchanging natures. And to truly understand 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 to exist in relation to a certain time and place, or insofar as we conceive them to be contained in God and to follow from the necessity of the divine nature. But the things we conceive in this second way as true, or real, we conceive under a species of 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 through extension 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 from the infinite and eternal perspective of God. Spinoza's knowledge of the third kind is, I suggest, Gersonides's acquired intellect. Like Gersonides, Spinoza identifies this knowledge with the pursuit of a general, non-sensory, non-temporalized perspective and deep understanding of the order of nature. It is an intellectual apprehension, consisting in the possession of clear and distinct - or 'adequate' - ideas of things. The pursuit of such knowledge is also, Spinoza notes, what constitutes 'virtue' and the good life.20 Above all, knowledge of the third kind, like Gersonides's acquired intellect, is eternal, basically because it is God's knowledge. When the body and its faculties die, this knowledge that now forms a part of our cognitive make-up in this life will remain. But here is precisely where Spinoza begins his attack. With these doctrines in hand, Spinoza goes on to deny the personal immortality of the soul. And, given the similarity between his account of knowledge and happiness and that of Gersonides, Spinoza can be read as saying that Gersonides must do the same. If what survives the death of the body is simply a kind of knowledge, however eternal, then there is no robust immortality of a personal nature. Thus, it would be illegitimate to put this account of knowledge and happiness to use in the service of a theodicy that promises an individual true rewards for virtue in the world-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 of things, the more adequate ideas we have, the more of what belongs to us remains after the death of the body and the end of the durational aspect of our-

Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil

77

selves. That is, the more adequate knowledge we have, the greater is the degree of the eternity of the mind: P38: The more the mind understands things by the second and third kind of knowledge, 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 mind knows things by the second and third kind of knowledge, the greater the part of it that remains, and consequently the greater the part of it that is not touched by affects 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 question as to whether there is a personal soul after death. Can one eternal mind be qualitatively distinguished from another and linked up to the life that was its durational existence? I do not see how, for Spinoza, one eternal mind could be qualitatively distinguished or individuated from another. Or, perhaps more accurately, I do not see why any two eternal minds should necessarily be distinguishable one from another. 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 mirror God's total and eternal understanding of things. In that case, one eternal mind would have the same content as another. But even with lesser degrees of knowledge, what is to keep two minds from having the same collection of adequate ideas? Spinoza is fairly clear that the more adequate ideas two minds have, the more 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 linking it up with a particular durational consciousness in this lifetime (and thus giving it its personal dimension) is equally problematic. Spinoza states quite clearly that continuity of memory is essential to continued identity of a person over time (ivP39s).21 But he also insists, as any good Cartesian would, that memory lasts only as long as the body endures (vP21). Thus there will be no connection within consciousness between the mind in duration and the mind sub specie aeternitatis. Regardless of what one thinks of these admittedly sketchy arguments,22 there is one very good reason - in fact, to my mind the strongest possible reason - for thinking that Spinoza denied the personal immortality of the soul. This is a reason internal to Spinoza's system, but it requires standing back a bit to consider his 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

78

Steven M. Nadler

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 rational agents). And the two passions that he is most concerned about are hope and fear. These are the passions that are most easily manipulated by ecclesiastic authorities seeking to control our lives and command our obedience. Unscrupulous preachers take advantage of our tendency toward superstitious behaviour by persuading us that there is an eternal reward to be hoped for and an eternal punishment to be feared after this life. What is essential for them to succeed is our conviction that there is such an afterlife, that my soul, a soul in which I have a very intimate stake, will continue to live after the death of my body, and that there is a personal immortality. I believe that Spinoza thought that the best way to free us from a life tossed about by hope and fear, a life of superstitious behaviour, was to kill at its roots and eliminate the foundational belief on which such hopes and fears are grounded: the belief in the immortality of the soul. Maybe there are eternal aspects of the mind. But, he is saying, the true eternity of the mind is nothing like the personal immortality temptingly or threateningly held out to us by the leaders of organized religions. What really remains for Spinoza after death is an impersonal body of knowledge, a body of knowledge which, in a sense, belonged to us during our lifetime. In this way, we are able to partake of and enjoy this eternity even during own durational existence. Thus, as Spinoza notes, 'we feel and know by experience that we are eternal.'23 But this eternity of the mind is not something in which we can take comfort, in the sense of looking forward to a reward for virtue in a world-to-come. And, I read Spinoza as saying, Gersonides and others who 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 a radical break with traditional Jewish thought, but rather as one who took a certain 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 of his nature and acts from the necessity of his nature' (Ethics iP17), not because God is endowed with 'freedom of the will.' All of my references to the Ethics employ the standard notation of part number (roman numeral), followed by proposition number (P), and, where applicable, scholium (s). The editions I shall refer to are Spinoza Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt, 5 vols (Heidelberg, 1925 and 1987), by volume number and page number; and the translations by Edwin Curley, The Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), abbreviated as 'C.'

Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil

79

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; and Henry E. Allison, Benedict de Spinoza: An Introduction (New Haven: Yale University 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 man to 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 magnificient study, La pensee philosophique et theologique de Gersonide (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 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 of providence includes a discussion of just this issue, relying also on union with the active 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 justice manifests itself not in the world-to-come but in the world we live in, stressed the importance of punishment and reward for sin and righteousness in this life. It has been argued, in fact, that Gersonides's view here goes against rabbinic tradition; see Menachem Kellner, 'Gersonides, Providence and the Rabbinic Tradition,' Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42 (1974). 17 Among the books found in Spinoza's library at his death was a copy of Maimonides's Moreh Nevuchim, the Hebrew translation of the Guide for the Perplexed, but no copies of any works by Gersonides; see Catalogus van de Bibliotheek der Vereniging Met Spinozahuis te Rijnsburg (Leiden: Brill, 1965). Still, there can be no doubt that Spinoza read and knew well at least the Milchamot ha-Shem, if not also Gersonides's biblical commentaries. For studies of Spinoza and Maimonides, see Leon Roth,

80 Steven M. Nadler

18

19

20 21

22

23

Spinoza, Descartes and Maimonides (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924); Warren Zev Harvey, 'A Portrait of Spinoza as Maimonidean,' Journal of the History of Philosophy 19 (1981); and the discussions by Harry Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934). But not, however, a real physical or even full psychological independence. As Spinoza insists, no human being can be completely outside the causal nexus of nature; see Ethics ivP4. This is the upshot of Books iv and v of the Ethics. See especially ivP6: 'Insofar as the Mind understands all things as necessary, it has a greater power over the affects, or is less acted on by them.' See Ethics ivP23-6. 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). I argue at much greater length that Spinoza denied the personal immortality of the soul in Spinoza's Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), especially chapters 5 and 6. Ethics vP23s.

6

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, the Recherche de la verite, published in 1674-5. He conceived his theodicy only after 1680, when his thought matured, especially with the Traite de la nature et de la grace, and he continued to clarify its concepts and principles until the end of his career. (The last work of the Oratorian, Reflexions sur la promotion physique, which appeared in 1715, contains a detailed summary of his reflection on the theme.) This theodicy is not very well known. It is less well known than other Malebranchian theories, like the 'vision in God,' and less well known than other theodicies of the same period, such as that of Leibniz. Yet, this theodicy is extremely interesting and original. In my view, it is one of Malebranche's major 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 has three parts. First, I recall the basic principles of Malebranche's theodicy, emphasizing three themes: what is usually called the 'principe de la simplicite des voies'; the relation between the attributes of God, particularly between wisdom 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 will show how these principles lead Malebranche to an atypical position regarding physical evil. Here I will show how Malebranche's reflection represents a considerable innovation in theodicy, since it expresses a clear break with Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas, as well as with positions that Leibniz was later to

82 Denis Moreau 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 Antoine Arnauld and Frangois Fenelon, that Malebranche's theodicy is Manichaean. The second interpretation is more internal: it views Malebranche's theodicy as an effort to avoid separating Christian metaphysics from the concrete experience 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 'principe de la simplicite des voies,' is well known. Accordingly, I will present it quickly, in the (almost) definitive version that Malebranche developed after 1685,2 and then bring out some of its consequences. In order to be glorified by his work, God wants to create what is best, what is most perfect (e.g., see TNG I, HOC 5, p. 12). But according to Malebranche, the intrinsic perfection of creation itself is not the only variable that God considers when he creates. He must also take into account the perfection of what Malebranche calls God's 'ways' (voies), that is, the manner of acting that God employs to create and sustain the world. In other words, God, in his quest for overall maximum perfection, must consider not only the created world, but also, 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 the sake of a result (creation) that alone has value; they are an expression of divine perfection, and must be integrated by God into his search for maximal perfection. What would be the most perfect divine ways of creation possible? They would be, Malebranche explains, those that are the most simple, or more precisely those that 'glorify him [God] through their simplicity, their fecundity, their universality, their uniformity, through the characteristics that express the qualities that he is glorified in possessing' (Dialogues ix, 10/OC 12, p. 214; see also 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 wisdom of the agent.4 Malebranche emphasizes simplicity among the attributes whose character creation must bear, and he holds that it is the simplicity of ways that especially testifies to God's wisdom in creating. But God does not choose the ways that are most perfect, or simple, absolutely speaking, because it is the total perfection of the compound of world and ways that must be maximized. Here, according to Malebranche, lies the explanation

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil

83

of the evils and disorders present in creation. On the one hand, in order to actualize an absolutely perfect work, one without any evil or disorders, God would have to will each of its details in particular, and in this case, he would multiply his particular volitions and ways. This he does not do, in order not to sacrifice the simplicity of his ways: 'If a world more perfect than ours could be created and conserved only in ways that are correspondingly [reciproquement] less perfect... I am not afraid to say this to you: God is too wise, he loves his glory too 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 previous text and the numerical example of the Abrege du traite de la nature et de la grace quoted hereafter, one can estimate that very simple ways would be so general, and would to such an extent prevent the detailed organization of the world, that the world produced by them would inevitably be very imperfect.5 So God did not act in that way; to do so would be to produce a work that would dishonour him. My hypothesis is that, according to Malebranche (after 1685), the perfection of the world and the perfection of the ways vary in an inverse manner. That is why the explanation for the nature of our world must be found between the two extreme cases. It is neither the most perfect possible world, nor the one created and conserved in the most perfect ways possible. It is the best compound (or compromise) possible. A numerical example in the Abrege du traite de la nature et de la grace (a text written in 1704, when Malebranche republished all his responses to Arnauld) 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 character of the divine attributes to a degree equal to eight, and that is produced by ways that express the divine attributes only to a degree equal to two, expresses them overall only to a degree equal to ten. But a work that is perfect only to degree six, or which expresses the divine attributes only to degree six, and that is produced by ways that express them once again to degree six, expresses the divine attributes to degree twelve. Therefore if God chooses one of these two works, he will choose the less perfect one because the less perfect work together with the ways bears the character of the divine attributes to a greater degree ... (Abrege du traite de la nature et de la grace, 5/'OC 9, p. 1085)

The quantitative relations set up by Malebranche can be represented as follows: Perfection of the work 8 6

Perfection of the ways 2 6

1 1

Total perfection 0 2

84 Denis Moreau This example is at once illuminating and difficult to interpret in detail. In fact, we cannot find a simple mathematical and additive ratio that explains the variation of the terms.6 This probably means that the example is only a heuristic device, which should not be over-interpreted.7 But Malebranche may wish to indicate that God's action cannot be adequately described by means of mathematical models. In this case, the example discreetly contests the possibility of a univocal application, to human beings and God, of a Leibnizian maxim like cum Deus calculatfit mundus. Malebranche asserts that 'God could make a world that is more perfect than the one we inhabit' (TNG i, 14/OC 5, p. 29). And, a few years later and more categorically, he states: 'I do not hesitate to repeat it: the universe is not the most 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 had thus created in the most complex ways, the world would have been, in itself, much better. Hence the presence, limited but nonetheless real, of disorders within the world. Examples given by Malebranche are rain falling in a place where it is useless, a stone falling on the head of a just man, the death of a child whose mother let fall to the ground just before baptism, and the birth of a monster. Absolutely speaking, God could and should intervene and act by what Malebranche calls a particular volition, in order to modify the process that leads to the production of these beings and events. But he does not do it, because such an intervention would decrease the simplicity of his ways without compensating 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 the Leibnizian one: the world according to Malebranche is simply not 'the best of all possible worlds.' The reasons for this clash between Malebranche and Leibniz about the status of creation can be found in their differing formulations of the relations 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 'God does nothing for which he does not deserve to be glorified' (sec. 3) and that, in God's creative process, 'the simplicity of ways is balanced by the richness of effects' (sec. 10). Here Leibniz resembles Malebranche, who may indeed have inspired the Leibnizian formulae. But according to Leibniz, ways and work are considered by God as whole, the elements of which cannot be separated so as to be varied differentially.9 In this case, the perfection of the ways and the perfection of the work, far from being opposite, are coincident. Hence, the God of Malebranche faces up to a choice which appears like a dilemma (the work or the ways), and the Oratorian consequently concludes that the maximal perfection of the combination obtained by sum is not coincident with the maximal perfection of either of the elements of this sum. As for Leibniz, he proposes to integrate the

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil

85

perfection of the ways into the perfection of the work, so that in his choice, God makes the work and the ways as perfect as possible. Thus, Leibniz maintains that our created world is really the best possible, and his disapproval of 'the opinion of some moderns who boldly maintain that what God makes is not of the highest perfection, and that he would have been able to do better' is an implicit criticism of 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 the relations among the attributes of God. The adoption of simple ways is basically explained by a distinction between God's understanding and will: the requirement of generality and simplicity of the ways which follows from God's wisdom determines the nature of his creative will, and thus conditions (more precisely, limits) the exercise of God's omnipotence. This point can be sharpened by an examination of what Malebranche calls God's permission of evil and disorder in the world. When the Oratorian tries to define God's intentional relationship with the physical evils and disorders in the world, he writes: 'God permits disorder, but he does not want it' (Dialogues ix, 9/OC 12, p. 212); or, in a more elaborated way: God makes monsters only in order to alter nothing in his action, only out of respect for the generality of his ways, only to follow exactly the laws of nature he has established and has nonetheless established not for the monstrous effects they must produce, but for those effects more worthy of his wisdom and goodness. For he wills 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 12 (Malebranche says 'in practice' [pratiquement]),12 the requirements of his wisdom force him to act by general volitions that produce effects not initially willed by him as such (that he did not 'want to bring about'),13 and thus to create 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/OC 8, p. 655) and does things that he did not want: 'these are effects of which one ought to say that God permits them because he does not will them positively and 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 the two at first glance have the same goal: to explain the existence of beings that are

86 Denis Moreau not as perfect as they would have been if they had been willed for their own sakes by God. For Leibniz, when God, by a 'consequent' will, 'permits' physical evil that he did not will 'antecedently,' this physical evil pertains to the series of compossibles which defines the best of worlds. Permission, and the distinction between antecedent and consequent will, are therefore justified cosmologically by the order of the world. For Malebranche, it is considerations which could be called 'theological' (the simplicity of divine ways), and not cosmological, which justify God's 'permission,' and explain the distinction between '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 what his wisdom dictates as being worthy of him - simplicity and generality of his ways - rather than to what would maximize the perfection of the created world and the beings that compose it. The justification of the 'principe de la simplicite des voies' lies in this determination and this restriction of the divine will by the requirements 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 of knowledge. It is surprising to see Malebranche describe the divine actions and make assured judgments, often pejorative, on their products. For an Oratorian priest, 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 God could have done better. But, to take Malebranche's point of view, there is nothing surprising about that, because of the vision in God: as we do see our ideas in God (that is to say, that our ideas are God's ideas), we are able to judge the action and the works of God, without being afraid of being deceived by our subjectivity: Were I not persuaded that all men are rational only because they are enlightened by the Eternal Wisdom, I would, without a doubt, be rash to speak about God's plans and to want to discover some of his ways in the production of his Work. But because it is certain that the Eternal Word is the universal Reason of minds, and that by the light that it shines on us incessantly we can all have some communication with God, I should not be blamed for consulting this Reason, which, although consubstantial with God himself, does not fail to answer those who know how to interrogate 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-

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil

87

ian or Leibnizian objection about our limited 'point of view': for Malebranche it is not 'rash' to judge, and in certain cases to criticize, the creative behaviour of God and its results. It is in a way from God's point of view that we pass these judgments. 2. Malebranche's Break with Classical Theodicy These principles are important for Malebranche, since they are what assures the solidity of his reflection on physical evil, and strongly connects this reflection with the rest of his system. But for us modern readers, it is above all the results of Malebranche's reflections on physical evil that are of interest, because of their originality. To show this originality, I propose a list of four points at which Malebranche breaks with the 'classical' Christian discourse on physical evil. I take Saint Augustine as the model of this classical discourse, while acknowledging that equivalent affirmations are to be found in Thomas Aquinas.15 Leibniz, too, arrived at similar conclusions, even if the steps which lead him to these conclusions 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 to say, an absence of being in a creature which is good in itself;16 hence, evil is a nonbeing, 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, it is essentially defective, no matter what purpose its maker had. In the same way, a monster is an imperfect work.' (Rep. Refl. m/OC 8, p. 770). To affirm in this way that a monster is an imperfect work is to refuse to locate its imperfection solely in an absence, or a lack, of good; it is to affirm that the work is in itself an evil. Malebranche thus does not admit that physical evil is outside the sphere of being; that is, he rejects the Augustinian view of the creature as a being that is good in itself, and evil only to the extent that it lacks some good. It could be objected that this interpretation of Malebranche's position exaggerates his opposition to Augustine and Thomas, which could in fact be reduced to a difference in point of view on the beings under consideration: The Oratorian takes privation to be an absence that devalues the affected being; the others would agree, but would insist on the being, and therefore the goodness, of the being 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, not only 'does not make the work of God more perfect,' but even, 'on the contrary,

88 Denis Moreau disfigures it' (Rep. Refl. m/OC 8, p. 765). This notion of disfigurement is essential here, and its numerous occurrences prove its importance for Malebranche in his mature work.17 It shows that the monster adds nothing to the perfection of the world, but that it renders it worse than it would otherwise be: the monster diminishes this perfection since it 'would be better that it [the monster] not be' (TNG i, 221OC 5, p. 36). This disfigurement of the world by the monster's presence in it signifies therefore the power to vitiate, the disorganizing capacity that evil beings and events have in creation. And since according to Malebranche the first axiom we apprehend is 'nothingness has no properties' (Dialogues i, HOC 12, p. 32), this disorganizing capacity or property shows that physical evils are, to use an expression Malebranche is fond of, 'worse than nothingness.' 18 Here Malebranche'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 nothingness, 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 the world, and conjointly the perfection of the universe.19 It is one of the functions of the famous Augustinian comparisons of the world to a picture or to a piece of music to insist on this global order of the cosmos, of which creatures sometimes deprived of being are constitutive elements.20 For his part, Malebranche challenges these ideas of the order and perfection of the world. He begins by contesting the notion that the created world is the best possible, insisting on the paradigmatic case of the monster: 'There are monsters whose deformity leaps to the eye ... A world made up of creatures who lack nothing that they ought to have is more perfect than a world full of monsters' (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 consider the visible world, it seems to me that I discover so many defects that I am once again moved to believe what I have heard said many times, that it is the work 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. I would reply boldly to philosophers who reason thus, What a consequence! ... All

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil

89

these disastrous effects that God allows in the universe are not at all necessary. And if there is black with the white, dissonance with the consonance, it is not because these give more force to the painting, and more sweetness to the harmony. What I mean is that, at bottom, all this does not render God's work more perfect. On the contrary, 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 physical disorders in creation: They judge wrongly, Lord, who find something displeasing in your creation' (Confessions vn, 14). Those who err in affirming that disorders, evils, are to be found in creation do so because their point of view on this creation is too limited, and because they accord too great an importance to their immediate experiences. This prevents them, according to Augustine, from showing the cognitive humility that would lead them to recognize that they do not perceive in detail the logic of all whose goodness they affirm.21 Or, as Leibniz would put it, from adopting at least tentatively the general and inclusive point of view which alone allows for correct judgments on creation: 'It is in the grand order that there is some small disorder; and it could even be said that this small 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 to regard as exact those judgments which, taking precautions against error, affirm its existence. There follows a modification of the response to the libertine objection 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 the validity of pejorative judgments that libertines make on creation; it must instead be shown that they are mistaken in arguing from these judgments, well-founded in 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 suffering of creatures. But their affirmations on the nature of physical evil create a gap between what we feel and what we understand, between what is experientially reported (about evil and disorder) and what is metaphysically explained (evil as non-being, the full reality of the goodness of being, and consequently the universal order). One is then led to differentiate levels of discourse (the experiential and the reflective), to attribute a distinct signification to them (the

90 Denis Moreau subjectively felt, the objectively known), and to arrange them in a hierarchy from the point of view of their truth. For Malebranche, by contrast, the metaphysics of evil and the experience of suffering coincide in the same affirmation of the imperfection of creation. Judgments on creation made in the immediacy of experience are therefore legitimate, 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, insists repeatedly on the 'visibility' of the evils he is speaking of: 'things being as they are'; 'It is a visible defect that an infant should come into the world with superfluous 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 Malebranche's theodicy is highly innovative in the way it breaks with the classical view, which denies the reality of evil, and posits or postulates the maximal order of the world, thought of as perfect or as the best possible. There is real originality is this, as compared with Leibniz, Fenelon, Bossuet, Descartes in the embryonic theodicy of the Fourth Meditation, and all the manuals of theology or philosophy of the second half of the seventeenth century that I have been able to consult, all of which at bottom revive the Augustinian-Thomistic solution. It remains to try to interpret this originality, to which Malebranche's commentators, 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 of Malebranche, Antoine Arnauld in the Philosophical and Theological Reflections ...,23 and Fran£ois Fenelon in his Refutation of the System of Father Malebranche on Nature and Grace?* I do not wish to trace in detail their critique of the theodicy of Malebranche, but only to remark that both Arnauld and Fenelon raise the same objection, that the Oratorian adopts a position like that of the Manichaeans 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 and Theological Reflections: It is certain at least that St. Augustine was pained to hear,anyone speaking so crudely of the disorders and irregularities that are supposed to be observable in the

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil 91 works of God. He believed that the Manichaeans had drawn a great advantage from these sorts of views. It is what he always had to deny constantly against these heretics, that there could be any other evil in nature than that which draws its origin from the free will of rational creatures; that is, sin and concupiscence which is the fruit and the root of it ... Thus it is indubitable that the Saint regarded as a blasphemy against the power and wisdom of God to take for true irregularities and true disorders what appears to be such to the limited human soul.25

Fenelon tends in the same direction. For his part, he compares Malebranche to the Manichaeans, who 'believe that certain beings are evil by their nature and that evil is something real and positive.'26 'He [Malebranche] favours, without meaning to, the heresy of the Manichaeans and of the Marcionites, their predecessors. They said that the work of creation is not good, and it was that which Jesus Christ, sent by the good principle, made reparation for.'27 Taken literally, these comparisons surely seem unjustified, or justified only as part of a polemic against Malebranche and not as part of an attempt to arrive at 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 situated outside of the good and combating it. But for Malebranche, this limitation is an effect of the demands of divine wisdom. In the attempt to preserve some relevance for the comparison drawn by Arnauld and Fenelon (while granting that nothing in Malebranche could be identified as an evil principle), one could at most speak of an 'intra-divine' Manichaeism, interiorized in God, the latter being in himself his own principle of limitation. But the comparison then seems crude and unacceptable.29 But it is necessary first of all to recover the context of this critique, that is, to pay attention to the sense of the word 'Manichaean' in the mind of Arnauld and of Fenelon. In the seventeenth century, Manichaeism was not what we know today, thanks to the discoveries and the research since the end of the nineteenth century: a religion unto itself, with its own institutions and rites, and its dogmas organized in a coherent manner. It can also be supposed that the knowledge which Arnauld and Fenelon had of Manichaeism did not go much beyond the presentation, itself a simplification, to be found in Saint Augustine.30 Thus, for a theologian of the 1680s, Manichaeism was essentially a dualist heresy maintaining the existence of an evil principle combating God, and according a positive existence to evil. This having been stated, the accusation of Manichaeism levelled against Malebranche is more understandable. If Arnauld and Fenelon believed they could identify in him what they considered the Manichaean 'heresy,' this is surely not because the thought of the Oratorian was according to them a revival

92 Denis Moreau of the doctrine which defined Mani and his disciples in the third century. That accusation is absurd. But for Arnauld and Fenelon, a heresy is also, and perhaps especially, a 'deviation' of thought which can recur in many forms, and whose eponymous, historically datable form is only one particular concretization among others. The claim of parallelism signifies then that Malebranche, although an avowed Cartesian who uses philosophical tools that have nothing to do with those of the Manichaeans, had developed the same tendencies (or succumbed to the 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 Manichaean, that is, to determine whether Arnauld and Fenelon are right to see their interpretation as a critique. But their interpolation helps to clarify the scope of Malebranche's theodicy, and to make more precise the place it occupies among the different theodicies of the seventeenth century. 3.2. Between Leibniz and Macbeth The second line of interpretation approaches the theodicy of Malebranche in a more internal manner. It has to do with the understanding of Malebranche's project. At the same time that he gives a positive ontological status to evil, Malebranche 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 perfection of creation had the implication that justifications for physical evil had to be found: a pain is a punishment (causal justification) or an ordeal which prepares something better (final justification). In this context, and to revive an expression used by Malebranche, the 'physical' conforms perfectly with the 'moral.' One can say there is a bijective correspondence between the order of pain and the order of meaning. Leibniz is a good example of such a position: Physical evil, that is sorrows, sufferings, miseries, will be less troublesome to explain, since they are results of moral evil. Poena est malum passionis, quod infllgitur ob malum actionis, according to Grotius. One suffers because one has acted; one suffers evil because one does evil: nostrorum causa malorum nos sumus. It is true that one often suffers through the evil actions of others; but when one has no part in the offence, one must look upon it as certainty that these sufferings prepare us a greater happiness. (Theodicy, sec. 241)

Malebranche diverges from these conclusions. It is in the best of worlds that the two orders correspond perfectly. An instance of suffering would always be either a punishment or a moment to be followed by something better; and, in a

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil 93 similar way, it may be thought, an instance of happiness would always be a recompense, 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 as perfectly organized as it could have been, things do not always go that way. Malebranche certainly does not occupy a position radically opposed to that of Augustine and Leibniz. Since our world is not, after all, the worst of all possible worlds, it can be thought to be globally organized; that is, the majority of events that constitute it happen in the ordered course of an individual or collective history. But as the immanent organization of the world is partially sacrificed to the simplicity of the divine ways, there sometimes occur those events that Malebranche 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 the wicked indifferently ... one who goes to the aid of a poor person is destroyed in the ruins, he who seeks vengeance finds no resistance' (Reponse au livre de Monsieur Arnauld ... OC 6, p. 40). These are the events that are good for nothing 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 virtue of the order in which they occur. Malebranche therefore tries to occupy an intermediate position. It is not the position of those who affirm that all is good and meaningful. Nor is it the position of those who abandon the course of the world and our lives to a sovereign chance, seeing there, like Macbeth, 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' Malebranche tries to build a system which postulates a meaningful global orientation of the world and our lives, but also maintains there, like 'gaps of intelligibility,' spasms of meaninglessness in which there is nothing 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 present these histories as ordained totalities in which all events are integrated and justified in some way. Since certain events in these histories are lacking in immanent justification, Malebranche can conceive, at the level of the world, precisely what 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 in certain cases allows us, when suffering, to say without nuance or qualification, 'It's evil.' Moreover, and paradoxically, this thinker, famous as a 'metaphysician,' is perhaps the only Cartesian who gives a full ontological value to the sensation of pain. According to Malebranche, one can go from the affirmation

94 Denis Moreau 'this seems evil to me' to the affirmation 'it is evil.' So, this unusual theodicy appears 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 his contemporaries (Arnauld, Fenelon, Bossuet), and some theoretical problems which eventually make his whole system precarious. Arnauld's criticisms about miracles provide a good example of these difficulties. Arnauld argues that when one affirms, as Malebranche does, that the laws that govern the universe have been 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, how there can be exceptions to these laws.33 Malebranche is sensitive to this objection and tries to respond to it, even if he is obviously in a bad position, theoretically speaking. After 1685, he explains that God permits a miracle, that is, acts by a particular volition, when the global perfection of the compound of work and ways is so threatened by an imperfection in the work that it would be better for God in this case to abandon generality of ways in order to increase the perfection of the work and maintain the optimal perfection of the whole.34 Arnauld then asks why, if God is able to act by particular volitions, he does not always do so.35 Malebranche, who manifestly does not want a return to particular volitions, responds in a series of defences that insist once again on the generality of the divine ways. 'I claim that it is very rare for God to act by particular volitions' (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 apparently unimportant correction of his theory of the generality of the divine ways. But these corrections, apparently harmless at first glance, in fact imply, if all the consequences are drawn out, a modification of the Malebranchian conception of divine action. And this modification, in turn, seems to require abandoning the principle of the simplicity of ways, re-establishing the principle of particular divine volitions, and, in the last resort, abandoning the ideas of immanent disorder and the reality of evil. In the texts of the polemic with Arnauld, Malebranche thus seems to oscillate between the reformulations with which he parries Arnauld's attacks, with all their structural implications, and the will not to deviate from his initial view.36 Malebranche was not unable to see these difficulties, if only because his adversaries reminded him of them relentlessly. But, all the same, he never abandoned the theme of the simplicity of ways. This painful situation for the Oratorian, and his obstinate refusal to escape from it, can be interpreted in two ways. First, we can consider Malebranchism as logically inconsistent and philosophically insufficient. This is what Arnauld, Fenelon, and, with a little less

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil

95

aggressiveness, Leibniz did. In this case, Malebranche is more blind and mulish than courageous. We have to renounce his theodicy, and come back to the serene coherence of a more classical account. Or, second, we can consider Malebranche's obstinacy as the expression of the fruitful audacity of a thinker who forces himself out of his intellectual tradition, and who tries to develop his original intuition (the positivity of evil and disorder) by creating new principles and concepts. If one appreciates Malebranche's courage and judges that he was able, in spite of all the difficulties, to carry his project off, one must then insist on the atypical character of his theodicy, to my knowledge without equivalent among the 'great rationalists' of the seventeenth century. So interpreted, Malebranche's theodicy does not seem to be characteristic of 'early modern philosophy.' The Oratorian seems more like a precursor of the thinkers who succeeded him, above all Voltaire, with his challenge to the Leibnizian theme of the best of all 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 Simone Weil and Hans Jonas, whose reflections resemble Malebranche's view that in the 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 under the title 'Malebranche, le desordre et le mal physique: et noluit consolari,' in the collection La legerete de I'etre: Etudes sur Malebranche, ed. B. Pinchard (Paris: Vrin, 1998). I wish to express my warm thanks to Michael Latzer and Elmar Kremer for their generous help in the translation of this paper. 1 All references to Malebranche are to the Oeuvres completes de Malebranche (designated by OQ, ed. Andre Robinet, 20 vols (Paris: Vrin-CNRS 1958-70). I use the following abbreviations: TNG = Treatise on Nature and Grace (OC 5); Dialogues = Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion (OC 12); Rep. Refl. = Reponse au Livre i des Reflexions 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 son experience religieuse (Paris: Vrin, 1926), pp. 40-93; M. Gueroult, Malebranche (Paris: Aubier, 1955-9), vol. 2, pp. 137-207; P. Riley, The General Will before Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 64-137; A. Robinet,

96 Denis Moreau Systeme et existence dans I'oeuvre de Malebranche (Paris: Vrin, 1965), pp. 17-44 and 68-113. 3 See Dialogues ix, 10/0C 12, pp. 213-14: 'God wills that his work honor him ... But note that God does not will that his ways dishonour him ... God wills that his action as well as his work bear the character of his attributes. Not content that the universe honours 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 his work: he does not do by very complex means that which he can execute by more simple ones ... It follows from this that God, who discovers among the infinite treasures of his wisdom an infinitude of possible worlds ... determines himself to create that which could be produced and conserved by the most simple laws, or which must be the most perfect, relative to the simplicity of ways necessary for its production or conservation.' The beginning of this text could make one think that Malebranche posits a given and invariant work for which God seeks the simplest ways of production. The later texts (see p. 83) make it more explicit that the perfection of the work is subject to variation. Moreover, it is not easy to understand what Malebranche means by 'simplicity' of ways: if these 'ways' are identified with laws of the world, it could be said first off that these laws are 'simple' because not numerous from the point of view of their quantity, universal from the point of view of their extension, and constant 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 in defining the meaning of 'generality' in the expression 'general volitions.' See the discussion on this point in S. Nadler, 'Occasionalism and General Will in Malebranche,' 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 that he ought also to have regard for the greatness and the beauty of the design. Also he ought not form the design of the most beautiful work which he can, absolutely speaking: for he ought to have regard for the simplicity of ways. But he ought always to form the design of the most beautiful work which he can execute by the most simple ways...' 6 If x stands for the perfection of the work and y for that of the ways, then for both sets of terms 2x + y = 18; but in that case, the maximal value of the total perfection is obtained by x = 0 and y = 18, and this is certainly not the outcome that Malebranche wants. If a multiplicative law is sought, it is verifiable that (x — 5)y = 6, so that with x > 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 the Discourse on Metaphysics during 1685-6. On the similarities of the beginning of

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil 97

9

10

11 12 13

14 15

16 17 18

these texts, see the Comparative Table of Sequences of Texts of the Traite de la nature et de la grace and the Discours de metaphysique made by A. Robinet in Malebranche 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 on Metaphysics must be qualified. The Confessio Philosophi (1673) already contains the 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 the subsequent correspondence between the two authors (given in Robinet, cited above) shows clearly their disagreement, even if Leibniz tries to minimize it with his customary irenic civility. (See also the attempted reconciliation proposed in Theodicy, sec. 208.) 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, and simplicity joined to fecundity of ways forms a part of the excellence of the work.' For more precise comparisons of these two theodicies, see S. Nadler 'Choosing a Theodicy: The Leibniz-Malebranche-Arnauld Connection,' Journal of the History of Ideas 55 (1994): 573-89, and 'Tange monies et fumigabunt: Arnauld face aux theodicees 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 Etudes philosophiques (1981): 279-92. See Rep. Refl. \, HOC 8, p. 651: 'God wills in particular everything which conforms to order, everything which perfects his work.' See TNG, me Eclaircissement, 6/OC 5, p. 180; and Rep. Refl. I, HOC 8, p. 655. 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 also Rep. Refl. i, 1/0C8, p. 651. In the republication of 1712, Malebranche adds an important clarification: 'God's wisdom renders him in a sense [pour ainsi dire] impotent.' This is why I will sometimes speak of 'Augustino-Thomism.' For Saint Thomas, I have used the following: Summa Theologiae la, quest. 47 and 48; Summa contra Gentiles HI, ch. 5 to ch. 9; De Malo; and the Compendium Theologiae, ch. 114 to 120. See Augustine, Confessions vn, 12; City ofGodxn, 5; Enchiridion, iv, 12. The microfiche index of the Oeuvres de Malebranche (Paris, Vrin, 1990), fiche 8, col. 12, indicates eleven occurrences of the term. Malebranche often uses this expression (microfiche 27, col. 8, shows twelve occurrences), but to my knowledge it only serves to describe the state in which the sinner finds himself. However, it seems to me that this expression could be applied, without

98 Denis Moreau being unfaithful to the thought of the Oratorian, to physical evils insofar as they are disfigurements 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's Theodicy,' Journal of the History of Philosophy 35 [1997]: 27^4). For their part, contemporary readers of Malebranche (Arnauld, Fenelon, Bossuet) better perceived this specificity of the theodicy of the Oratorian. 23 This has to do, no doubt, with the 'great' anti-Malebranchian text of Arnauld, published in 1685-6 and entirely directed against the Traite de la nature et de la grace. It is found in volume 39, pp. 155-856, of the Oeuvres d'Arnauld, called the 'Edition de Lausanne,' 43 volumes (Paris and Lausanne: Sigismond d'Arnay, 1775-83). I have studied the refutation of the Malebranchian theodicy proposed in this work in detail in 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: Charpentier, 1843). On Fenelon and Malebranche, see H. Gouhier, Fenelon philosophe (Paris: Vrin, 1977), pp. 33^10; F. Bouillier, Histoire de la philosophie cartesienne, 3rd ed., 2 vols (Paris: Delagrave, 1868), vol. 2, ch. 14; A.R. Desautels, 'Fenelon critique de Malebranche: En marge de Malebranche et le quietisme du P. de Montcheuil,' Revue thomiste 53 (1953): 347-66; and Riley, The General Will before Rousseau, pp. 74-9. The criticisms of Fenelon are often very close to those of Arnauld. 25 Reflexions philosophiques et theologiques i, ch. 6, pp. 225-6. See also, in the same sense, ch. 2, p. 203. 26 Refutation du systeme du Pere Malebranche, ch. 3, p. 309. The continuation of the text 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 la ple"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-

Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil

30

31

32

33

99

thing like it ('Marcionism'), is frequently levelled against Malebranche. But one must recognize the ease with which thinkers of the time recognized the seeds of heresies in the doctrines of their adversaries. In the Preface of the Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion (OC 12, p. 21), Malebranche reports that Faydit had compared him to the 'Marcionites, Appeletians, and Valentinians'; finally, an anonymous Dictionary of Heresies (Paris: Nyon-Barrois-Didot, 1762), vol. n, pp. 319-21, again mentions the name of Malebranche, although to vindicate him as an opponent of Bayle, in the article 'Manicheisme.' For a contemporary comparison of Malebranche with a gnostic type of position, see N. Depraz, 'De la phenomenologie de la perception a la gnose transcendantale,' in La legerete de I'etre: Etudes sur Malebranche, ed. B. Pinchard (Paris: Vrin, 1998), pp. 219-33. We recall that Arnauld translated the De vera religione of Augustine (Oeuvres d'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 of Protestant Churches, by Bossuet (text of 1688, volume xiv of the Oeuvres completes, 31 vols [Paris: Vives, 1862-6]), constitutes a good example of what a theologian 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.) This frightening term is utilized in the xve Eclaircissement of the Recherche de la verite (OC 3, p. 219): the Oratorian recognizes that when a house collapses on a good man it is 'a great evil.' He explains that since 'God does not multiply his volitions to remedy real or apparent disorders which are the necessary consequence of natural laws ... he ought to neglect little things.' The term is equally applied to the order of grace in TNG n, 17 additions/OC5, p. 77. It could be objected here that my reading is too narrowly 'philosophical,' and that it neglects 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 are more complex for Malebranche. To be sure, for the Oratorian certain physical sufferings 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 could therefore see in these sufferings punishments or trials inflicted on man in the postlapsarian state (see, in this sense, Meditations chretiennes vn 12, p. 73, and Dialogues xn, 11-15). But if the place of the unjustifiable could thus be 'reduced' in the world as Malebranche sees it, it cannot be suppressed, for all that. Once the world was created, and before sin, God acted, in fact, by general volitions. If Adam had not sinned, one of his descendants could therefore have been mutilated by a stone pushed by a blast of wind. This critique can be found developed in the text entitled Dissertation ... sur la

100 Denis Moreau

34

35 36

37

38

maniere dont Dieu a fait des miracles ..., vol. 39, pp. 673-741, of the Oeuvres d'Arnauld. This argument is developed for the first time, in a very discreet manner, in the Reponse a une dissertation de Monsieur ArnauId (1685), ch. 3, and abridged in Dialogues xn, \2IOC 12, p. 293. In 1685-6, in the Reflexions philosophiques et theologiques... 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 and Malebranche concerning miracles and providence, which I have briefly sketched here, see my Deux cartesiens, chapters 8 and 9, and section 4.2 of my article The Malebranche-Arnauld Debate,' in The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, ed. S. Nadler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). The influence of Malebranche on Voltaire has already been more or less established. See, for example, J. Deprun, 'Le dictionnaire philosophique et Malebranche,' in Annales 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 Language Review 75 (1980): 282-90; and I.O. Wade, The Intellectual Development of Voltaire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 711-19. 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 distance entre le necessaire et le bien' from La pesanteur et la grace (Paris: Plon, 1947); on Hans Jonas, Der Gottesbegriffnach Auschwitz (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1984), especially the end of the text devoted to a critical examination of the 'classical concept' of divine omnipotence.

nm

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, as one that arises independently of religious faith. It was Epicurus, after all, who gave the problem its classic formulation. It is the Christian conception of God, however, that gives the problem its greatest urgency, but with the result of restricting its interest, at least for some. Motivation for investigating the problem 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 about God is more widely relevant when understood as talk about the world. For Descartes, it is divine power that is most prominent. God is omnipotent even to the point that he is the 'total and efficient' cause of the eternal truths. On this conception of God, the model for understanding the world is political. Regal metaphors abound as Descartes construes the relation between God and creation as that between a king and his realm.1 To use the technical language of theology, nothing has absolute necessity; the only necessity is ordained. The upshot is a perhaps surprising empiricism at a very deep level that was played out by such Cartesians as Desgabets and Regis.2 Only experience can disclose the content and extent of royal decrees. For Leibniz, these Cartesians unwittingly destroy God's love and glory by making 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 that predominates for Leibniz. This is to say that the world is rational and in principle knowable a priori. The drift is toward Spinozism, the view that the world is

102 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon necessary in all its features. The struggle between the Cartesian and Leibnizian conceptions is played out most notably in Malebranche, without notable resolution. But there is a third position. For Bayle, the most prominent divine attribute is goodness: 'It is manifest to anyone who reasons, that God is a most perfect being, and that of all perfections, none is more essential to him than goodness, holiness and justice.' Bayle, too, rejects the Cartesian position, but for reasons rather different from the philosophical 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, malicious, unjust and cruel Being: he can longer be an object of worship ... when an object is dreaded only because it has the power and will of doing harm, and exercises that power cruelly and unmercifully, it must needs be hated and detested: this can be no religious worship.'4 A condition even for adorability of God is a moral relation to him. And it is in primarily moral terms that Bayle understands the world. Elizabeth Labrousse, the doyenne of Bayle scholarship, makes two important points in the course of her discussion of the problem of evil. The moral outlook of Bayle emphasizes these points and shows how they are related. First, the concept of good is for Bayle univocal. No analogical account from him, which would so isolate the transcendent God that dialogue with him would become impossible. Thus, 'it must not be claimed that the goodness of the infinite being is not subject to the same rules as the goodness of the creature; for if there is in God an attribute that can be termed goodness, the characteristics of goodness in general must belong to it.'5 The second point is Bayle's rejection of the neo-Plotinian account of evil in terms of plenitude and the best of all possible worlds. This is his rejection before the fact of Leibniz's theodicy: 'God could have made things otherwise than he has made them in a hundred different ways, all worthy of his infinite perfection; for without that he would have had no freedom and would not have differed from the God of the Stoics, chained by an inevitable destiny, a dogma which is hardly better than Spinozism.'6 The failure of the neo-Plotinian account 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 point of view of the totality when considering the machine of the universe, and thus to admire unreservedly the simplicity and fecundity of the laws governing extension, 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 view remains privileged since it constitutes for him an ultimate and irreducible experience. 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 to struggle with God and to demand of Him an account of the misery [malheur] of existence.'7 The struggle and demand are these: if 'good' applies to man and to God univocally, and if God could have created other worlds than this one, then we can argue with him as did the prophets over what he does. A deep-seated fear for Bayle, and the fundamental reason why the problem of evil must be in some sense resolved, is that God might not be good, and that the horrible lament of Christ reported by Matthew 26:24 (also Mark 14:21) may not be true just of Judas but of everyone: better for him never to have been. This is no abstract issue 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 problem of evil, despite the fact that his examination of Bishop King's thought on the matter in the Reponse aux questions d'un provincial forms perhaps the longest continuous discussion of the issue. The Dictionary provides Bayle with the opportunity to address the problem from different perspectives and in different contexts, something which is not true of the extended discussion in the Reponse. Perhaps the most important of these contexts is Bayle's treatment of a number of heresies which might all be loosely styled 'Manichaean.' These heretical groups - Marcionites and Paulicians particularly - though they may not have had any historical connection to the Manichees, nevertheless share with them the view that the world as it exists is best accounted for on the hypothesis of two, coeval powers, one good, one evil. While engaged in the task of assessing the truth or falsity of the many errors and immoralities with which these 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 minority religious sect branded heretical by the majority, Bayle would have been particularly sensitive to attempts on the part of orthodox religionists to portray the heterodox as not only mistaken, but pernicious and immoral as well. However, as one who had both converted and reverted, from Protestantism to Catholicism and back, Bayle would have had a deeper appreciation than many of his contemporaries of the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments which motivate the conscious adoption of a religious view. He would have been sensitive as well to the certainty and doubt which accompany religious belief. It should come as no surprise, then, both that heresy and heterodoxy are favourite subjects of the Dictionary, and that Bayle uses his discussion of these to examine the intellectual source of the attachment to these erroneous doctrines.

104 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon The linchpin of this discussion is, of course, the 'Manichees' entry. The elements which plunged Bayle into controversy in his own time, and which have since made him an enigma to many, appear very early in the entry. While he expresses what must have been an approved sentiment - '[The Manichees] taught such doctrines, as ought to inspire us with the greatest horror' - he follows this immediately with a judgment that must have seemed equally unorthodox: Their weakness did not consist, as at first it may seem, in their doctrine of two principles, one good, and the other bad; but in the particular explications they gave of it, and in the practical consequences they drew from it.'10 It was the position of many ecclesiastical writers that heresy, if not demonstrably false, was inherently weak and incapable of standing up to competition from the true religion.11 But Bayle's position is the negation of this one. Not only is it the case that Manichaean dualism is a more compelling doctrine than it is given credit for being, but '[i]t was a happy thing, that St. Augustine, who understood so well all the arts of controversy, abandoned the Manichean heresy; for he would have removed its grossest errors and framed such a system, as, by his management, would have puzzled the Orthodox.'12 What is compelling about the doctrine is how neatly it accounts for the existence of moral evil. This is a failing, on the other hand, of the orthodox view, as Bayle remarks in a pretended dialogue between Melissus and Zoroaster: 'since the principal character of a good system is to account for what experience teaches us, and that the bare incapacity 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 two principles, and that you have not hit it, by admitting but one.'13 It seems, therefore, that on rational grounds alone, the orthodox view and the heretical view are at a standoff: a priori reasons favour the orthodox and a posteriori reasons favour the Manichees. Further, as Bayle argues, 'every system requires these two things to make it good; one, that the ideas of it be distinct; the other that it accounts for what experience teaches us.'14 If both kinds of reason are rationally required, and the orthodox view can lay claim to only one of them, it seems that there 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 on heresy, we should not see Bayle as attempting to revive the cause of this or any other heresy. His commitment to the truth of his religion is unwavering. It is just that, for Bayle, a purely rational defence of the orthodox view is fruitless. Reason 'can only discover to man his ignorance and weakness'; 'it is a principle of destruction, and not of edification; it is only fit to start doubts, and to turn itself all manner of ways, to perpetuate a dispute.'15 It cannot, in the end, provide a solution to the problem of moral evil. For this 'it is necessary to have recourse

Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil

105

to revelation'16; in scripture 'we find what is sufficient to refute unanswerably the hypothesis of two principles, and all the objections of Zoroaster.'17 In particular, the use of the existence of moral evil as an argument against an infinitely wise and good God is obviated by revelation: 'Let anyone tell us with a pompous shew of arguments, that it was not possible that moral evil should introduce itself into the world by the work of a principle infinitely good and holy; we shall answer, 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 the goodness of God is compatible with the existence of moral evil, despite the 'pompous shew of arguments' which the problem of evil engenders. This is the theme which runs through all of Bayle's discussion in the Dictionary; it forms the core of his approach in nearly every article where the issue arises, and it explains why Bayle so systematically undermines every proposed solution to the problem of evil. In the Marcionites entry, for instance, Bayle examines an argument that claims to show the compatibility of God's goodness with evil by claiming that human free will constrains God's ability to prevent evil. Bayle claims that there are several mistakes in this argument. Chief among these mistakes is this: that it is part of the nature of a finite, created being that it be free to sin. But 'a creature does not become a God, because it is determined to good, and is deprived of that which you call free will.' 19 What shows this is the orthodox belief that the blessed in heaven are incapable of sin in virtue of a necessary goodness, and yet their love of God in this state (which necessitates their goodness) is not of the same 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 the apparent dilemma. To take another example, in the Paulicians entry it is argued that 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 argument he examines is that good would appear unattractive without its opposite, evil. But this, he thinks, depends on a specious principle - that unmixed or simple properties cannot by themselves or in isolation be the objects of cognition or perception. The fact that one can imagine, or even have experienced, for example, a single shade of blue occupying the whole of one's visual field, is enough to show that the principle is false. Yet another argument is that finite, created, material things necessarily involve evil. Bayle refutes this argument by pointing out that what is created truly ex nihilo cannot act as a constraint on the power of its creator.20 The failure of these arguments to provide a solution points in only one direction: 'Revelation is the only magazine of the arguments, with which we must oppose these people: it is by this means only, that we are able to refute the pre-

106 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon tended eternity of an ill principle.'21 The theme is even more forcefully argued in the Paulicians entry: 'we must not engage with the Manichees, till we have before all things laid down the doctrine of the exaltation of faith, and the abasing of reason';22 and later: 'We must humbly acknowledge that Philosophy is here at a stand, and that it's [sic] weakness ought to lead us to the light of revelation, where we shall find a sure and stedfast anchor';23 and later again: 'The doctrine which the Manichees oppose, ought to be looked upon by the orthodox, 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 it from the beginning, and stop there, and look upon the objections of Philosophers as a vain wrangling, and oppose nothing to them but silence, together with the shield of faith.'24 The aim, therefore, of Bayle's treatment of the problem of evil is to show that no solution to it is possible, at least not if we construe 'solution' as requiring the rational demonstration of how evil can exist in harmony with God's goodness. If we appeal 'only to philosophical ideas,' then 'the best answer that can be naturally returned to the question, Why did God permit that men should sin? is this, I do not know, I only believe that he had some reasons for it very worthy of his infinite wisdom, but they are incomprehensible to me.'25 Dismay with Bayle's approach led the Walloon Church of Rotterdam to require him to provide an 'explanation' of his remarks on the Manichees, Marcionites, and Paulicians.26 This explanation involves for the most part only a reiteration of the claims made in the earlier remarks. New, however, is a defence of the approach: Bayle's strategy is to show that not only are the faithful at a disadvantage in a philosophical dispute concerning evil (a claim already made in the remarks), but that there is a real advantage to be gained by refusing to engage in such dispute. His first attempt at such a defence is a weak one: 'It would be against the nature of things, for [the mysteries of the gospel] to come off victorious from [the test of philosophical disputes], their essential character is to be the objects of faith, and not of science: they would be no longer mysteries, if reason could solve all the difficulties of them.'27 It is clearly not much of a defence of religious mysteries to claim that they would cease to be mysteries if they were amenable to rational defence, for what is at issue is not their status as mysteries but their content. Yet Bayle's general defence seems to gain force the deeper he proceeds into it, in the way that a country preacher might crank up his fervour in the course of his sermon. The defence provided later in the explanation is altogether more sophisticated and far more interesting, for it involves clarifying the difference between faith and reason. The difference, says Bayle, 'betwixt the faith of a Christian and the science of a Philosopher' is this: 'this faith produces a complete certainty, but its object still remains inevident; sci-

Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil

107

ence, on the contrary, at once produces the evidence of the object, and a complete certainty of persuasion.'28 Notice that the difference is cashed out, not, as is usually the case, as a difference in how belief is produced (i.e., by evidence as opposed to by revelation), but in the kind of belief that results. Granted, the result is a belief which is immune to rational criticism, but unlike what might be thought of as the standard distinction, a reason can be offered for this immunity which is not reducible to obstinacy or blindness: 'as the highest degree of evidence has this property, that it cannot be proved, the lowest degree of inevidence has this destiny, that it cannot be attacked.'29 Just as self-evidence is a virtue and not a vice of fundamental principles, so is immunity to rational criticism 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 have been, an attempted solution to the problem of evil. The denial of divine foreknowledge by the Socinians cannot have been motivated by any other reason. Moreover, the denial was one that was argued from a plausibly Christian perspective. To be sure, they were regarded by virtually everyone as wildly heretical; certainly Bayle took them to be anti-Christian.30 Still, the God of Abraham and Isaac was one who constantly showed surprise in dealing with his chosen people. Indeed, such a possibility may be required by what Bayle himself takes to be the dialogical relation between us and God. How could God have argued in good faith with his prophets? Alas, it is very difficult to define the term 'Socinianism' in a way that remains informative and yet captures its use in this period. For it functioned primarily as a term of abuse, applied to anyone perceived not to assign faith its proper place. Just as anyone who did not have a proper conception of God was viewed as an atheist, so anyone who did not carve out the domain of faith to specification 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 the Dictionary.31 A not irrelevant curiosity is that Socinus is still another of the Bayle surrogates to be found there: individuals driven from their native land for religious reasons of conscience. It will be useful to begin with a brief account of the biography of this colourful character. Faustus Socinus was born Fausto Sozzini in Sienna in 1539. Like Peter Waldo four centuries earlier, he spent at least a brief period as a merchant in Lyons, where he seems to have received letters from his uncle Lelio filled with heterodox theological views. He returned to Italy and spent twelve years in the Florentine court under Cosimo i. But he became convinced that, apart from the-

108 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon ology, he was wasting his time. Eventually, he was forced by his heterodox views to leave Italy for Switzerland, where between 1574 and 1578 he produced two of his most important works, on Christ the Redeemer and the condition of man before the fall. He then spent time in Transylvania, embroiled in theological disputes, before reaching Poland, the so-called 'asylum and refuge of heretics.' In Poland, he was a fellow-traveller of the Unitarians, known as the Polish Brethren, eventually becoming their effective leader. His writing continued, with works on the authority of Scripture and other topics. On two occasions, he nearly lost his life because of his views, once at the hands of an angry mob of students. Ultimately, he found protection among certain sympathetic members of the Polish nobility. He died in Luslawice, in 1604. Bayle and Socinus clearly have different versions of what is called the Christian anthropology. Basically, this is to say that they have different historical accounts of human nature. As a result of this difference, they have very different moral and political views. Bayle's views are relatively well known. He is, if you will, a law and order conservative, who even as a refugee in Holland after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes advocated strict obedience to Louis xi v as the only hope of Huguenot security. Other refugees like Jurieu were attempting to foment revolution, but Bayle's position was argued on recognizably Calvinist grounds. He is an anti-rationalist pessimist who finds original sin utterly corrupting and therefore the need for Redemption satisfiable by no less than God himself. He therefore accepts the divinity of Christ, and, rather by default, the Trinity. 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 not stripped of freedom, at least deprived of any efficaciousness. Socinus is a pacifist anarchist,32 whose optimism is grounded in a denial of original sin as contrary to reason, the only rule of religious faith.33 With no original sin, there is no need to regard Christ as other than figuratively divine (thus viewing Christ in the way that the Calvinists view the Eucharist). The role of Christ is not to atone for sin, but to set an example of how to be saved. He has special knowledge, immortality, and power, though not omnipotence, which belongs only to God. Although the Redemption is thus dramatically recast, the Resurrection of Christ is needed to prove the truth of his teaching, which is required for salvation. (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 traditional 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 foreknowledge of future contingents would make him a Deus otiosus and remove from 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

Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil

109

different from Bayle's Calvinist understanding of it. Faith is conceived by Socinus in rather Pelagian terms as a matter of free choice to lead the moral life, that is, to obey God's commands, that is, to live in the imitation of Christ. Though perfectly 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 a grace. This grace is granted to those and those only, who, made aware of the reward, not only accept that it is true, but also prepare to reject wickedness and be wholly obedient to God's commandments, and then persist in their pious purpose.'34 The necessary certitude is based in confidence (fiducia, confidencid) that God will make good on his promises of reward. Though described as a grace, this certitude seems open to all as a matter of will, since the 'substance and form' of justification by faith is obedience: we freely will to follow reason in 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 love virtue, they simply perish. Eternal damnation, hell-fire, etc., are just metaphors, which, if taken literally, would mean that God makes mortal man immortal only in order to punish him. This would be contrary to reason. In his article on Socinus, Bayle shows himself most interested in the sociopolitical history of Socinianism. His longest remark details the accusation of Socinianism lodged against Arnauld by Jurieu, which Bayle finds preposterous.36 He is also very interested in the question of the likely spread of the views of the Socinians, whether persecution helps their chances, and whether their anarcho-pacifist views hurt them.37 Another question treated at length is the reception given Socinianism in Holland, which was surprisingly unfriendly and intolerant.38 Only in bits and pieces does Bayle's view of the Socinian doctrine itself emerge: '... the Socinians destroyed all Christianity, the resurrection of the dead, the hopes of eternal life';39 The eternity of matter, God's extension, the limitation 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 shall observe, by the bye, that nothing has proved more prejudicial to the Socinians than a certain doctrine which they have thought very proper to remove the greatest difficulty a Philosopher can find in our Theology. A thinking man, who only consults his reason, and the bright idea of infinite goodness, which, morally speaking, makes up the principal character of the divine nature, will be offended at what we read in Scripture concerning the eternity of hell torments.' As he does elsewhere, Bayle here insists on divine goodness, confirmed, he thinks, by both faith and reason: And therefore so long as a man shall adhere to his natural reason, and not humbly

110 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon submit to some passages in the gospel, he will look with abhorrence upon that doctrine of the infinite torments and punishments of the whole human race, except only a few. The Socinians, relying too much on reason, have limited those torments, so much the more carefully because they considered that men would be made to suffer only for suffering's sake, since no advantage would accrue from those torments to the sufferers or the spectators - a thing never done by any well mtentioned legislature. They hoped to bring over to Christianity by that means those, who are offended by a notion that seems little consistent with the supreme goodness. But those Heretics were not aware that this very thing would make them more 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 hell torments.41

Although he does not say so in this article, Bayle agrees with Socinus and his followers on two very important points. He agrees, first, that the denial of divine foreknowledge, of eternal damnation, etc., is as well as one can do rationally with respect to the problem of evil. (Although this is not to say that Bayle thinks the problem is thereby solved. As he makes clear in the Paulicians article, God should have been able to predict on the basis of her thoughts that Eve was about to sin, and certainly, after her sin, that Adam would do the same.) An indication of this is to be found in Bayle's criticism of the attempt by King to justify God's alleged creation of human freedom of indifference, given the prospect of the ill use of it. King attempts to exculpate God by describing the ill use of freedom as merely possible. Bayle responds with a typical example: imagine a group of mothers who allow their daughters to attend a ball unchaperoned; the woman whose daughter is seduced may be excused if the daughter was thought to be strong enough to withstand the seduction, but not if she was inexperienced. 'A Socinian, who sees in this a rather delicate objection, can nonetheless say that the success of the temptation was uncertain and the hopes false.' King cannot say this, of course, because he does not deny God's foreknowledge.42 The temptation is great, however, to make some such denial, as Bayle argues in the Explanation of what he said about the Manichees: 'Those who engage in disputes with the Socinians, and take new roads, seldom fail to lose their way.' The only way to deal with them is by insisting on the very truths of faith that they deny. He points out 'how impossible it is to confute the Philosophical objections of the Socinians; and since they acknowledge the scripture, they ought immediately to be attacked by it. This is the weak side of their defence; the other is the strong side.'43 A second point on which Bayle agrees with Socinus and his followers is that the significance of Christ has to be understood in moral terms. The logic is as

Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil

111

follows. A redemption that merely atoned for sin would be a metaphysical stunt utterly at odds with divine omnipotence. The absolution of original sin is an end that is readily achievable with a greater economy of means. Instead, there had to be something that could have been achieved only by the sort of life that Christ led, and that was his moral example. Nor is the point of this example merely to bring about a certain kind of behaviour, for that too could have been brought about by the omnipotent deity in a more rational fashion. What is the example of Christ? For the Socinians, it is encapsulated by the sermon on the mount: poverty, hunger, simplicity, charity, loving enemies, turning 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 this moral seems rather too deistic and rationalist, too much of the eighteenth century for our Calvinist author, recall that his doctrine of toleration was perhaps the most obvious sense in which he proved to be the so-called 'arsenal of the Enlightenment.' In any case, Bayle himself thought of toleration in explicitly evangelical terms. He was at greatest length in his defence of toleration to show that it was not upset by Luke 14:23. This is the text containing the words of the rich man whose dinner invitations were ignored and who instructed his servants as follows: compel them to enter. It was the text that became the basis for forced conversions. Despite this literal interpretation advanced by Augustine, Bayle insisted on a figurative interpretation compatible with the inviolable status of conscience. None of this, however, is to be found in the article on Socinus. For the connection between Socinianism and Bayle's conception of the autonomy of conscience, 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 not only Bayle's but Socinus's, as well. He too was born in Italy, in Mantua, in 1501, whence, likely for reasons of heterodoxy, he too removed to Poland, having also first spent time in Switzerland and Transylvania, among other places. These included Konigsberg, where he had an important debate with the Lutheran Andreas Ossiander. He was made professor of Hebrew in Cracow in 1550, but was dismissed and imprisoned on allegations of heterodoxy. He was called upon by some Polish nobility to reform the Church, which he undertook with respect to iconolatry and the communion rite. He was condemned from Geneva, however, in the person of Theodore Beza, although Stancarus also exchanged charges of heresy with Calvin himself. He died in Stobitz in 1574.44 Stancarus's dispute with Ossiander will make the connection of interest here.

112 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon 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 the divine nature; and therefore he is not coessential with God the Father, and consequently those who say that he is Mediator as he is God, revive the heresy of the Arians.' The historical upshot, according to Bayle, was the rise of Socinianism: '[The erstwhile Calvinist] Blandrata, and some others, who had fled from Geneva for some errors concerning the Trinity, took advantage of Stancarus's objections, and pretended that since his adversaries could not resolve them, it was necessary to think of another system. This gave birth to Tritheism, and Arianism in Poland, and at last to Socinianism.'45 Before moving on with Stancarus's story in the body of the article, Bayle laconically comments that this accidental assistance to Arianism is 'a subject that might afford many reflexions.' Naturally there is a footnote remark that gives his reflections. He begins with 'the complaints that some make against learning. Were it not better to suppress the universities than to maintain so many professors in all the faculties? They are the men, who give birth to Heresies, or bring up those who spread and multiply erroneous doctrines. The people, that is, all those who are not called to explain matters of religion, preserve the faith, imparted to them, sound and undefiled.'46 The unschooled just believe, without making a fuss. But the learned generate schism upon schism because of their insistence on being both right and different. Not only are the doctors unwilling to take a position that is anything less than diametrically opposed to their opponents, but they do so on questions formulated in terms of no real significance. 'How many disorders might have been avoided in the world, if men had been contented to dispute about things necessary to salvation?' Stancarus and Ossiander would not have exchanged two pages. The obvious drift is toward a simple fideism that is often attributed to Bayle, but his text takes a typically unexpected turn. For he replies 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 that good things ought not to be suppressed, because some make ill use of them; and therefore since the improving of one's mind is very worthy of man, and the appointing of matters for that end is a good thing, it ought not to be abolished under pretence, that some learned men make an ill use of their knowledge to raise Theological disputes. To which I add, that the ill consequences of ignorance are still more to be feared. Ignorance would not prevent divisions; some men less ignorant than others, though they had never been in a university, would be so presumptuous and vain as to sow new doctrines, and might establish them more easily, because their hearers would be silly and ignorant.

Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil

113

The connection here with Bayle's concern for toleration is obvious. Yet the point that ought not to be lost sight of is that dispute, which according to Bayle derives largely from the desire for philosophical novelty, distracts one from consideration of the moral life, which is a necessary (if not sufficient) condition for salvation. For Bayle, chief among these disputes is the problem of evil, as is evidenced by the considerable space Bayle devotes to consideration both of the problem and the many heresies it engenders. This is not to say, however, that Bayle takes heresy and the response to it to be a minor or niggling problem, or the heretic himself never to be at fault.47 Rather, Bayle should be seen as arguing that error is a necessary consequence of the philosophical examination of religious mysteries, but that the examination of things is a virtue in itself, and therefore that there is virtue in the personal attempt to find accommodation with the difficulties which the world presents to those with religious faith. The moral solution to the problem of evil, then, is that there is no solution, properly so called. There is, on the other hand, the virtue of the autonomous conscience which wrestles with the pragmatic difficulties of religious faith, sincerely and with integrity, even though this makes possible error and thus heresy. The upshot of the inability to present a rational solution to the problem of moral evil is the recognition of the value of the autonomous conscience, not indeed in terms of what it brings about, but in terms of its exercise. 5. Conclusion Investigating Bayle's views on the problem of evil, we were led to say something of the lives of Socinus and Stencarus. The most important life in this connection is, of course, Bayle's own, which was rather a living hell. Physically, he was plagued by migraine, tuberculosis, and general ill health. Worse was his moral situation. Because of his reversion to Protestantism, Bayle spent his entire adult life as an exile from his birthplace, and most of that time in cold and dank Holland. From there, huddled with the community of his co-religionists, he followed the horrors of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which famously saw the dragooning, but no less certainly the execution, imprisonment, 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 that the worst sinner in history were to suffer the least pain for the shortest time possible. But in such a world it would be a curiosity of hardly passing interest. In Bayle's world it had a poignancy found in no other thinker. The contrast with Leibniz in this regard is striking, as Leibniz himself noticed. For him, the proof

114 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon that life is not only the best possible but also good is that, without knowledge of a life to come, those about to die would be happy to live the same life again (as long as it had a bit of diversity, he says). Not so for Bayle, for whom it is a real and constant question whether for everyone it would be better never to have been. Leibniz quotes him in the Manichaean article: 'Man is wicked and miserable; there are everywhere prisons and hospitals; history is simply a collection of the crimes and calamities of the human race.' Leibniz continues: '... there is exaggeration in that: there is incomparably more good than evil in the life of men, as there are more houses than prisons. With regard to virtue and vice, a certain mediocrity prevails. Machiavelli has already observed that there are very few wicked and very few good men, and that this causes the failure of many great enterprises.'49 Imagine what consolation such thoughts (especially expressed with the ironical reference to Machiavelli) might have had for Bayle when, for example, he learned in Holland of the death of his brother, who had been thrown into a French prison because the authorities could not get at Bayle himself 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 of the texts examined here. The rational attempts to resolve the problem of evil inevitably end in heresy, spectacularly in the case of Socinus, but even in the case of Ossiander. The premises that seem to generate the problem must be accepted, without question, on the basis of faith. But that faith, as has often been noted in the Bayle literature, is a tepid faith seemingly devoid of traditional content. Certainly, Bayle is no Bible-thumping fundamentalist given to paroxysms 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 does more than anything else to explain their opposition.) Instead, faith seems little more than a recognition of the value of conscience and the corresponding virtue of toleration. Christ's principal message seems to have been what was then being called libertas philosophandi. However implausible this may be as an account of Christianity, one can see how the would-be Christian fideist nonetheless became a hero to the Enlightenment. More importantly, one can see why the benefits of the moral example of Christ cannot be brought off by the metaphysical stunt of an omnipotent deity immediately causing them. Given his historical circumstances, Bayle would never have put 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. And this exercise only we can perform. But with this exercise necessarily comes the possibility of evil. But how, it may be asked, does this account differ from the performance of good on any account, for example, from the view that the exercise of

Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil

115

the will, at least in a certain way, is itself a good? Perhaps not at all. Bayle's anticipation of Kant's categorical imperative has been noticed in the literature.50 In any case, as the value of such a will would not be the good that it brings about as a means, so the value of toleration is not some truth that it might lead to. Both of these results could be achieved by the metaphysical stunt. Although Bayle worries in the Stencarus article about the ill consequences brought about by the ignorant when toleration is suppressed, it is clear there and elsewhere that his real concern is with autonomy for its own sake. If construing toleration and autonomy in such terms smacks of a rationalist solution to the problem of evil, then we can see once again why Bayle was a hero to the Enlightenment. But not all mystery has thereby been eliminated. There remains the even deeper mystery of what it is to be an autonomous being, human or divine.51

Notes 1 See, for example, the letter to Mersenne, 15 April 1630, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. J. Cottingham et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), vol. 3, p. 23. 2 Thomas M. Lennon, The Cartesian Dialectic of Creation,' in The Cambridge History 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 solely by virtue of the will of God, it seems to me that we unknowingly destroy all God's love and all his glory. For why praise him if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing the exact contrary? Where will his justice and wisdom reside if there remains only a certain despotic power, if will holds the place of reason, and if, according to the 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 Desmaizeaux (London, 1734-8). The Dictionary is standardly, and easily, referrred to across 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-lapsarianism, which he takes to be a form of Spinozism (Art. Paulicians, rem. i). It should be 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 but almost of univocity' (p. 349). Why just 'almost'?

116 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon 6 Sup. au Comm. Phil. 24; OD n, 528a; Labrousse, 355. Leibniz and the Manichees agree: 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 actual counter-examples to King's position that the damned would prefer existence are, typically, drawn from history, the Bible, classical literature, or from classical philosophy (Seneca, Pliny, et al.). This is not some curious puzzle pursued for amusement's sake. Bayle's fear is that he is among the living damned, with the result that he would prefer never to have been. 9 For a study of the types of charges and the groups that were the target of them, see Norman 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 to govern reasonable Minds, and inspire them with Fortitude' (rem. K, i, 478a). Given that heresy is manifestly false, only obstinacy can account for people's adherence to 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 to here is not the actual existence of evil (for this would validate the consequence only that evil is possible); rather, the appeal is to the actual coexistence of an infinitely good God and moral evil, an actuality which is not the object of empirical discovery but 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 to this hypothesis, is only adopting part of the error of the Manichees; it is saving the goodness of God at the expence [sic] of his power, and admitting that Matter is an uncreated principle so essentially bad, that it is not in the power of God to rectify its defects' (Art. Origen, rem. E, iv 419a).

Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28

29 30 31 32

33

34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44

117

Art. Marcionites, rem. F, iv, 113a. Art. Paulicians, rem. E, iv, 516a. Ibid., rem. H, 522a. Ibid., rem. M, 527a. Ibid., 525b. Bayle did this despite the fact that he clearly thought that there was nothing innovative about his approach; and it must be admitted that he had biblical authority to back him up. See, for instance, Colossians 2:8 and 1 Timothy 6:20-1. Explanation n, v, 816. 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 as the contrary of 'inevident,' that is, clearly apparent or manifest. Ibid. See his resume of Jurieu's account of the Socinian conception of God (Explanation n, Dictionary v, 824). As well as on his father and his grandfather. 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. A hundred years later, Pascal too argued that the transmission of sin is irrational because 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 ourselves (Pensees 247, ed. Lafuma). Raitt, p. 203. Ibid., p. 207. Art. Socinus, rem. M, v, 175b-178b. Ibid., rems G & H, v, 171a-173a. Ibid., rems K & L, v, 173a-175b. Elsewhere Bayle is more sympathetic to these Socinian inferences. The Socinians deny hell as incompatible with divine goodness. But if some orthodox theologians agree with Bishop King that annihilation is worse than hell, reasons Bayle, then the Socinian conception of divine justice, accused of being lax, is in fact more rigorous (/?0P;0Dm, 671a-672). Art. Socinus, rems L & i, v, 174a, 173a. Ibid., rem. L, v, 175a. RQP, Ixxxii; OD in, 664. Dictionary, Explanation H, v, 820. 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

118 D. Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M. Lennon

45 46 47

48 49 50 51

Moreri gets the position of Stancarus and Ossiander exactly reversed and winds up accusing Stancarus of Arianism, which is what he was arguing as the reductio ad absurdum of Ossiander's position. Moreri was misled by Gaulteris, who, according to Bayle, is typical of Catholic writers of the time: 'I dare say that there are few books that cast a greater blot upon the Church of Rome, than those which contain a catalogue of the heresies of the xvth century ... their account of Stancarus shows their ignorance more than any other; since, on the one hand, they ascribe to him a heresy which he opposed, and wherewith he continually charged his adversaries; and, on the other hand, the opinion, whereby he got many enemies among the Protestants, is a doctrine which the Roman Catholics maintain against the Protestant Divines.' Bayle then unearths Catholic sources for Stancarus's view that it is by his human nature that Christ mediates. Nor is it just Catholics who ought to be favourable to Stancarus. 'Perhaps his doctrine would not appear so pernicious at this present time; for since the objections of the Socinians have obliged some Protestant Divines to say that Christ is not adorable as he is Mediator, one would think that they believe he is not Mediator as he is God. He is certainly adorable as he is God; and therefore if he ought not be worshipped as he is Mediator, it is because he is not Mediator as he is God' (Art. Stancarus, rem. K, v, 231a-b). Ibid., rem. G, v, 228a. Ibid., rem. H, v, 229b. 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 problem than the orthodox make it out to be. A good example is Nestorianism. See Ruth Whelan, The Anatomy of Superstition: A Study of the Historical Theory and Practice of Pierre Bayle (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1989), pp. 31-55. Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique sous la regne de Louis le Grand (1686), OD n, 336-54. Theodicy, sees. 13, 148. O. Abel, 'La suspension du jugement comme imperatif categorique,' in Pierre Bayle: Lafoi dans le doute (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1995), pp. 107-29. We are grateful to Sebastien Charles for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

8 Leibniz and the 'Disciples of Saint Augustine' on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized ELMAR J. KREMER

In the Theodicy, Leibniz discusses a great variety of theological positions. In most cases, his approach is conciliatory and his criticism is couched in irenic terms. This is not surprising because the Theodicy was part of a lifelong effort to promote the reunification of the Christian churches. But Leibniz's criticism of 'the disciples of Saint Augustine,' in other words, the Jansenists, is uncharacteristically harsh and dismissive.1 Leibniz says that he agrees with some of what the Jansenists say about necessity and contingency, but only 'provided that certain odious things, whether in expression or in the dogmas themselves, are set aside' (Theodicy, sec. 280).2 The Augustinian and Jansenist dogma that Leibniz found most odious was that infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell. In a letter to Des Bosses some two years before the publication of the Theodicy, Leibniz singles out this doctrine 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 on the grounds that damning such infants to hell would be 'harsh and unjust' (sec. 93). Leibniz connects the Augustinian position on unbaptized infants with the more general topic of original sin: 'Among the dogmas of the disciples of St. Augustine, I cannot swallow [gouter] the damnation of infants who are not reborn, or in general damnation arising from original sin alone' (sec. 280). The dogma that infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell was rather widely accepted in the seventeenth century. In 1662, the Congregationalist minister 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 in infancy plead at the last judgment that they are innocent of any personal sin, but God 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 hands And 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 Doom was extraordinarily successful in the colonies; one copy sold for every twenty people in New England.'4 But for most Christians, the doctrine is no longer a live option. Virtually everyone who reads this paper will agree with Leibniz that the dogma of Augustine, the Jansenists, and Wigglesworth is false. Nevertheless, the Augustinian position and Leibniz's criticism of it are worth the continued attention of scholars for both theological and philosophical reasons. Theologically, Leibniz's argument against Augustine and the Jansenists marks a break with the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, which continues to be a live option for many Christians. Philosophically, Leibniz's disagreement with the Augustinians reflects a deep disagreement with the Augustinian conception of divine justice and the Augustinian approach to the problem of evil. 1. Augustine and the Jansenists on Original Sin and the Damnation of Infants Who Die Unbaptized Augustine developed his position on the fate of infants who die unbaptized during his controversy with the Pelagians.5 According to Augustine, the Pelagians claimed 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 Pelagians held this position partly because they denied the doctrine of original sin. According to that doctrine, human beings other than the first parents are born in a state of 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 because human beings are born in this disordered state that it is impossible for them to fulfil all of the divine commandments without the aid of grace. They cannot fulfil the commandment to love God with one's whole heart and above all other things because part of the disordered state in which they are born is the absence of charity. And they cannot perfectly fulfil any of the other commandments, for Augustine held that to fulfil any commandment perfectly, it is necessary to conform to the commandment out of the love of God above all other things. At the same time, the Pelagians accepted the doctrine that one could enter heaven only through the merits of Christ, and that these merits are normally imparted through baptism. Hence they held that infants can and should be baptized in order to be sanctified and to gain access to heaven, but do not need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sin or in order to lead morally good lives. Someone who led a morally good life, but was not baptized, they held, would be rewarded with an unending life of natural happiness, short of the bliss of union with God in heaven. Not surprisingly, Augustine's attack on the Pelagian position included a defence of the doctrine of original sin. Augustine defends the doctrine in a number of ways. One defence, which he emphasizes and which is important for my present topic, begins with the claim that anyone who is excluded from heaven is ipso facto damned to hell. If this is right, then even the Pelagians are committed to the conclusion that infants who die unbaptized are damned to hell. And if infants are damned to hell, then they must be in a state of sin, for otherwise God is unjust. Augustine and the Jansenists thought that the gospel accounts of the last judgment, in which people are divided into two groups, the saved and the damned, with no mention of any third group, supported the crucial premise that anyone excluded from heaven is ipso facto condemned to hell.8 But they also speak as if the premise can be defended without appeal to Scripture. The possibility of such a defence depends on what it means to say that someone is damned to hell. Sometimes Augustine and the Jansenists speak as if damnation to hell is essentially the same thing as the loss of heaven. Thus Pascal says, 'Our true happiness is to be in [God], and our sole evil is to be separated from him.'9 They held that deep within each human being there is a need for union with God, and that 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 this account, it is a tautology that anyone permanently excluded from heaven is damned to hell. At other times, they indicate that hell necessarily includes misery, as when Arnauld quotes Book 12, chapter 1 of The City of God: '[The creature] 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 from heaven is damned to hell would require the premise that anyone excluded from heaven 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 that the question of bodily suffering is of great importance. For he cites with approval a pronouncement of the theologians of the Sorbonne that the question of whether infants will be subject to bodily suffering in hell is not decided and that there is entire freedom of opinion regarding it.12 Their position seems to be that 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 enter heaven without sacramental baptism. Indeed, several exceptions are mentioned explicitly in the Gospels: Moses and Elijah, who are said to appear with Jesus on the mountain at the transfiguration; the 'holy innocents' killed by Herod in his attempt to do away with Jesus, who were accepted as martyrs; and the 'good thief,' who was crucified beside Jesus, asked his forgiveness, and received the assurance 'This day you will be with me in Paradise.' Another exception recognized by Augustine and the Jansenists, along with all other Christians, are the catechumens in the early Church who were martyred without having received baptism. Such people, they held, were able to enter heaven because the merits of Christ were imparted to them in an extraordinary way.13 The position of Augustine and the Jansenists can be put by saying that baptism is normally necessary for the removal of original sin and for entry into heaven. Hence exceptions are rare, miraculous occurrences.14 Armed with the premise that anyone who is excluded from heaven is damned to hell, Augustine mounts an argument against the Pelagians: 1. Infants, like adults, can normally enter heaven only if they are baptized (as even the Pelagians agree). 2. Anyone who cannot enter heaven is damned to hell. Therefore: 3. Infants who die unbaptized are normally damned to hell.

Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized

123

4. It would be unjust for an omnipotent God to damn an innocent being to 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 actually sinning. According to Scripture and the tradition of the Church, the present disordered state 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 state of sin that they inherit from Adam.16 Another defence of the doctrine of original sin offered by Augustine against the 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 were committed to (1). But what do the Augustinians mean by an inherited state of sin? According to Augustine, '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 voluntary, because it is contracted from the evil will of the first man, and has become 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. Furthermore, among creatures, Adam then loved himself more than any other thing and loved other things only in relation to himself. All of Adam's descendants come 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 beings deserve reward or punishment. Suppose that Professor Jones and Professor Smith both commit the same wicked act, say, running down a colleague's reputation out of jealousy. A week later, Jones has repented of his earlier sinful act, but Smith has not. Both Jones and Smith deserve punishment for their act of calumny, but Smith, unlike Jones, also deserves punishment for his continued acquiescence in his calumny. Here we could say that Smith, and not Jones, continues in a sinful condition or state of sin that was initiated by his act of calumny. On Arnauld's account, every descendant of Adam comes into existence in a state of sin that is related to Adam's actual sin in something like the way that Smith's continued acquiescence in calumny is related to Smith's actual sin of calumny. The difference, of course, is that the state of original sin in Adam's descendant is initiated by Adam's actual sin, not by the actual sin of the descendant. According to Augustine, original sin brings with it a disorder of the other appetites, which is called 'concupiscence.' Because of concupiscence, one is often attracted to the objects of the lower appetites automatically and powerfully, without relating them to God or to the moral law. This is most evident in the sexual appetite. Sometimes Augustine seems to identify original sin with concupiscence. But in these cases the Jansenists take him to be referring to concupiscence together with the 'habitual consent' of the will to concupiscent desire, 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 and concupiscence. The Council points out that after original sin has been removed by baptism, concupiscence remains, and adds, 'The Apostle sometimes calls [concupiscence] sin, but the holy council declares that the catholic church has never understood it to be called sin in the sense of being truly and properly such in those who have been reborn, but in the sense that it is the result of sin and inclines to sin.'20 Original sin, in contrast, is truly and properly sin. It is described as 'that sin which is the death of the soul.' For Augustine and the Jansenists, the doctrine of original sin is a mystery.

Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized

125

Indeed, Arnauld and Nicole list it together with the Trinity and the Incarnation as a fundamental mystery of the Christian religion.21 What they meant by a mystery is a revealed truth such that human beings cannot comprehend it or see how it is true. The Jansenists could accept Leibniz's statement that we can see that 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 the Trinity or the Incarnation, in order that... we not pronounce words entirely devoid of 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 how a state of sin can come to be in one person as a result of another person's actual sin. Consider the following passage from Pascal: Without doubt there is nothing that shocks our reason more than to say that the sin of the first man has rendered culpable those who are so distant from that source that they seem incapable of participating in it. This transmission seems not only impossible, but indeed quite unjust. For is there anything more contrary to the rules of our miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of volition, for a sin which was committed six thousand years before the infant even existed, so little did the infant take part in it? (Pensees, section vn, sec. 434)

What seems both impossible and unjust, according to Pascal, is not precisely the damnation of infants, but rather the transmission of culpability from Adam to 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 stubborn self-love, it is not mysterious that the infant should be excluded from heaven and hence damned to hell. Indeed, a person in that condition could not possibly enter into union with God.22 But even if the doctrine of original sin is revealed, the transmission of culpability from Adam to the infant continues to be mysterious. It continues to seem both impossible and unjust. Augustine was also concerned to reconcile God's justice with the many evils that affect infants in this life. As he puts the problem in a late letter to Saint Jerome, 'God is good, God is just, God is omnipotent ... let the great sufferings, therefore, which infant children experience be accounted for by some reason compatible with justice.' 23 Among these sufferings, he mentions 'wasting disease, racking pain, the agonies of thirst and hunger, feebleness of limbs, privation of bodily senses, and vexing assaults of unclean spirits.' In his late, antiPelagian 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 for original sin. He had given a different account in his early On Free Choice of the Will. There he says that the suffering of infants might be justified because it is a school of virtue for their parents and the infants themselves receive recompense in the life to come.24 But in the letter to Jerome cited above, he explains that he came to reject the earlier account on the grounds that it does not apply to infants who die unbaptized and are consequently damned to hell, because for them there is no recompense in the life to come.25 This reasoning makes it clear that Augustine holds the following principle of justice: J: If a human being suffers an evil that is not just punishment for sin, then a recompense 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 psychological sense of the word. Rather, it applies to every evil that is passively received by human beings. Consider the following text, quoted by Arnauld and Nicole in Art of Thinking from Augustine's Contra Julianum: Consider how many and how great are the evils that befall children, and how the first 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 them in order to seduce them, labor and pain tempt them to weaken them, lust tempts them to enflame them, grief tempts them to defeat them, and pride tempts them to make them vain. Who could explain so easily all the different pains that weigh like a yoke on Adam's children? The evidence of these miseries compelled pagan philosophers, who had no knowledge or belief in the sin of our first father, to say that we were born only to suffer the punishment we deserve from crimes committed in another life ... But this opinion ... is rejected by the Apostle. What remains, then, if not 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 unjust nor impotent, there remains only what you are unwilling to acknowledge ... namely that this yoke, so heavy, which the children of Adam are obliged to bear... would not have existed if they had not deserved them by the offence that proceeds from their origin.27

Not all of the evils mentioned in this passage are instances of suffering. Thus neither 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 all the evils by which one is affected, as opposed to the evils one does. The passage has an interesting implication regarding Augustine's position on

Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized

127

concupiscence. The temptations Augustine mentions are part of concupiscence. So concupiscence must be a punishment for original sin. Yet, as I have mentioned, Augustine often treats concupiscence as part of original sin. How, then, can concupiscence be a punishment for original sin? It seems that Augustine uses the phrase 'original sin' to refer both to original sin proper, which is a state of the will, and to original sin in a broader sense, which consists of this state of the will and its immediate consequence, concupiscence.28 2. Leibniz's Critique Leibniz's basic objection to the Augustinian position is that it would be unjust to condemn an infant to eternal suffering because infants are innocent: The damnation of infants who die without actual sin and without being reborn would 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, who is 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 are not 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 simply declares that it is shocking. In a letter written in 1690 to the Landgrave Hessen-Rheinfels, Leibniz says that he is not 'so ready [as Arnauld] to pronounce eternal damnation.' In particular, he complains about Arnauld's readiness to say that people to whom the gospel has not been preached, and who are 'almost innocent,' are condemned to hell. Then he adds: One cannot escape by saying with M. Arnauld that we ought not form judgments about God by means of our ideas of justice, for one must have an idea or notion of justice when one says that God is just, otherwise that would be to attribute to Him only a word. For my part, I believe that just as the Arithmetic and Geometry of God are the same as those of human beings, excepting that God's is infinitely more extensive, so also natural jurisprudence, in so far as it is demonstrative, and every other truth, is the same in heaven as on earth.29

It may seem that this letter provides the argument against the Augustinian position that is lacking in the Theodicy. But the letter does not correctly represent Arnauld's position. To be sure, Arnauld puts a great deal of emphasis on the incomprehensibility of God's ways. But nowhere does he say that we cannot

128 Elmar J. Kremer apply our idea of justice to God, or that God employs standards of justice different than those employed by human beings. In a text written near the end of his life, Arnauld says that one can attribute the virtue of justice, unlike the virtues of chastity, sobriety, and obedience, to God because 'justice can be conceived without any admixture of imperfection.'30 He adds that it would be better to say that God is justice rather than that God is just. In the same text, Arnauld says that Jansen had too Platonic an idea of justice and that this led him to misinterpret Augustine's position that to act for the love of justice is to act for the love of God. But it is clear that Jansen, too, thought that we could apply our idea of justice to God. But what of Pascal's statement that 'there [is nothing] more contrary to the rules of our miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of volition'? Here it is important to recall that what seems 'impossible and unjust' to Pascal is that such infants should be born in a state of sin that results from Adam's actual sin. But whether this transmission of a state of sin is unjust depends on whether it would be unjust for God to create human beings with a 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 that questions about God's justice in creating what he does create are beyond the competence of human beings. Leibniz admits that God's mathematics is infinitely 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 his basic case against Augustine and the Jansenists. The Augustinians would no doubt also object that Leibniz's argument is incompatible with any robust doctrine of original sin. Leibniz accepts the doctrine that a disposition to sin is transmitted from Adam to his descendants. But Leibniz's assumption that infants are born innocent implies that there is not present in them anything that could be called 'sin' except by way of causal analogy. Here Leibniz parts company with his most important Catholic predecessors. As I have pointed out, Augustine and Aquinas held that there are two elements in original sin, the loss of charity or the love of God above all other things, and concupiscence. A similar position was taken by the Council of Trent and defended by Bellarmine, whom Arnauld is fond of quoting on the subject. Aquinas and Bellarmine, like Augustine, hold that the absence of original justice is a sort of culpability or fault (culpd) whose presence makes a person deserve to be excluded from heaven. But Leibniz holds that an unbaptized infant is innocent, and hence cannot say that an infant is in any way culpable. In several passages, he suggests that original sin is nothing but a disposition to actual sin. Thus he speaks of 'the disposition that constitutes [quifait] original sin, and in which God foresees that the infant will sin as soon as it reaches the

Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized

129

age of reason' (sec. 94; cf. sec. 92). This is, in effect, to identify original sin with concupiscence.31 The fact that Leibniz's argument commits him to an unorthodox position regarding 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 acceptable to almost all of the Christian denominations and theological factions - extremists, he would add, like the Jansenists, aside. Leibniz was a master at hiding the theologically controversial aspects of his philosophy in the service of his efforts to reunite the Christian churches. But his claim that it would be unjust to condemn infants who die unbaptized to hell because such infants are innocent commits him to a position on original sin that would be unacceptable to many of the churches he wanted to reunite. Leibniz prefaces his criticism of Augustine and the Jansenists by placing a restriction on his use of the terms 'damnation' and 'hell': 'When I speak here about damnation and hell, I mean pain [douleurs] and not a simple privation of supreme happiness; I mean poenam sensus, non damni' (sec. 92). The Scholastic 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 assume that 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 Augustinians considered the least important part of their position. So Leibniz holds that it would be unjust for God to impose suffering upon infants who die unbaptized, but not that it would be unjust for him to exclude such infants from heaven. Leibniz points out that there are important theological authorities who seem to take the same position. He mentions some Scholastics who 'instead of sending [infants] to the flames of hell, assigned them to a special limbo, where they do not suffer, and are punished only by the privation of the beatific vision' (sec. 92),32 and, in particular, 'the venerable Thomas Aquinas,' who held 'the doctrine of purely privative punishment of infants dead without baptism.' Leibniz seems to have in mind Aquinas's position in the Commentary on the Sentences, that infants who die unbaptized are punished only in that 'they are separated from God with regard to that union which is through glory' and suffer neither sensible pain nor spiritual affliction (In II Sent., Dist. 33, Q. 2, a.2, ad 5). But these citations also raise a difficult question about Leibniz's own position, for all of the authorities cited take seriously the notion that being excluded from heaven is a punishment or penalty - the poena damni. But if exclusion from heaven is a punishment, the question arises, why Leibniz thinks that it is just 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

130 Elmar J. Kremer 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 deserve on account of his or her natural efforts. It is a supernatural good, available to human beings only through the merits of Christ. In the texts in which Leibniz gives his grand, summary account of the kingdom of God or the perfect republic of which God is the monarch, the Christian idea of heaven plays no role. Leibniz speaks simply of a society whose members are God and all rational creatures, and in which every rational creature is rewarded or punished in proportion to his or her virtue and contribution to the common good.33 Nonetheless, in some texts Leibniz does affirm the Christian doctrine of heaven. For example, in the 'Abrege de la controverse' appended to the Theodicy, he says that even if more human beings 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 as closely as is possible for a creature, and they make more progress in the good than the damned would make by approaching the nature of the demons as closely as possible' (Second Objection). Assuming, then, that a human being can enter heaven only by sharing in the grace of Christ, and that unbaptized infants are permanently 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. However, it is clear that the loss of heaven is not what Leibniz calls a moral evil. Nor is it a 'physical evil,' for by this phrase Leibniz means suffering in a psychological sense of the term. So it must be a mere metaphysical evil. Michael Latzer has argued persuasively that Leibniz uses the phrase 'metaphysical evil' in an inclusive way to stand for any kind of evil, considered as a privation of perfection.34 A mere metaphysical evil would, then, be an evil that is neither a physical nor a moral evil. Leibniz offers an example of a mere metaphysical evil in a letter quoted by Latzer: 'As for metaphysical evil (you say) I do not consider it an evil.' But if you admit that there is metaphysical good, Sir, the privation of this good will be metaphysical evil. When an intelligent being loses his understanding [bon sens] without any pain and without sin - and therefore without any physical or moral evil - do you not consider this as an evil?35

The permanent exclusion of infants from heaven would be another instance of mere metaphysical evil. And the same seems to be true of concupiscence, or what 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,

Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized

131

[Physical evil, that is,] pains, sufferings, miseries, are the consequence of moral evil. Poena est malum passionis, quod infligitur ob malum actionis, according to Grotius. We suffer because we have acted; we suffer evil because we have done evil. It is true that we often suffer from the bad actions of others; but when one does not take part in the crime, it is certain that the sufferings prepare the way for a greater happiness.' (sec. 241)

But Leibniz does not accept (J) for mere metaphysical evils. So Leibniz's restricted version of (J) allows him to hold that concupiscence and the loss of heaven by infants who die unbaptized are evils visited upon human beings, but not punishments that they deserve or evils that prepare the way for their greater happiness. How, then, is God justified in permitting metaphysical evils to affect unbaptized infants, evils for which they are not later compensated? Leibniz's answer is that such evils are justified because without them the world would not be the best of all possible worlds. Here we can see that Leibniz disagreed not only with the Augustinian conception of divine justice, but in a more general way with the Augustinian approach to the problem of evil. Augustine's adherence to (J) for all evils that afflict intelligent creatures is a consequence of his view that human beings differ from brute animals and other subhuman creatures in an important way. Subhuman creatures may be created in order to contribute to the good of a higher created thing. Thus Augustine says, 'Irrational animals [unlike human beings] are given by God to serve creatures of a higher nature.'36 And the final purpose of every subhuman creature is to make its contribution to the beautiful tapestry of nature. But the final purpose of human beings is to be united with God in heaven. Whether or not a human being achieves that purpose is determined by the state of his or her will at the time of death, and not by the good of any higher creature.37 Leibniz rejects this Augustinian distinction between the final end of humans and of subhuman creatures. Part of this rejection is Leibniz's position on the fate of infants who die unbaptized. Whether someone who dies as an infant gains or loses heaven is determined, in Leibniz's view, by what is required in order that this world be the best of all possible worlds.38 Thus those who die in infancy, like subhuman creatures, exist in order to contribute to the good of a higher creature. For by a world, Leibniz means a collection of creatures, and a collection of creatures is a creature. But it is not only those who die in infancy who are created to serve the good of the best of all possible worlds. This is true of every human being. Every human being, in Leibniz's view, is 'a kind of spiritual automaton' (sec. 52), and he or she is the sort of automaton that will end up in heaven if and only if that serves to make this the best of all possible

132 Elmar J. Kremer worlds. This is made clear in Leibniz's adaptation and extension of Valla's dialogue on free will, at the end of the Theodicy (sec. 406-17). One of the characters, Sextus, is presented by God, in the person of Jupiter, with the choice of going to Rome to be crowned ruler and then dying as a sinner, or giving up the crown 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 to blame for his unhappy end, but presses Jupiter to explain why he did not give Sextus a different will. Theodore receives his answer in Athens, where the goddess Pallas gives him a vision of many possible worlds, arranged in a pyramid which descends to infinity, each world more perfect than all those below it. He is ravished by the vision of the world at the pinnacle, the most perfect of all possible worlds. It is, of course, the actual world, in which Sextus has a perverse will and ends up badly. Theodore is told that Sextus's crime 'is useful for many great things; he will give birth to a great empire ... But that is nothing compared to the entirety of the world whose beauty you admire.' Theodore, good Leibnizian that he is, is entirely satisfied by this answer, and returns with zeal to his role as Jupiter's servant. In Leibniz's view, whether Sextus (or, by extension, any other human being) dies a sinner or is saved depends on what is required for the good of the world a whole; hence every human being is created to serve a higher creature, namely, the world as a whole. Thus Leibniz gives up the Augustinian distinction between God's reason for permitting the evils that affect subhuman creatures, and his reasons for permitting the evils that affect intelligent creatures, 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, Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, and Pasquier Quesnel. 2 All references to the Theodicy can be found in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Essais de theodicee (Paris: Flammarion, 1969). All translations of the Theodicy are my own. 3 To Des Bosses, 12 September 1708, Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm 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 de theologie catholique, vol. 12, col. 675-715. 6 Liber de haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, Patrologiae Latino 42:47-8. Quoted by Hede and Amann in col. 676.

Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized

133

7 I borrow this formulation from the article 'Peche originel,' by M. Jugie, in the Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, vol. 12, col. 275: The Church teaches that every human being, in virtue of a mysterious solidarity that ties him to the first couple from whom he is descended, is born in a state of disorder and fault [culpabilite}, caused in him by the fault of the head of humankind. The expression 'original sin' expresses this belief: it is used to signify either the fault itself of our first parents or the state of disorder and sin which is consequent upon that fault and extends to human nature as a whole. It is difficult to translate culpabilite in this context. I have avoided 'guilt' because original sin does not make one personally guilty, at least not on some theories of original 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 two parts, says the Gospel. To those on the left he will say, 'Go you evil ones to the eternal fire,' and to those on the right, 'Come blessed ones of my father, possess the Kingdom which has been prepared for you since the beginning of the world.' He calls one part the Kingdom, the other damnation with the devil. He did not leave room between the two where you could put the infants. He who will not be on the right, will certainly be on the left. Hence he will not go to the Kingdom. Without any doubt he will go to the eternal fire. (Quoted in Apologiepour Monsieur L'Abbe St. 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 of the Catholic Church'. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell"' (sec. 1033). 10 Seconde apologie pour Monsieur Jansenius, in OA xvn: 142. Elsewhere Arnauld mentions other 'spiritual' punishments of those in hell: futile remorse for one's past sins, 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 soul that leaves its body without the grace of the Mediator and without his sacrament, no matter at what age, will be in suffering, and at the last judgment will take up its body again 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 be found in The Letters of St. Augustine, trans. Rev. J.C. Cunningham, O.P., in The Works ofAurelius Augustine (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1871-6), vol. 2, pp. 295318. The above text is on p. 300. 12 Op. cit., 29:267. He appeals to this pronouncement while defending St-Cyran's position that infants will suffer bodily pain in hell against the complaint that it is heretical. Arnauld writes (in 1639) that the pronouncement of the Sorbonne was 'very recent.'

134 Elmar J. Kremer 13 Cf. the Council of Trent: 'The transition [from the state in which a person is born as a 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 kingdom of God'" (my italics; Council of Trent, session 6, 13 January 1547, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J. [Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990], vol. 2, p. 672). For Arnauld's acceptance of the notion of baptism of desire, see Le renversement de la morale de Jesus Christ par les erreurs 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'] impiety is the indispensable need of infants to be baptized in order to be saved. This is proved by the tradition of the Church, and by this word of Saint John, "Unless one is reborn" etc. From this it is concluded that infants were in sin, because otherwise it would not be just to exclude them from salvation because they had not received baptism.' He cites Augustine's De correptione et gratia. All of Book vn of Arnauld's work, entitled 'Refutation de ce qu'ils enseignent touchant le salut des enfants morts sans bapteme' is relevant. It is directed against the Calvinist position that it is not necessary to baptize the children of Christians. 16 In the twentieth century, the Catholic Church has expanded the teaching that one can enter heaven without sacramental baptism. An important step in this direction was Pope Pius xn's 'Letter to the Archbishop of Boston' in 1949. After quoting the teaching of the Council of Trent that the desire for baptism can replace actual baptism, Pius says, This wish [votum] need not always be explicit, as in the case of catechumens, but where a man labours under invincible ignorance God also accepts an implicit wish, as it is called, for it is contained in that good disposition of the soul whereby a man wishes to conform his will to the will of God.' At the same time, the Church has come to view baptism as the normal means of sanctification only in the sense that it is the only means of which the Church can claim to have definite knowledge. These developments call into the question the common assumption of Augustine and the Pelagians (as well as the Jansenists) that, with rare exceptions, one can gain 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 and toward himself. For if he sticks stubbornly in this love, and so cannot be converted because he loves himself too much ... who will fail to conclude that his

Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized

19

20 21 22

23 24

25

135

impotence increases his sin, rather than diminishing it? It is more difficult to understand this in his descendants, because we think of original sin as something quite remote from them. But if we attend to the fact that through the original fall there is transmitted to them that stubborn love of themselves and of creatures which, according to a just though hidden judgment of God, is something depraved and vicious in them, we understand more easily that if something flows from that corrupt source, the fact that it is in some way necessary does not make it harmless, but rather the fact that it is voluntary makes it deserving of punishment [culpandum]. For that necessity brings about nothing other than a corrupt and depraved will. (Dissertatio Theologica Quadripartita, in OA xx: 273) Thus Jansen says, 'When Augustine teaches that libido or concupiscence is original sin, he is speaking of concupiscence as including the guilty state [reatum] for which the 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 [le formel} is the domination of concupiscence, or better the habitual consent of the soul to concupiscence, by which the soul prefers the creature to God. This consent includes the turning away from God and the privation of original justice. (Quoted from Nicole's Instruction sur le symbole, i, p. 236, in Jean Laporte, La doctrine de la grace chezArnauld [Paris: Vrin, 1922], p. 107) Session 5; Tanner, 2:667. La petite perpetuite de lafoi..., in OA xn: 116. 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 to be cleansed by the water of rebirth for them to obtain eternal life ... let him be anathema.' Letter CLXVI to Jerome (A.D. 415), in Letters of St. Augustine, trans. J.C. Cunningham, in The Works of Aurelius Augustine, vol. 13, p. 309. 'Who knows what is in store for these children, whose suffering melts the hearts of their elders as it cultivates their faith and tests their mercy? Who knows what reward God has prepared for them in the hidden depths of his judgements?' (On Free Choice of the Will, trans. Thomas William [Indianopolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1993], p. 117). 'What may be called the chief prop of my [earlier] defence is in the sentence, "Moreover, who knows what may be given to the little children ... Who knows what good recompense God may, in the secret of His judgments, reserve for these little ones?" I see 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 who were 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

136 Elmar J. Kremer

26

27

28

29

30 31

32

33

case of those who, without having received the sacrament of Christian fellowship, die in infancy after enduring the most painful sufferings, what recompense can be conceived of in their case, seeing that, besides all that they suffer in this life, perdition awaits them in the life to come?' (Letter CLXVI to Jerome (A.D. 415), in Letters of St. 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 the Will on which Augustine is commenting. The same is presumably true of angels. I have worded (J) in such a way as to allow for cases like that of Job in which the one who suffers actually obtains the recompense only if he or she freely responds in the right way to the suffering. 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. Cf. Aquinas, The whole order of original justice arises from the fact that the will of man is subject to God. The subjection was first and principally through the will, to which it belongs to move all the other parts [of the soul] to the end ... Whence from the aversion of the will from God there followed the disorder in all the other powers of 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 if materially' (Summa Theologiae, lanae, 82, 3). 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. The text is cited by Patrick Riley in Leibniz' Universal Jurisprudence (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 15. Regies du bon sens, 40:238. 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 affected only by confused sensations of sensible goods and evils, until such time as one is corrected by experience or instruction.' This statement suggests that original sin is a disposition that may be removed by experience and instruction, and does not need to be removed by baptism. The Latin term 'limbus' was used for the border of a cloak or vestment. The expression 'limbus puerorum' is found in Albert the Great, but not in Aquinas. See 'limbes' in the Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, 9:761. See The Ultimate Origination of Things, in G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989), p. 154. See also the Monadology, sec. 84, and Principles of Nature and Grace, sec. 15.

Leibniz on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized

137

34 Michael Latzer, 'Leibniz's Conception of Metaphysical Evil,' Journal of the History of 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, such as 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 universe such 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 of the world are ordered to this [end]... But whatever happens with regard to the noblest parts is ordered only to the good of those parts themselves, because care is taken 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 care of them in such a way that he doesn't allow any evil for them which he doesn't turn into their good. (Quoted by Eleanor Stump, 'Aquinas on the Suffering of Job,' in Daniel Howard-Snyder, ed., The Evidential Argument from Evil [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996], pp. 51-2) In the Summa Theologiae, he takes an even stronger position: The good of the universe 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 the natural 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 an infant in Leibniz's 'Kingdom of God' is determined by what is required in order that this world be the best of all possible worlds. 39 I would like to thank Bernard Katz, Samantha Thompson, and Tobin Woodruff for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

12

Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of Theodicy DONALD RUTHERFORD

Theodicy is usually conceived as a branch of apologetics: a quasi-legal defence of the justice of divine action, or of the consistency of God's perfection with his creation of a world containing physical and moral evil.1 This is the sense given to it in the title of the Latin summary of Leibniz's Theodicy: 'The Case of God Defended through His Justice, Reconciled with His Other Perfections and All His Actions [Causa dei asserta per justitiam ejus, cum caeteris ejus perfectionibus, cunctisque actionibus conciliatam]' (G vi 437). The significance of theodicy, however, reaches beyond the domain of theology proper. Leibniz holds that the knowledge of God's justice also has important implications for human happiness, indeed, that one cannot be fully happy without understanding one's existence in relation to the justice of God's action. This point is highlighted in the opening sentence of Causa dei: The apologetic examination of God's case concerns not only divine glory but also our advantage [utilitatem], in order that we may honour his greatness, i.e., his power and wisdom, and love both his goodness and the justice and holiness which derive from it, and imitate these as much as is in our power' (G vi 439). The advantage accruing to those who possess a proper understanding of divine justice is suggested in Theodicy, sec. 177. There Leibniz singles out three 'dogmas' that contradict the basic principles of his theodicy: that the nature of justice is arbitrary; that it is fixed, but it is not certain that God observes it; and that the justice we know is not that which God observes. These dogmas, he writes, 'destroy the confidence in God that gives us tranquility, and the love of God 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

Leibniz and the Stoics

139

God's justice, we acquire confidence in the Tightness of all his actions. With this confidence, we are insulated from the disturbing effects of worldly evil; or if we are disturbed, we have the means of recovering our tranquility through reflection on the nature of divine justice. Second, theodicy is an essential step toward our highest happiness. In comprehending the justice of God's action, we acquire our fullest knowledge of the unity of the divine perfections of power, knowledge, and goodness, and this knowledge itself and our consequent love of God is, for Leibniz, the source of true happiness. The first of these benefits is the one most closely associated with the traditional idea of consolatio. In understanding the larger context in which God exercises his justice, we are aided in dealing with loss, grief, pain, and alienation - circumstances that reflect our limited power and vulnerability to fortune. Leibniz's theodicy does not pretend to console by speaking directly to our emotional suffering. Its point is best expressed in a remark Leibniz makes in the essay 'On Destiny': 'with the eyes of the understanding we are able to occupy a point of view that the eyes of the body do not and cannot occupy' (G vn 120/W 572). This change of point of view supplies the basis for what can be described as a 'philosophical consolation.' In comprehending the underlying order of the universe and God's role as its governor, the effect of troubling emotions is minimized, both because we correct the false beliefs on which they depend and because, while we understand, we are no longer affected in the same way by such emotions.2 Approaching Leibniz's theodicy in this way, we move its centre outside the sphere of seventeenth-century debates about 'the goodness of God, the freedom of man, and the origin of evil.' Of course, the Theodicy is explicitly a contribution to contemporary discussions of these issues, most directly the opinions of Bayle; but it is also the basis of a larger philosophical project whose goals owe as much to ancient Greek philosophy as to Christianity. Leibniz maintained that in ethics and metaphysics he found his greatest satisfaction in Plato.3 In connection with theodicy, however, he makes some of his most intriguing comments in comparing his views with those of the Stoics, who similarly stress the importance of understanding, and fulfilling, our role as rational beings within a universe ordered by a providential deity. For Seneca, at least, this includes an open confrontation with the theodicy problem: You have asked me, Lucilius, why, if a providence rules the world, it still happens that many evils befall good men. This would be more fittingly answered in the course 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 be severed from the whole, and that I refute a single objection while the main question

140 Donald Rutherford is left untouched, I shall do so; the task is not difficult -1 shall be pleading the case of the gods [causam deorum agam].4

Leibniz's relationship to Stoic thought is complex. It includes his acquaintance with and reaction to the ancient Stoics themselves, Greek and Roman; to Justus Lipsius and sixteenth-century Christian Neostoicism; and to Stoic currents in the writings of Descartes and Spinoza, whom he described as the leaders of the 'sect of the new Stoics.'5 In what follows, I shall be concerned primarily with ancient Stoicism, insofar as it is the object of Leibniz's criticism. No attempt will be made to give a complete account of the views of the Stoics themselves. My aim is limited to understanding what Leibniz sees as the essential differences between his position and that of the Stoics on the topic of theodicy. In pursuing this question, I believe, one cannot help recognizing a significant affinity between their conceptions of a theologically grounded ethics - an affinity which serves to illuminate the full scope of Leibniz's theodicy. In the end, I shall suggest that while important differences can be found between the views of Leibniz and the Stoics, these differences mask a deeper unity of philosophical outlook which Leibniz has difficulty reconciling with the premise of his Christianity. j

In the Theodicy, Leibniz goes out of his way to rebut the charge, raised by Plutarch and later by Bayle, that the Stoics are committed to a fatal necessity concerning all things. 'Chrysippus and even his master Cleanthes were on that point more reasonable than is supposed,' Leibniz writes, for they defended only the hypothetical necessity of things, as Leibniz himself does (sec. 170; G vi 215/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 in favor of determination and against necessity, although they have been accused of attaching necessity to everything' (sec. 331; G vi 311/H 324). Leibniz is equally supportive of the Stoics' rationale for determinism, their account of fate or destiny as 'the inevitable and eternal connection of all events' (sec. 332; G vi 312/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, whatever it may be, is all of one piece, like an ocean' (sec. 9; G vi 107/H 128); and he acknowledges this as a view he shares with the Stoics.7 Finally, in the Theodicy, Leibniz cites with approval Chrysippus's attempt to insulate God from responsibility for evil by ascribing it to a limitation that is part of the 'original constitution' of souls (sees. 331-5, 379-80). In distinguishing active and passive, or formal and material, aspects of the soul, he remarks, Chrysippus's

Leibniz and the Stoics

141

example of a cylinder whose shape restricts its motion does not differ greatly from his own image of a laden boat carried along by the river's current. These comparisons tend towards the same end,' he writes; 'and that shows that if we were sufficiently informed concerning the opinions of ancient philosophers, we should 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 of divine providence. Given the differences in their theological starting points, we might expect to find little agreement here. The Stoics identify god with the active 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 do not regard their god as a transcendent being who deliberates among an infinity of possible worlds and chooses to create that one which his wisdom represents as the best; rather, their god is an immanent being that is eternally one with the world.8 Yet as significant as this difference might seem, it is not necessarily decisive in distinguishing the kind of providence that the Stoic and Leibnizian deities exercise. The Stoics refer to the active principle of the cosmos in a variety of ways: 'God, intelligence, fate, and Zeus are all one, and many other names are applied to him.'9 Under each of these descriptions, the active principle is seen as endowing the world with a unity and intelligible order, and this order is regarded as providential in the dual sense of being foreknown and conducive to the happiness of human beings.10 The latter commitment rests on the Stoics' conviction that human beings are the one type of being in which matter has been organized by god in such a way that we are able to understand, and govern our actions according to, the intelligible order of the cosmos.11 The fundamental principle of Stoic ethics - the basis of their conception of virtue - is to live in agreement with nature, or 'right reason,' the 'universal law' that governs the world as a whole.12 Consequently, the Stoics hold that 'the world itself was created for the sake of gods and men, and the things that it contains were provided and contrived for the enjoyment of men. For the world is as it were the common dwelling-place of gods and men, or the city that belongs to both; for they 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 philosophy. Both advance the conception of a divinely ordered universe, in which human beings flourish - live virtuously and happily - to the extent that they conform 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. Suggestive in this regard is a remark from his 1695 Specimen dynamicum: 'Our age has saved from contempt... the tranquility of the Stoics which arises from the best possible connection of things' (GM vi 234/L 436). Here Leibniz highlights the contentment that results from an acknowledgment of divine providence and

142 Donald Rutherford 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 issue with the Stoics for offering a consolation inferior to that provided by his own philosophy. In Theodicy, sec. 254, for example, he begins in a seemingly Stoic vein 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 what destiny has in store for us, nor to complain of what befalls us. Acquaintance with true principles gives us this advantage, quite other than that which the Stoics and Epicureans derived from their philosophy. There is as much difference between true morality and theirs as between joy and patience: for their tranquility was founded only on necessity, while ours must rest upon the perfection and beauty of things, upon our own happiness. (G vi 267-8/H 282-3)

The criticism expressed in this passage appears at odds with the remarks Leibniz makes later in the Theodicy about the Stoics. Whereas in those sections he defends the Stoics against the charge of fatalism, here he seems to argue that Stoic consolation is unsatisfactory, precisely because it is limited to a passive acceptance of the necessity of things as opposed to a proper appreciation of their 'perfection and beauty.' It looks, then, as though in this passage at least Leibniz upholds the charge of fatalism against the Stoics and concludes from this 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 with those of Descartes and Spinoza. In writings from the 1670s, he levels the same charge against these 'new Stoics' as he does against the ancient Stoics in Theodicy, sec. 254: given their conception of nature, their ethics is limited to an 'art of patience' which 'scarcely consoles' (G iv 299/AG 241).14 In the case of Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz explicitly premises this criticism on the claim that they are committed to a fatal necessity concerning all things. This is a point he continues to press against Spinoza in the Theodicy: [Spinoza] appears to have explicitly taught a blind necessity, having denied to the Author of Things understanding and will, and assuming that good and perfection relate to us only and not to him ... [A]s far as one can understand him, he acknowledges no goodness in God, properly speaking, and he teaches that all things exist through 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:

Leibniz and the Stoics

143

he rejects the 'fundamental assumption that God has chosen the best of all possible worlds' (sec. 168; G vi 210/H 228). Leibniz locates two sources for this error. First, in Spinoza's view, God's power is not exercised according to 'the principle of Wisdom and Goodness' but by a 'metaphysical and brute necessity' (G vi 218). Second, Spinoza dismisses any objective standard of goodness or perfection against which to judge the lightness of God's action.15 Leibniz holds that the defence of divine justice requires a conception of God as an intelligent agent who exercises choice, and that the latter is coherent only if there is variety of possible worlds from which God may choose. This is not the Stoics' position. Nevertheless, the Stoics do conceive of god as a purposive agent, who acts to realize a world in which nature guides rational beings toward the goal of a virtuous life, or 'a life in agreement with nature.' Epictetus appeals to 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, and not merely a spectator, but also an interpreter. For this reason, it is shameful for man to begin and end just where the irrational animals do; he should rather begin where they do, but end where nature has ended in dealing with us. Now she did not end until she reached contemplation and understanding and a manner of life harmonious with nature. Take heed, therefore, lest you die without ever having been spectators of these things.16

For the Stoics, the happiness of rational beings does not depend simply on the acceptance of the order of nature as necessary but on understanding it as a providential order willed by an all-knowing and beneficent god.17 The Stoics' emphasis on the teleology of divine action marks their philosophy as fundamentally different from that of Spinoza, and Leibniz was well aware of this difference.18 Although he rejects the Stoics' identification of God with the active principle of nature and regards such a position as on a par ontologically with Spinoza's monism, the evidence suggests that he absolves the Stoics of the error of fatalism and concedes to them a notion of providence. If this is correct, then Leibniz's criticism of the consolation offered by the Stoic philosophy - that it is limited to a patience that falls short of contentment - must rest on other grounds. II

Further insight into this question can be found in Leibniz's discussion, in the preface 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

144 Donald Rutherford strict fatalism: whatever is to happen, happens necessarily. Acting to avert or promote a particular outcome is useless, for if anything is destined to happen, it will happen. Leibniz dismisses this outlook as a product of the 'lazy argument' (or 'lazy sophism'), which he diagnoses as the fallacy that results from collapsing the modality of causal determinism into a brute logical or metaphysical necessity. 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 not divert men from the care of their affairs, but it tended to give them tranquility in regard to events, through the consideration of necessity, which renders our anxieties and our vexations needless. In this respect these philosophers were not far removed from the teaching of our Lord, who deprecates these anxieties in regard to the future, comparing them with the needless trouble a man would give himself in laboring to increase his height. (G vi 30/H 54)

Again, Leibniz ascribes to the Stoics a tranquility that rests on a consideration of the necessity of things, a view that might seem to confirm their association with Spinoza. However, Leibniz also notes the closeness of the Stoic philosophy to the 'teaching of our Lord,' something he never says about Spinoza. That this amounts to a tacit admission of the Stoics' affirmation of providence is confirmed by Leibniz's subsequent attempt to distinguish a third kind of fate, the fatum christianum: It is true that the teachings of the Stoics (and perhaps also of some famous philosophers of our time), confining themselves to this alleged necessity, can only impart a forced patience, whereas our Lord inspires more sublime thoughts, and even instructs 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 to neglect one hair of our head, our confidence in him ought to be entire. And thus we should see, if we were capable of understanding him, that it is not even possible to wish for anything better (as much in general as for ourselves) than what he does. It is as if one said to men: Do your duty and be content with that which shall come of it, 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 you have 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 Stoics appears to amount to this. In affirming divine providence, one is consoled by the thought that all is ordered for the best. Yet this can be a hard pillow on which to

Leibniz and the Stoics

145

lie. If fate delivers a series of blows, one's only recourse is to say, that is fate; one must bear such suffering with a 'forced patience.' To this extent, Stoic tranquility indeed rests on an affirmation of the necessity of things: not the strict geometrical necessity that Spinoza propounds but an unchanging, universal providence to which all must submit.20 Leibniz's claim against the Stoics is that his theodicy offers a richer consolation than this, one which provides for a 'contentment' that surpasses Stoic 'tranquility.' It is able to do this because of the distinction he draws between providence and divine justice.21 Although the Stoics support the idea that God orders the universe providentially, what is missing from their philosophy, in Leibniz's view, is an adequate recognition of God's care for the welfare of individual human beings, a care Leibniz expresses in the image of God as a 'good master,' or sovereign, who observes a perfect justice with respect to rational beings, ensuring that virtue is always balanced with happiness and vice with unhappiness. In 'On the Ultimate Origination of Things,' Leibniz describes the special relationship between God and rational beings in the following terms: Just as in the best constituted republic, care is taken that each individual gets what is good for him, as much as possible, similarly, the universe would be insufficiently perfect unless it took individuals into account as much as could be done consistently with preserving the harmony of the universe. It is impossible in this matter to find a better standard than the very law of justice, which dictates that everyone should take part in the perfection of the universe and in his own happiness in proportion to his own virtue and to the extent that his will has thus contributed to the common good. (G vn 3077AG 154)

As stated, Leibniz's argument seems open to an immediate objection. Leibniz's conception of divine justice turns on a basic distinction between rational minds 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 in relation to the other creatures) but also what a prince is to his subjects, and even what a father is to his children' ('Monadology,' sec. 84; G vi 621/AG 223-4). In this way, there is constituted 'the city of God,' 'the most perfect possible state under the most perfect of monarchs' (ibid., sec. 85): 'a moral world within the natural 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 integral to the Stoic position that rational beings occupy a privileged place in the universe: 'the greatest and most authoritative and most comprehensive of all governments is this one, which is composed of men and god ... by nature it belongs to [rational beings] alone to have communion in the society of god, being inter-

146 Donald Rutherford twined with him through reason.'22 For the Stoics, moreover, divine justice is inseparable from providence, for justice is grounded in the universal law that governs nature as a whole.23 The Stoics can even defend the point, central to Leibniz's argument, that divine justice entails a balance between virtue and happiness. Since the Stoics maintain that the happy life is identical with the virtuous life, they are committed to the thesis that a perfect justice (in Leibniz's sense) governs the actions of rational beings: virtue is necessarily correlated with happiness and vice with unhappiness.24 To appreciate the force of Leibniz's case against the Stoics, we must consider it from a broader perspective which brings to light underlying differences in their respective conceptions of the good and of happiness. Leibniz's dissatisfaction with the Stoic position is best seen in relation to the Stoics' treatment of natural evil: the suffering caused by earthquakes, drought, disease, etc. In agreement with Leibniz's own view of providence, the Stoics regard such suffering as justified in terms of the contribution its causes make to the orderly operation of the universe; the part is justified in terms of the whole. God wills a universal law that entails, as an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence, events that cause human suffering. As Epictetus writes: If you regard yourself as a man and as a part of some whole, on account of that whole, 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 impossible in such a body as ours, in the universe that envelops us, among these fellow creatures of ours, that such things should not happen, some to one man and some to another.25

Leibniz employs similar reasoning and accepts that God may legitimately sacrifice the happiness of rational beings for the sake of the perfection and harmony of the whole.26 Nevertheless, he believes that this providence must be situated within a larger account of God's justice. If a virtuous person suffers because of natural evil, an imbalance is created between what that person deserves on account of his virtue and his happiness. Since the law of justice dictates a balance between virtue and happiness, God must exercise a compensatory (or, in the case of a wicked person who does not pay for his crime, retributive) justice that serves to correct any temporary imbalance between virtue and happiness. Thus, God ensures that it is never ultimately the case that the virtuous person is unhappy in spite of his virtue, or the wicked person happy in spite of his crime. As it is evident that many die without the fulfilment of this condition, Leibniz argues that divine justice also requires that each rational being possess a personal immortality: 'It follows necessarily that there will be another life and that souls will not

Leibniz and the Stoics

147

perish with the visible bodies. Otherwise there would be crimes unpunished and good deeds unrewarded, which is contrary to order' (Mo 49/L 564).27 The Stoics' response to the problem of evil begins from a fundamentally different conception of the relation of virtue and happiness. For the Stoics, nothing is a good in itself except virtue and what partakes of it.28 Thus, the virtuous life alone is choiceworthy and sufficient for happiness; happiness does not depend on physical well-being or the attainment of external goods. In the Stoics' view, therefore, the suffering produced by natural evil does not create an imbalance that demands to be corrected. Rather than looking for redress, the virtuous person demonstrates his virtue by understanding such events as necessary consequences of nature's universal law. To treat such events or the suffering they cause as evils that demand compensation would be, on the contrary, to demonstrate one's lack of virtue.29 Since virtue, or living in agreement with nature, is constitutive of happiness, the Stoics regard this account as consistent with god's providential care for human beings. Seneca maintains that the equivalent of the trials of Job should be seen as an example of god's concern for us, because such trials test the virtuous person and allow him to realize the full extent of his virtue.30 From a different perspective, Epictetus argues that god demonstrates his concern for rational beings by allowing our happiness to depend on nothing that is not within our power, that is, on virtue alone, and not on external goods which are 'liable to frustration, removal, or compulsion.'31 Leibniz accepts that under the right circumstances a virtuous life can be sufficient for happiness, and that such a life is one in which we endeavour to understand 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 of happiness, or that a virtuous life is necessarily a happy life. Leibniz defines 'happiness' (felicite) as a 'lasting state of pleasure,' and 'pleasure' as a 'knowledge or feeling of perfection' (Gr 579/R 83).32 Virtue can be sufficient for happiness, on his account, because virtue is the perfection of the will: its disposition to choose in accordance with wisdom, or a knowledge of the good. Thus, a virtuous person naturally enjoys pleasure - and as it endures, happiness - as a result of being aware of his virtue.33 Yet while Leibniz believes that a life of virtue is naturally productive of happiness, he allows that events outside our control can pre-empt happiness attained in this way. We remain vulnerable to fortune, because other things besides virtue (e.g., health, beauty, power) are also goods for us - lesser goods, to be sure, but goods nonetheless. Each of these qualities involves some degree 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 of virtue may be outweighed by the pain experienced as a result of physical or

148 Donald Rutherford emotional suffering. Because an imbalance between virtue and happiness is conceptually possible for Leibniz, justice as compensation has an essential role to play in his theodicy. The virtuous person always will be made happy by his virtue, but this does not mean that other circumstances may not interrupt that happiness. God as providential creator may have reasons, connected with the harmony of the whole, for allowing the virtuous person to suffer undeserved evils and 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 imbalances through the mechanism of nature. God's paternal care for rational beings takes the form of a harmony between the 'kingdoms of nature and grace,' as a result of which through the operation of nature no crime is left unpunished, no virtue unrewarded.36 Leibniz and the Stoics agree, therefore, that divine justice is exercised 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 identify divine justice with the universal law, or providence, that governs nature as a whole, Leibniz sees God's justice as a higher principle which ensures that, in the course of time, providence serves the interests of rational beings, balancing virtue 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 universal law, but a good master who cares for the fate of individual human beings and ensures that their virtue is rewarded with happiness. This forms the core of what Leibniz calls thefatum christianum, which he claims supports a more satisfying consolation than is available from the Stoic philosophy. When it seems that our virtue is insufficient for happiness - when physical or emotional suffering overwhelms 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 pursuing, for virtue eventually will be rewarded with happiness, if not in this life then in the next. Appearing as it does in the Theodicy, Leibniz clearly intends this description of thefatum christianum to be acceptable to Christian orthodoxy. Stated in these general terms, it presumably is. When we look more closely at the philosophical commitments that support his stance, however, we encounter a set of views whose orthodoxy is less obvious. In keeping with his account of immortality, Leibniz's position does not rely on a conventional conception of divine judgment.37 Given his explanation of the exercise of God's justice via the harmony

Leibniz and the Stoics

149

of the kingdoms of nature and grace, the crux of his theory is a claim about the order of nature itself. God does not intervene in nature to reward the virtuous person who has suffered unjustly, nor is this reward reserved for an extramundane afterlife; rather, nature itself contains the means for correcting such wrongs, and reparations are made within an earthly existence. Leibniz's account of divine justice as a mechanism for balancing merit and reward presupposes a weakening of the Stoics' view of the essential connection between virtue and happiness. This might seem to lend support to the idea of the vulnerability of human beings, their inability to ensure their own happiness through virtuous action, and the consequent need for divine assistance (or grace). In some passages, Leibniz appears to accept this inference.38 His fullest description of the character of the virtuous person, however, moves in the opposite direction. Although Leibniz insists on the importance of ascribing a compensatory justice to God, he does not believe that the virtuous person's happiness must remain dependent upon receiving such compensation. The person with the most complete virtue, on the contrary, is one whose happiness requires 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 the immortal soul placed in the control and protection of God cannot be harmed except by itself, and that by loving God or revering his virtue he has been destined for the highest 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 content with all evils but also pleased by the very things that happen. The Stoics also seem on occasion to have inclined to this view, which certain passages in Epictetus, Marcus 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 who least of all needs to be compensated for suffering. As his virtue grows stronger and his knowledge of divine justice more certain, he enjoys greater happiness here and now as a result of his virtue and is proportionately less vulnerable to the suffering wrought by physical evils. Their effect is negligible in the case of the 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, misfortune, and disgrace, especially if he can find contentment, not out of necessity because he sees that things must be as they are (this is no more comfort than that of taking a sleeping potion to escape feeling pain), but out of the awakening within himself 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-

150 Donald Rutherford sists in the perception of pleasure in himself and in the powers of his mind, when a man feels within himself a strong inclination and readiness for the good and the true, and particularly through the profound knowledge which an enlightened understanding provides us, namely, that we experience the chief source, the course, and the purpose of everything, and the incomprehensible excellence of that Supreme Nature which comprises all things within it. (G vn 87/L 427)40

Although the noble individual remains in principle susceptible to the harmful effects of nature, the strength of his virtue is such that he is in practice unaffected by physical evils. Recognizing that the only true goods are those that depend on the powers of will and intellect, he is capable of a blessedness that transcends ordinary happiness. Echoing the Stoics' conception of a happiness that depends solely on things within one's power, Leibniz writes: Happiness \felicitas] depends on fortune, blessedness [beatitudo] on our will. We must, indeed, allow that even our will is dependent on external causes, since reason can be corrupted by sickness and in other ways. Nevertheless, it is certain that given 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 full account of the relation of virtue and happiness brings to light a closer affinity with their position than initially appeared. With respect to physical and emotional suffering, Leibniz and the Stoics agree on at least a general formula for consolation: 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 secure against the hardships of fortune. Central to both accounts is the idea that virtue presupposes an understanding of the order God has willed for the universe, and that happiness follows when we conform our will to that order.41 This is what the Stoics mean by 'living in agreement with nature,' and it is plausible to read Leibniz as affirming a similar view. Despite this common ground, however, Leibniz continues to insist that his philosophy supports a consolation superior to that of the Stoics. Obviously, there remain significant differences in their conceptions of divine order and their explanations of how an understanding of divine order is effective in securing happiness. What remains to be established is how these differences contribute to Leibniz's account of the consolation associated with thefatum christianum. IV

For the Stoics, consolation depends upon eliminating the passions that disturb

Leibniz and the Stoics

151

the soul's tranquility: sadness over illness or loss, fear of death, hope for better things to come. Their prescription for ridding ourselves of these 'diseases' of the soul is to pursue a life of virtue, or a life in agreement with nature, supported by the belief that the only true good is virtue. Disciplined by 'right reason,' the virtuous person consistently chooses the morally right action for the right reason and is unaffected by the hardships of fortune, enduring suffering with patience and nobility. In this way, one may achieve a happy life, or, in Zeno's phrase, '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 Notoriously, the Stoics argue that only the rarest individual - the sage - can expect to attain 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 the therapy of reducing the harmful effects of the passions, and that the result is a soul that begins to mirror the perfect tranquility of the sage.43 Leibniz's alternative recipe for consolation is best understood as having two parts.44 In the first place, as we have seen, he insists that his philosophy offers a more stable and more readily attainable tranquility than is provided by the Stoics. With his account of divine justice, human beings may be confident of their fate in a way they cannot be within the Stoics' scheme. We are not forced simply to bear our suffering with patience but are reassured by our knowledge of God's justice and the immortality of the soul that our virtue will be rewarded with happiness. In contrast to many of the Stoics' critics, Leibniz does not take issue with the general goal of eliminating the passions. However, he does argue forcefully on behalf of the ethical importance of one passion, hope, as crucial to the explanation of why a belief in divine justice is effective in producing tranquility. To the extent that we are entitled to hope that our suffering will be compensated by future happiness, we are less troubled by that suffering when 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 motivator of virtue reflects the general cast of his theology. Although he defends the notion of divine justice as retributive, Leibniz's God is fundamentally a God of love, and our sense of divine justice is most acute when we focus on God's benevolence rather than his will to punish.45 In response to the Stoics, Leibniz consistently maintains that we owe our confidence in God, and the resulting tranquility of the soul, to the thought that God's justice guarantees our future happiness, and not to the thought that we might in the end be judged unworthy of happiness. But Leibniz does not rest his case against the Stoics on this alone. He argues that the knowledge of divine justice produces a contentment that goes beyond simple tranquility or a lack of disturbance. The basis of this contentment is his

152 Donald Rutherford conception of happiness as 'a lasting state of pleasure.' As this definition suggests, on Leibniz's account, happiness is an inherently dynamic state that demands the continuation of pleasure, or the perception of perfection. Leibniz is clear that this will not be merely bodily or sensory pleasure, for such pleasure is by nature transitory and subject to fortune. The pleasures that produce happiness are rather those associated with perception of the perfection of the will and intellect, that is, virtue and knowledge. It is these pleasures that endure, secure against the vagaries of fortune, and produce a contentment consisting of a moderate and steady feeling of joy, which is justified because it reflects our possession of true goods of the soul.46 Wisdom, as the science of happiness, instructs us in how to achieve and augment this state of well-being.47 Leibniz's most far-reaching claim is that for this to happen, we must revise our original conception of God's justice and with it our understanding of the fatum christianwn. The justice exercised by God is, according to its strict definition, the 'charity of the wise.'48 The crucial component of this definition is the concept of charity, which Leibniz defines as 'universal benevolence,' or a disposition to will the good of all things in proportion to their goodness (Gr 583). Justice is charity moderated by wisdom, or a good will united with knowledge of the good.49 The most important consequence of this definition is that divine justice, as the charity of the wise, implies a will to produce as much good as possible. 'It is goodness,' Leibniz writes in the Theodicy, '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 the world of greatest goodness, or perfection, and to balance the virtue of rational creatures 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 is merely a particular virtue ... when we leave out of consideration God or a government which imitates that of God,' he writes, 'as soon as it is based on God or on 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 understands God's justice as the charity of the wise and is disposed to imitate that justice in her own actions, acting justly in relation to other rational beings and endeavouring to contribute wherever possible to the common good.52 Rather than simply affirming the eternal order of the universe, bearing patiently the hardships it brings, the virtuous person, following the example of God, strives to contribute to the greater perfection of the world through her own intellectual and moral development and that of other rational beings.53 Since the effect of such willing is to make it more likely that others will affirm the same ends in the future, the

Leibniz and the Stoics

153

result is 'an enduring progress in wisdom and virtue, and therefore also in perfection and joy' (G vn 88/L 426). By these means, the virtuous person lays the foundations for her own contentment. Conscious of her own virtue and of the increasing perfection of the world, her pleasure not only endures but continues to grow. Thus, she achieves the state Leibniz identifies with happiness, and this as 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 of God, for the perception of God's perfection is our greatest pleasure and this pleasure can continue indefinitely, as God's perfection is without limit.55 In the final section of the 'Principles of Nature and Grace,' he cites this as the key point 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 future felicity ... [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 to be patient by force, but one that is produced by present contentment, which also assures us future happiness. And besides the present pleasure, nothing can be more useful for the future. For the love of God also fulfills our hopes, and leads us down the road of supreme happiness, because by virtue of the perfect order established in the universe, everything is done in the best possible way, both for the general good and for the greatest individual good of those who are convinced of this, and who are content with divine government, which cannot fail to be found in those who know how to love the source of all good. It is true that supreme felicity (with whatever 'beatific vision' or knowledge of God it may be accompanied) can never be complete, because, since God is infinite, he can never be entirely known. Thus our happiness will never consist, and must not consist, in complete joy, in which nothing is left to desire, and which would dull our mind, but must consist in a perpetual progress to new pleasures and new perfections. (G vi 606/AG 212-13)

While parts of this passage may suggest the promise of happiness in some future life, its concluding sentence unequivocally rejects the attainment of a supreme happiness in which nothing is left to desire. What Leibniz offers instead is a present contentment, whose effects will continue to be enjoyed in the future. His account rests, again, on the idea of happiness as a dynamic state that 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 a beatific vision of God, nor in our resignation to fate, providence, or the necessity of things. Rather, it demands 'a perpetual progress to new pleasures and new perfections.' The love of God symbolizes for Leibniz the optimal means of

154 Donald Rutherford ensuring this progress: it leads us 'down the road of supreme happiness [le chemin du supreme bonheur]' (not the road to supreme happiness). To love God is to adopt God's ends as our own. This means that we strive to contribute as much good as possible to the world and accept that whatever happens as a result of 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 ourselves to be patient; rather, we must truly be satisfied with everything that has come to us according to his will. I mean this acquiescence with respect to the past. As for the future, we must not be quietists and stand ridiculously with arms folded, awaiting that which God will do, according to the sophism that the ancients called logon aergon, the lazy argument. But we must act in accordance with the presumptive will of God, insofar as we can judge it, trying to contribute with all our power to the general good and especially to the embellishment and perfection of that which affects us, or that which is near us and, so to speak, in our grasp. (G iv 429-30/AG 37-8)57

The love of God thus requires that we adopt a twofold attitude toward the world: we must endeavour to contribute to what we understand as the hidden dynamic of that order - the greater perfection of all things58 - and accept, in line with the traditional notion of consolation, that whatever happens, happens in accordance with God's will.59 The first part of this formula marks what is most distinctive about Leibniz's recipe for consolation: it consoles by putting us to work improving the world, on the assumption that this is in keeping with God's justice and the source of our greatest happiness - the contentment that surpasses mere tranquility. Leibniz's conception of God's justice as the charity of the wise transforms the character of what he calls thefatum christianum. For the person of complete virtue, or piety, God's role as the redeemer of worldly suffering is of secondary importance.60 By conforming his will to the principle of universal justice, the pious person is able to ensure his own continued happiness and independence from fortune. The will to contribute to the greater perfection of the world, and the pleasure we take in the contemplation of that perfection, are goods of the soul that can be enjoyed whatever fortune brings. Restricting his conception of value to these 'true goods,' the pious person is not merely reassured about his fate, confident that his virtue will be rewarded in the future, but benefits from the continued enjoyment of the best sort of pleasure here and now. This is what is not guaranteed to the person of incomplete virtue, for whom there is a competition between goods of the soul and goods of the body. Finding value in the latter, such a person suffers when these goods are threatened by fortune and

Leibniz and the Stoics

155

consequently takes comfort in the idea of a God who compensates rational beings for their suffering, ensuring that virtue finds its proper reward.61 In this case as much as in the first, though, God's justice is exercised through the order of nature. The person who has suffered undeservingly receives compensation by natural 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 has been created by God such that rational beings naturally enjoy a happiness that is commensurate with their virtue. If they are imperfectly virtuous, their happiness remains vulnerable to fortune and they may have to wait to enjoy its full fruits - its enjoyment becomes, as it were, hostage to the furtherance of the goals of universal providence. By contrast, when virtue is completed through a knowledge of divine justice, one acquires a happiness that is secure against fortune: an 'enduring progress of pleasure,' or 'a present contentment which also assures us future happiness.' Here we encounter the full ethical import of Leibniz's theodicy: how the knowledge of divine justice serves as a precondition for true happiness. At the same time, it is clear how ethics itself acquires a larger meaning for Leibniz by being comprehended within a conception of divine justice. For Leibniz, God's justice is expressed in the fact that rational beings naturally enjoy a greater and more permanent happiness to the extent that they conform their will to the principle of universal justice, or the charity of the wise. As he concludes in 'On the Ultimate Origination of Things': 'It is impossible in this matter to find a better standard than the very law of justice, which dictates that everyone should take part in the perfection of the universe and in his own happiness in proportion to his virtue and to the extent that his will has thus contributed to the common good' (G vn 307/AG 154). What is most striking about this position - and what reinforces the resonance of Stoicism in Leibniz's philosophy - is that while doubts can be raised about whether the fatum christianum is an authentically Christian view of human existence, there is no question that it accepts that we are subject to an unyielding fate or destiny. Leibniz stresses that on his account we are not forced simply to submit to fate but actively participate in its unfolding. But as he himself recognizes, the ancient Stoics did not affirm the conclusion of the lazy argument either, that we must merely submit. The virtuous person acts under the imperative of virtue, enjoys the happiness that is the natural complement of such action, and accepts that whatever happens, happens in accordance with the divine will. While it might be argued that this is common ground with Christianity as well, what unites Leibniz and the Stoics is the further belief that our highest happiness is nothing more than this and that it lies in our power to achieve it through the practice of virtue alone.62

156 Donald Rutherford Notes 1 In a letter to Des Bosses, Leibniz defines theodicy as 'the doctrine of the right and justice [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 wisdom together with the goodness) of God' (G 11437). Leibniz's writings are cited according to the following abbreviations (where a quoted passage differs from a cited translation, or none is cited, the translation is my own): A = Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sdmtliche Schriften und Briefe, ed. Preussische (later: Deutsche) Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Darmstadt/Leipzig/Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1923- ); AG = G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, ed. and trans. R. Ariew and D. Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989); D = Gothofredi Guillelmi Leibnitii Opera Omnia, ed. L. Dutens (Geneva: De Tournes, 1768; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1989); G = Die philosophischen 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 bibliothequeprovinciate de Hanovre, ed. G. Grua (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1948; repr. New York: Garland, 1985); H = G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, 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 Correspondence, 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. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, trans. P. Remnant and J. Bennett (Cambridge: 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 he was instrumental in having published in a new German edition. In a 1697 letter, he remarked that Boethius 'says some very beautiful and sensible things about the order of the universe. For seeing the successes of the wicked, the misfortunes of the good, the brevity and ordinary evils of human life, and the thousands of apparent disorders that offer themselves to our eyes, it seems that everything happens by chance. But those who examine the inner natures of things find everything is so well regulated there that they cannot doubt that the universe is governed by a sovereign intelligence in an order so perfect that if one understood it in detail,

Leibniz and the Stoics

3

4

5

6 7

8

9 10

11

157

one would not only believe but would also see that nothing better can be wished for' (G vn 545). 'I have always been most satisfied, from my very youth, with the ethics of Plato and in some ways with his metaphysics as well; these two sciences demand each other's company' (G in 637/L 659). Cf. D VI. 1, 215; G iv 298-9.1 discuss one aspect of Leibniz'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 (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998), pp. 22^6. De providentia 1 (in Seneca, Moral Essays, vol. 1, trans. John W. Basore [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928]). I am grateful to Jacqueline Lagree for emphasizing the relevance of this passage. It has been suggested that the doctrine of providence occupies a more prominent place in the thought of the later Stoics, Seneca and Epictetus, than in that of the early Greek Stoics. Whether or not this is true, it remains the case that the early Stoics frame their ethics against the background of a conception of nature as divinely governed, in which human beings achieve happiness insofar as they 'live in agreement with nature.' For an elaboration of this reading, see A.A. Long, 'Stoic Eudaimonism,' in Stoic Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 179-201. See the essay to which AG gives the title Two Sects of Naturalists' (G vn 333-6/AG 281-4). Leibniz's writings include a set of notes on Epictetus's Handbook (Gr 56770) and scattered references to the works of Seneca, Cicero, Plutarch, and Diogenes Laertius (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's knowledge of ancient Stoicism are the works of Justus Lipsius. Drawing on Lipsius in Theodicy, sec. 332, for example, Leibniz cites Aulus Gellius as offering a more faithful presentation of Chrysippus's views than is found in Cicero's Defato. For a comprehensive account of Stoic views on this topic, see Susanne Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Presss, 1998). 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 connection to God's foreknowledge and wisdom (G vi 328-9/H 341). Diogenes Laertius, 7.134-43. For other passages and commentary, see A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), vol. 1, ch. 44. Wherever possible translations from Stoic sources are drawn from this volume, hereafter cited as LS. Diogenes Laertius, 7.135-6 (LS 46B). 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 passages collected in LS 54. Cicero, De natura deorum 2.153; Seneca, Ep. 76.9-10 (LS 63D).

158 Donald Rutherford 12 Diogenes Laertius, 7.87 (LS 63C). 13 Cicero, De natura deorum 2.154 (trans. H. Rackham [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933]). Cf. 2.133 (LS 54N), and Seneca, De providentia 1.5: 'I shall reconcile you with the gods, who are ever best to those who are best. For nature never permits good to be injured by good; between good men and the gods there exists a friendship 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 dangerous man of this century. He was truly an atheist, that is, he did not acknowledge any providence 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 [Cambridge, 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 busy crying against Epicurus for ruining the preconception of the gods by abolishing providence. For, they say, god is preconceived and thought of not only as immortal and blessed but also as benevolent, caring and beneficent' (LS 54K). 18 'The Stoics are accused of this error [of fatalism], against which J. Lipsius defends them, since everything nonetheless happens as a result of divine decrees, or by the free will of God and created beings, though in a determinate order which God infallibly knows ... This [fatalism] in fact seems to have been the view of Hobbes and Spinoza, the former of whom made all things corporeal, the latter of whom thought that God is nothing other than the very nature or substance of the world' (De Religione Magnorum Virorum, ca. 1686-7 [A vi.4, 2460]). Cf. Jacqueline Lagree, Juste Lipse 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 together with the universe that we are swept along; whatever it is that has ordained us so to live, so to die, by the same necessity it binds also the gods. One unchangeable course bears along the affairs of men and gods alike' (trans. Basore). See also the passage from 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 the universe and has learned that "the greatest and most authoritative and most comprehensive 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-

Leibniz and the Stoics

23

24 25

26 27

28 29

159

genes Laertius, 7.138; Cicero, Defmibus 3.64. Leibniz follows the Stoics in this line of reasoning. 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 of Justice is to be found in Law, for Law is a natural force; it is the mind and reason of the 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 and Generosity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 191-212. Cicero, Defmibus 3.26-9. 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 be content with all that comes to pass.' See, for example, Theodicy, sec. 118 (G vi 168-9/H 188-9). Leibniz's understanding of this immortality is complex. On the basis of his metaphysics, he is committed to the position that there is no generation or corruption of souls or soul-like substances - 'they can only begin by creation and end by annihilation' (Monadology, sec. 6); and that physical death does not involve a complete separation or extinction of the soul's body, but only an 'enfolding and diminution' of its organs, which eventually will develop again as those of a new organism, or the same organism in a different form (ibid., sees. 72-7). These claims apply to all types of creatures, and provide no support for the stronger thesis that there is a continuity of memory or self-consciousness across successive lives. Such a continuity, or immortality, is posited by Leibniz as the exclusive property of rational beings, on the grounds that the conditions of divine justice would fail to be met if a person in principle lacked awareness of the connection between divine reward or punishment and the deeds of a previous life for which he was held accountable (Discourse on Metaphysics, sec. 34). The point to be stressed about Leibniz's doctrine of immortality is that it involves no commitment to an extramundane afterlife. Reward and punishment are delivered by natural means within a succession of linked earthly existences: 'this globe must be destroyed and restored by natural means at such times as the governing of minds requires it, for the punishment of some and the reward of others' (Monadology, sec. 88; G vi 622/AG 224). Diogenes Laertius, 7.94. 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 everybody. Yes, the same for everybody; for even if a man does escape something, it was a thing which he might have suffered. The fairness of a law does not consist in its effect 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

160 Donald Rutherford grumbling the taxes arising from our mortal state ... What we can do is adopt a noble spirit, such a spirit as befits a good man, so that we may bear up bravely under all that fortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature's ... This is the law to which our minds are needing to be reconciled. This is the law they should be following and obeying. They should assume that whatever happens was bound to happen and refrain from railing at nature. One can do nothing better than endure what cannot be cured and attend uncomplainingly the God at whose instance all things come about' (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 'total pleasure which results from all that the soul feels simultaneously' (Gr 582). In the New Essays, a work composed a decade later, he defines pleasure as 'a sense of perfection,' and happiness as 'a lasting pleasure, which cannot occur without a continual progress to new pleasures' (RB 194). 33 Our reason, Leibniz writes to Queen Sophie Charlotte, 'makes us resemble God in a small way, as much through our knowledge of order as through the order we ourselves can give to things within our grasp, in imitation of the order God gives to the universe. It is also in this that our virtue and perfection consists, just as our happiness consists 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 not accompanied by pleasure, though its privation may cause us pain: 'we only perceive the good of health, and other like goods, when we are deprived of them' (G vi 266/H 281). On the range of things considered goods, see 'On Wisdom' (G vn 86-7/L 4256) and Theodicy, sec. 124 (G vi 178/H 198). In 'Reflections on the Common Concept of Justice,' Leibniz restricts the 'true good' to 'whatever serves the perfection of intelligent substances': 'It is obvious, therefore, that order, contentment, joy, wisdom, 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, other things being equal, it is better to have it than not to have it,' but which can lead to evil if 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 individuals whose virtue is incomplete, because they lack an adequate knowledge of God's justice and of the true goods of the soul: 'the dignity and glory, and our mind's sense of joy on account of virtue, to which [philosophers] appeal under the name of honor [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 of evils, since not all men are equally moved by the imagination; especially those who

Leibniz and the Stoics 161

36 37 38

39

40

41 42

have not become accustomed to the thought of virtue or to the appreciation of the goods of the mind, whether through a liberal education or a noble way of living, or the discipline of life or of a sect. In order really to establish by a universal demonstration that everything honorable is useful and everything base is damned, one must assume the immortality of the soul, and God as ruler of the universe' (G in 388-9/R 173). Monadology, sees. 87-9 (G vi 622/AG 224). See note 27. 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 action may be delayed by God until a later earthly existence. See 'Observations on the Book Concerning "The Origin of Evil" Published Recently in London,' sec. 18 (G vi 41920/H 424-5). The consideration of the perfection of things, or, what is the same, of the supreme power, wisdom, and goodness of God, who does everything for the best, that is, with the greatest order, is sufficient to make all reasonable people content, and to convince them that contentment should be greater to the extent that we are disposed to follow order or reason' (G iv 508/AG 192). 'Since nature brings everything in order, he who stands closest to that order already can most easily arrive at an orderly contemplation or orderly conception, that is, at a felt satisfaction, precisely because there can be no higher satisfaction than to consider and see how good everything is and that nothing possibly better is to be wished' (G vn 121/W 574). 'One can say that this serenity of spirit, which finds the greatest pleasure in virtue and 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 had nothing 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 and which one need never abandon?' (Mo 61/L 569-70). Cf. Cicero, Defmibus 3.73; Seneca, Ep. 31.8. 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 guardian spirit with the will of the administrator of the whole' (LS 63C). For a typical statement 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 life and out of harmony with itself... It is the source of disturbances which ... are disorderly and agitated movements of the mind, at variance with reason and utterly hostile to peace of mind and of life [inimicissimi mentis vitaeque tranquilliae]. For they cause troubling and severe ailments, oppressing the mind and weakening it with fear. They also inflame the mind with excessive longing ... a mental powerlessness

162 Donald Rutherford

43 44

45 46 47

48 49

50

51 52 53

completely in conflict with temperance and moderation... So the cure for those vices is situated in virtue alone' (LS 61O). See Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), chs. 9-10. Leibniz does not always clearly separate these two lines of argument. They are, however, distinguished in Theodicy, sec. 177, where he speaks of his account of divine justice as supporting 'the confidence in God that gives us tranquility' and 'the love of God that makes for our happiness' (G vi 220/H 237). For a defence of retribution, see Theodicy, sees. 73-4. 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). '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 of the variation in one same degree of perfection' (G 11136/M 171-2). 'Wisdom is the science 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 to act in such a way that our mind is always in command of the matter with which it is occupied, that it often reflects on the end or objective of what it is doing. By asking ourselves from time to time, what am I doing? to what good is this directed? we are brought back to the main point. Thus, we guard against amusing ourselves with trivialities, or things that become trivial when one is too devoted to them' (Gr 581-2). Leibniz defends this definition in greatest detail in the essay 'Reflections on the Common Concept of Justice' (Mo 41-70/L 560-73). 'Justice is nothing but what conforms to wisdom and goodness combined. The end of goodness is the greatest good. But to recognize this we need wisdom, which is merely the knowledge of the good, as goodness is merely the inclination to do good to all and to prevent evil, at least if evil is not necessary for a greater good or to prevent 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). 'Thus when one is inclined to justice, one tries to procure good for everybody, so far as one can, reasonably, but in proportion to the needs and merits of each' (Gr 5797 R83). Cf. New Essays iv.viii.12: "universal justice is not merely a virtue - rather, it is the whole of moral virtue' (RB 432). New Essays iv.xviii.9 (RB 500); Mo 60/L 569. 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, as much by enlightening them so that they can know the marvels of the sovereign substance, as by helping them to remove the obstacles which stop the progress of our enlightenment' (K x 11/R 105).

Leibniz and the Stoics

163

54 I argue for this point at greater length in chapter 3 of my book Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 55 'One cannot know God as one should without loving him above all things, and one cannot love him thus without willing what he wills. His perfections are infinite and cannot cease. This is why the pleasure which consists in the feeling of his perfections is the greatest and the most durable possible, that is, it is the greatest happiness; and that 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 knowledge acquired through discursive reason: 'But one cannot love God without knowing his 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 must know 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 a certain unending and unbounded progress of the universe as a whole, as a result of which it always proceeds to greater development, just as a large portion of our world is 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 hang of destiny itself and the incomparable order it includes: first, that we should regard as good and proper everything that has already happened or is happening, as though we might be seeing them from the right viewpoint; secondly, that in all future things or events that are yet to happen, we should seek to do the good and proper thing as much as it is possible for us to do. Of these rules, the former gives us every possible satisfaction in the present, and the latter paves the way to a future, far greater happiness' (G vii 122/W 575-6). 'Then at last we learn that we have reason to find the highest joy in all things that have happened and are yet to happen, but that we must also 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 the ability to sustain their own happiness. 61 Irrespective of his virtue, the person who ascribes value to bodily pleasure suffers as a result of his own error. In general, Leibniz accepts the principle that 'a lesser good is a kind of evil if it stands in the way of a greater good' (Theodicy, sec. 8). The will tends toward good in general; it must strive after the perfection that befits us, and the supreme perfection is in God. All pleasures have within themselves some feeling of perfection. But when one is limited to pleasures of the senses, or other pleasures, to

164 Donald Rutherford the detriment of greater goods, such as health, virtue, union with God, felicity, it is in this privation of a further aspiration that the defect consists' (Theodicy, sec. 33; G vi 122/H 142). 62 I am grateful to Jon Miller (my commentator in Toronto), Brad Inwood, and Steven Strange for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

10 Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil ROBERT C. SLEIGH, JR

The primary aim of this paper is to make a contribution toward understanding Leibniz's rich and intricate treatment of the problem of evil. In my opinion, the study of Leibniz's treatment of the problem of evil and, more generally, his philosophical theology is in its infancy compared to the study of some other aspects of his philosophy. Hence, the aims of this paper are modest - something like an initial map of selected highlights of the relevant terrain. There is no doubt that the problem of evil was a life-long preoccupation for Leibniz. In its most general form, the problem of evil concerns the question of the consistency of the mere existence of evil in the created world with the characteristics attributed to its creator by theists, Leibniz included, specifically, God's moral perfection, holiness, justice, wisdom, and power. Leibniz concerned himself with this general problem of evil but, throughout his career, culminating in the Theodicy, Leibniz also concentrated on specific problems arising from the various Christian doctrines concerning divine providence, damnation, salvation, and the consequences of original sin. Four special cases were 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 prevent sin that it is in his power to prevent. Leibniz claimed that this is the most difficult special problem to solve. (See, for example, T 107.)1 Second, there is a threat to God's holiness generated by Leibniz's acceptance of the thesis that God physically concurs in all actions produced by creatures, including those that are sinful; that is, that God causally contributes to each sinful action in such fashion that, had he not so contributed, that sinful action would not have occurred. 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, for a sinful life with the thesis that God exercises complete providential control over his creation, including those very sinful actions for which he punishes sinners. Fourth, there is another threat to God's justice that arises from the combination of the thesis that salvation is ultimately a matter of the bestowal of divine grace with the thesis that such bestowal is gratuitous, that is, utterly independent 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 his creation. 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 alleged to have a problem. Membership in S may vary from case to case, but candidates for inclusion are assertions of God's existence, of his various perfections, of his providential control over his creation, and of the gratuity of his grace. Next we consider a set E of propositions alleged either to be obviously true or, at any rate, accepted by theists, about what we might call the downside of the life of creatures; for example, assertions of the existence of evil in general and sin in particular, of the fact that many are called but few are chosen, and of the gratuity of healing grace required for salvation. Last, we have the claim that the union 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 some set of propositions D such that the union of S and D is consistent and entails each element of E. Such a strategy, if successful, shows that the claim that the union 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 purported proof that the members of D are true. At the core of various purported justifications Leibniz offered are certain fundamental propositions that he accepted: 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 of these 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 shall also suggest that there is some hyperbole in Leibniz's claim that the problem of divine moral concurrence in sin is the most difficult to resolve. Given his commitment to (i), he did not find it difficult to resolve. I suggest that the problem of divine physical concurrence in sin gave him the most grief and was attended by a variety of changes in attitude on his part concerning how best to handle it.

1 It may be said with only the mildest exaggeration that Leibniz never met a purported proof for the existence of God that he didn't like, at least in general terms. The same cannot be said of then extant purported solutions to theodicean problems, even restricting attention to those that could be considered orthodox, in some broad sense. In this section, I note those approaches aimed at providing material for solutions, or partial solutions to theodicean problems that Leibniz met and rejected, excluding those that he viewed as self-consciously unorthodox. In this latter category are various efforts of the Socinians, who denied that God possesses some of the perfections orthodoxy attributes to him; for example, omnipotence and omniscience. There are four approaches intended to be compatible with orthodoxy and aimed at providing material for solutions to theodicean problems extant in Leibniz's time that he met and rejected. The first makes use of the claim that, as Leibniz 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 the works 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 of affairs that obtains is not willed to obtain by God. This advantage is reached on the 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 look upon 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 virtue of God's will alone, it seems to me that we would unthinkingly destroy all love of God and all His glory. For why praise Him for what He has done, if He would be equally praiseworthy for doing just the contrary?

168 Robert C. Sleigh, Jr The second makes use of the infinite gulf between creator and creature. The idea is that either the notions of duty and obligation have no application to God so that whatever he does he has not failed to do what he ought to do or, if the notion of duty does apply in some way to God, still creatures are so insignificant relative to God, that whatever he does to them couldn't amount to a violation of a divine obligation. Leibniz accepted the idea that moral obligation has no straightforward application to God, but he argued that nonetheless some miserable states of affairs (e.g., eternal damnation of the innocent) are incompatible with divine perfection, and, hence, that there is no solution to any theodicean problem enhanced by this non-application (CD 66). And he argued that creaturely insignificance relative to God cannot be used to justify otherwise unacceptable divine behaviour. Leibniz wrote: It is vain to reply that we are nothing before Him, not more than the smallest worm is before us. In fact, this excuse would not diminish, but would rather increase His cruelty. (CD 116)

Turning to the third and fourth approaches to aspects of the problem of evil that Leibniz met and rejected, the plot thickens. The third is a version of what we might call the free-will defence. The free-will defence is particularly well suited to 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 behaviour of creatures, which behaviour, like everything else, is under God's providential control. Leibniz rejected a libertarian conception of freedom, which has useful applications to theodicean problems - in particular, the problem concerning 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 neither metaphysically necessary nor a metaphysical or causal consequence of something willed to obtain by God; that is, for any state of affairs a such that a obtains because God wills that a obtains, the conditional (if a obtains then (3 obtains) is neither metaphysically nor causally necessary. By Leibniz's lights, accepting a libertarian account of freedom is tantamount to denying that God is the first cause of everything that obtains, a position he regarded as unacceptable. Of course, it is just this consequence of a libertarian conception of freedom that seems to make it so useful for theodicean purposes. Still, Leibniz himself hoped to employ freedom for theodicean purposes. There can be no doubt that Leibniz believed that human beings sometimes make choices that are free, that only free choices are sinful, and that these two facts are to be utilized constructively for theodicean purposes. I don't see how. Although scholars whom I respect and whose work I admire have made serious and sustained

Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil

169

efforts to help me see the error of my ways, I still think that Leibniz was a determinist and compatibilist; and I fail to see how freedom of the sort accepted by a determinist/compatibilist can aid in the solution of any theodicean problem. The fourth, and last, of the approaches intended to contribute to the solution of a theodicean problem while preserving orthodoxy that Leibniz rejected, is what we might call privation theory. In important early works - 'On the Omnipotence and Omniscience of God and the Freedom of Man' (1671, A/6/1/53746 and A/6/2/579-80) and The Author of Sin' (1672-3, A/6/3/150-1) - Leibniz made an effort to characterize privation theory, to characterize its alleged theodicean contribution to the solution of theodicean problems, and to explain in derisive terms why the theory cannot so contribute. It was quite common among non-scholastic philosophers in the seventeenth century to treat privation theory with derision. I think that the seventeenth-century deriders would have accepted this way of fixing the reference of the expression 'privation theory,' along with its alleged theodicean contribution: it is whatever account Saint Thomas offered in, for example, De Potentia Q3, a. 6, ad 20, and Summa Theologiae (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 need not be responsible for all their lacks. In De Potentia Q3, a. 6, ad 20, Saint Thomas considered the objection that if God operates as first cause with respect to the will of a creature, then defects (sins included) of its voluntary actions must be 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 its cause.

And, in ST i n Q79, a. 2, ad 2, Saint Thomas considered some sinful act of some human person. He concluded: ... man is the cause of sin. But God is a cause of the act in such a manner that He is in no way the cause of the defect accompanying the act; and, hence, He is not the cause of sin.

It is this theodicean use of the idea that evil in general, and sin in particular, is a privation that Leibniz criticized in The Author of Sin.' Leibniz first set out his understanding of the theory: Concerning this important question of the author of sin, it is commonly believed

170 Robert C. Sleigh, Jr that one may avoid the difficulty by claiming that sin in its essence is nothing but a pure privation ... and that God is not the author of privations. Toward that end, the famous distinction between the physical aspect and the moral aspect of sin was introduced - a distinction that has been abused somewhat, although it is good in and 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 be said that it consists ... in the lack of conformity of the action with the Law, which lack is pure privation. I agree with that, but I do not see what that contributes to the clarification of our question. For to say that God is not the author of sin, because He is not the author of privation, although He can be called the author of everything that is real and positive in the sin - that is a manifest illusion. It is a left-over from the visionary philosophy of the past, it is a subterfuge with which a reasonable person will not be satisfied. I am amazed that these people did not go further and try to persuade us that man himself is not the author of sin, since he is only the author of the physical or real aspect, 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 of an action supervene on its natural features in such fashion that anyone who causally contributes to every aspect of the natural features of an action is responsible, at least in part, for its moral features. Leibniz's understanding of privation theory, its theodicean uses, and his criticisms thereof - as formulated in '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 a decent hypothesis that in this matter, as in others in the relevant time period, Leibniz was much under the influence of Hobbes. In general, that influence waned. In this particular case, it clearly did for ridicule was not Leibniz's last word on privation theory and its theodicean applications, as we shall see. Ill

In the concluding section, I consider Leibniz's positive efforts with respect to the general problem of evil, and the four theodicean knots to which he devoted significant attention - problems we may label respectively moral concurrence, physical concurrence, providential control, and grace. I focus on Leibniz's use of the four doctrines previously noted: (i) this is the best possible world; (ii) sin

Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil

171

is ultimately harmful only to the sinner; (iii) whoever has an evil will deserves punishment, whatever the source of the evil will; and (iv) the ultimate source of all 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. This claim was greeted in its time with derision and its stock has not risen subsequently. Given this history, which Leibniz surely could have foreseen, it is surprising that he did not allocate more effort to sustaining the claim. The basic position is outlined in paragraphs 8 and 9 of the Theodicy; it is also outlined in numerous other passages, but it is pretty much the same short story in each such passage. It is this: We know a priori that God must have a sufficient reason for choosing to create one of the infinity of possible worlds. With his essential omnipotence and omniscience setting the context of choice, the sufficient reason must be located in his essential goodness. The consequence is that he would create no world were there not one best. But there is a world, so it must be the best. Leibniz was well aware that the orthodox position was that expressed by Saint Thomas Aquinas in ST i Q25, a. 6 - that God has created a very good world, but not the best, because there is no best. Leibniz felt the need to counter Thomas. Surprisingly, his manner of doing so is as perfunctory as his alleged proof for the positive thesis. Before I take note of Thomas's argument and Leibniz's reply, I want to indicate that Thomas seems to have presupposed much of what Leibniz affirmed here. Thomas's claim that there is no best possible world occurs in the latter half of his reply to objection 3 in Q25, a. 6. That reply begins with 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 constituent individuals are all and only the individuals in the actual world. Thomas's claim is that the actual world is the best world in a. We can imagine Leibniz reasoning as follows: Surely Thomas would claim to know this a priori. So he must agree that we can reach conclusions a priori about what God would create in a variety of circumstances by reasoning of just the sort Leibniz utilized in his proof that this is the best possible world. Moreover, surely Thomas must accept a generalization here: that is, where (3 is any set of possible individuals and a the set of possible 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 create the best. Basically, what separates Thomas from Leibniz on this score is that Thomas held this thesis: For any possible world a there is some possible world such that the set of individuals in a is a proper subset of the individuals in (3 and P is better than a.

172 Robert C. Sleigh, Jr Leibniz's first query with respect to this thesis would be how in the world would Thomas know such a thing to be true? Surely the only grounds are a priori. 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 response is that we know no such thing; perhaps adding good individuals will yield disaster - a worse world. Who knows? Suppose Leibniz was on solid ground in rejecting Thomas's reasons in favour of the thesis that there is no best world. Still, Leibniz's claim to know a priori that were there no best possible world - that is, were Thomas right - then God would not have created any world, also appears vulnerable, indeed, open to the following objection. As Robert Adams has put it (footnote 2 of 'Must God Create the Best?'): Leibniz held that if there were no best among possible worlds, a perfectly good God would have created nothing at all. But Leibniz is mistaken if he supposes that in this way God could have avoided choosing an alternative less excellent than others he could have chosen. For the existence of no created world at all would surely be a less excellent state of affairs than the existence of some of the worlds that God could have created.2

Whether Leibniz is open to this objection is not my present concern. But it seems clear to me that he might have thought not. In STia Q25, a. 6, Thomas employed a distinction that resonated throughout subsequent discussions, especially in the seventeenth century. Thomas answered the question - whether God could make better things than those that he did make - with a distinction: God could not do better considered ex parte facientis - with respect to his manner of making; but God could do better ex parte facti - with respect to the things made. Malebranche, in particular, emphasized the point that when we reason a priori about creation choices in various imagined settings, we must pay heed both to the value of an envisaged choice ex parte facientis and to its value ex parte facti. Couple this with the idea that although God antecedently favours diffusing his goodness through creation, it's not really a big deal from his point of view - there is not all that 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 contra Gentiles to provide an explanation for why God would bother to will things other than himself. The problem is allegedly solved in the later Summa Theolgiae by placing 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 the good it possesses. (Sric Q19 a. 2)

Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil

173

I think Leibniz would have latched onto the 'as far as possible' clause, arguing this way: A choice of a very good world than which there is a better world would subject God's choice to second-guessing. And he might argue that any choice subject to second-guessing of the sort available here significantly lowers the value of the contemplated choice ex parte facientis. Given that there isn't sufficient value associated with the communication of goodness that would ensue there just would not be a sufficient reason, all things considered, for God to get into the creation business in the circumstances imagined. It's just not possible given the combination of God's nature and the envisioned circumstances. In any case, it would take an effort to overestimate the theodicean importance Leibniz attributed to the thesis that this is the best possible world. It combines in a fruitful way with what is surely the most frequently employed theodicean defence; namely, the greater good defence. Consider the following proposition: GGD: For any evil state of affairs a that obtains, there is some good state of affairs 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 possibly true. Just on this score, Leibniz's commitment to the thesis that this is the best possible world put him in a strong position. Indeed, Leibniz could affirm the proposition that results from switching the positions of the quantifiers in GGD - a proposition that is stronger than GGD, and which implies GGD. He need only take as value for @ the entire actual world, no matter what value for a is selected. In Leibniz's early work on the problem of evil, he came close to the supposition that utilization of (i) in the manner just indicated was adequate to handle the general problem, and both moral and physical concurrence. The idea invoked was this: God is justified in permitting and, indeed, in causally contributing to evil, provided that the evil is required for a greater good. In an important letter to Wedderkopf, written in 1671, Leibniz did not dispute the claim that ultimately God is an author of sin. Yet he defended God's holiness with the following version of (ii): Sins are evil, not absolutely, not with respect to God, otherwise He would not permit them, but with respect to the sinner. (A/2/1/118) I suggest that Leibniz employed the following 'meaning postulate' - state of affairs a is absolutely evil only if a's obtaining entails that the best possible

174 Robert C. Sleigh, Jr world does not obtain. Given this reading, Leibniz's solution to the problem of physical concurrence amounts to invoking the greater good strategy. He came to see this as inadequate. In the early going, Leibniz leaned toward employing (iii) - the doctrine that an evil will deserves punishment, whatever its source - as a solution with respect to providential control and divine grace - the two problems that raise a question about divine fairness in the treatment of creatures. Consider the following passage from 'On the Omnipotence and Omniscience of God and the Freedom of Man' (A/6/1/542): You say, 'Why did God not create me better, why did He not give me a more moderate constitution, 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...' Here I am not obliged to answer you; it is enough that you did not will to give up your sinning ... Punishment belongs to an evil will, no matter what its source. It is important to note that Leibniz remained committed to (iii) throughout his career. Consider the following passage from T 64: ... whatever dependence is conceived in the case of voluntary actions - even if there were an absolute and mathematical necessity (which there is not) - it would not follow that there would not be as much freedom as would be required in order to render rewards and punishments just and reasonable. It is equally important to note that Leibniz came to see his early theodicean uses of (iii) as inadequate. In his latter writings, he employed one of the most striking doctrines from his mature metaphysics in order to provide a response to the 'why me?' question posed by the sinner who notes some obvious implications of 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 not you, 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 a separate paper. Even in 'On the Omnipotence ...,' after having affirmed that he need not answer our query as to why you were not given more grace, Leibniz continued:

Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil

175

Nevertheless, the wisdom of God must be justified in and for itself, although not in your particular case. (A/6/1/543)

This position - that some global justification for God's decisions with respect to providence and the ensuring distribution of divine grace must be provided, although no justification is required in individual cases - is essentially the same as that of Saint Thomas in ST ia Q23, a. 5, ad 3. Thomas stated the position and set out to explain why no justification, even in general terms, is available in individual cases. Thomas's view was one orthodox position in the seventeenth century. 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 just considered 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 punishing them. And this is the reason why God elects certain ones and reprobates certain ones ... Yet why He chooses these for glory and reprobates those has no reason except 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 deepest insights, and the failure of Malebranche and Leibniz to accept it was the principal fork in the road at which they took a wrong path. In his maturity, Leibniz came to the conclusion that GGD did not suffice to justify God's allowing sins to obtain. The principle - non essefacienda male ut eveniant bona - taken by orthodoxy to be implied by Romans 3:8 - held in the case of sin, according to Leibniz. (See, for example, T 24.) In Causa Dei, Leibniz provided a succinct formulation of what he took to be the relevant principle of this domain: ... it is always illicit to permit another person to sin unless duty requires this permission. (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 a duty (that is, morally necessary). This is the case whenever another's sin cannot be prevented unless one violates what one owes to oneself or to others.

176 Robert C. Sleigh, Jr In God's case, of course, it could only be what he owes to himself. And in the next paragraph, Leibniz put his cards on the table, noting that there is something God '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 previously that in his early years Leibniz rejected what he took to be the standard Scholastic doctrine intended to solve the problem of physical concurrence - privation theory. Once it became clear to Leibniz that the problem of physical concurrence, which he termed the problem of the author of sin, was resistant to the strategies 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 thesis that the ultimate source of evil - sin, in particular - is in the divine understanding over which God has no control, not in the divine will, over which God has control. Leibniz engaged in a sustained effort in the Confessio Philosophi, written in 1672-3, to utilize (iv) in order to solve the problem of sin. I outline the justification offered in the Confessio, along with what I take to be its inadequacies. My claim is that Leibniz came to see its inadequacies and was forced thereby to concoct his own complicated version of privation theory. In the Confessio, Leibniz announced his solution to the problem of the author of sin as follows: ... although God is the ground (ratio) of sins, nevertheless He is not the author of sins ... 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 are quite clear in the text. No doubt Leibniz held the following theses in the Confessio: (a) there are exactly two modes of divine causation - causation via the divine understanding and causation via the divine will; (b) each state of affairs that obtains is caused to obtain either by the divine understanding or the divine will; (c) God is an author of those states of affairs caused to obtain by the divine will; (d) sins are not caused to obtain by the divine will. So far, so easy. But when we turn to details, the picture becomes murky. Let's start with a problem concerning the understanding of Leibniz's notion in the Confessio of causation via the divine understanding. Some of Leibniz's

Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil

177

remarks suggest that he was committed therein to the following (where a is any state 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 to Leibniz: 2. For any state of affairs a that obtains, necessarily, if God exists then a obtains. Putting (1) and (2) together, we reach the conclusion that in the Confessio Leibniz was committed to the thesis that every state of affairs that obtains is caused to obtain by the divine understanding. Clearly Leibniz held that some states of affairs are caused to obtain by the divine will. So, following the present line of interpretation, we would reach the conclusion that in the Confessio Leibniz did not take the two modes of divine causation to be mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, many of his remarks therein suggest that he did. Those same remarks suggest a rather different conception of causation via the divine understanding, one employing the notion of per se necessity introduced in the Confessio. We may extract Leibniz's notion of per se necessity from the following account of per se possibility. A state of affairs is per se possible just in case it is metaphysically possible in the ordinary sense that it obtains, or, if it is not, then the impossibility of its obtaining does not result from an incompatibility among its internal intrinsic features, but rather from an incompatibility between those features obtaining and some other state of affairs that obtains of necessity. Leibniz utilized the following example to explain the point. Consider the state of affairs consisting in some innocent person being damned eternally. Leibniz held that this state of affairs is per se possible, although it is metaphysically impossible in virtue of various necessary features of a necessary being, namely, God. The conception of causation via the divine understanding suggested by many of Leibniz'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

178 Robert C. Sleigh, Jr that the two modes mentioned - via understanding and via will - exhaust God's modes of causal operation, (3) would have the consequence that God is the cause of sin via his will; that is, that God is the author of sin - exactly what Leibniz 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 that God's causation via the divine understanding is ubiquitous, the pressure falls on Leibniz's account of causation via the divine will. Unfortunately, the notion of causation via the will, that is, of authorship, in the Confessio is also troubled. I think that a careful examination of it leads to ascribing the following to Leibniz: 4. Agent A is the author of a's obtaining if, and only if, A is the cause of oc's obtaining (somehow), and A wills in favour of a's obtaining; that is, A takes delight in oc's obtaining. Consider a sin 6 that obtains. Since, given (1) and (2), God is the cause of 6's obtaining via his understanding, Leibniz's claim that God is not the author of 3's obtaining would amount to the claim that pi's obtaining does not delight God. This account may seem not to merit Leibniz's claim in the Confessio to have devised an account that clarifies in a significant way what the Scholastics should have asserted on this topic. In his mature treatment of the problem, Leibniz 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 sinful states of affairs that obtain in the world God created does not tarnish his holiness, whatever his preferences with respect to those sins may be. The fact is that in his mature treatments of the problem of the author of sin Leibniz took refuge in his own version of privation theory - the theory versions of which were lampooned in 'On the Omnipotence and Omniscience of God and the Freedom of Man' 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 formal aspect, which is a privation or anomie. But one should know that this response is more solid than it seems at first glance, for every privation consists in imperfection, and imperfection, in limitation. (A/6/4/1605)

This passage utilizes the conceptual tools of Leibniz's final solution to the problem of the author of sin - a solution on display in the Theodicy. Roughly, the

Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil

179

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, ultimately, its sin, if it is a rational created entity that sins. The ultimate source of the limitation present in created entities is to be found in the possible individuals in the divine understanding - a source not under the control of the divine will. In the Theodicy, Leibniz coupled this framework with a theory of concurrence between created agent and God in the production of a creaturely action. Not surprisingly, this theory has the consequence that causal responsibility for sin falls uniquely to the created agent. I agree with Gaston Grua's claim that this thesis is central to Leibniz's contribution to the solution of the problem of evil.3 It is front and centre in a letter to Molanus: ... every creature is essentially limited; I call this limitation or negation a privative imperfection, and I add that this is the source of evil, not only of the capacity for sin, 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 by series and volume. Thus, 'A/6/1/537-46' refers to pages 537 through 546 of the first volume of the sixth series. CD G.W. Leibniz. Causa Dei. Cited by section number as in Die Philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz. Ed. C.J. Gerhardt. 7 volumes. Berlin, 1875-90. Reprint. Georg Olms, 1965. Causa Dei occurs in volume 6, pages 437-62. Grua G.W. Leibniz. Textes inedits. Ed. Gaston Grua. 2 volumes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948. Reprint. New York: Garland, 1985. T G.W. Leibniz. Essais de theodicee (The Theodicy). Cited by section numbers as in Gerhardt, volume 6, pages 21^436. 2 See 'Must God Create the Best?' as reprinted in Robert M. Adams, The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 63. 3 Gaston Grua, Jurisprudence universelle et theodicee selon Leibniz (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953; reprint, New York: Garland, 1985), p. 274.