Theodicy : essays on the goodness of God, the freedom of man, and the origin of evil

Leibniz was above all things a metaphysician. That does not mean that his head was in the clouds, or that the particular sciences lacked interest for him. Not at all--he felt a lively concern for theological debate, he was a mathematician of the first rank, he made original contributions to physics, he gave a realistic attention to moral psychology. But he was incapable of looking at the objects of any special enquiry without seeing them as aspects or parts of one intelligible universe. He strove constantly after system, and the instrument on which his effort relied was the speculative reason. He embodied in an extreme form the spirit of his age. Nothing could be less like the spirit of ours. To many people now alive metaphysics means a body of wild and meaningless assertions resting on spurious argument. A professor of metaphysics may nowadays be held to deal handsomely with the duties of his chair if he is prepared to handle metaphysical statements at all, though it be only for the purpose of getting rid of them, by showing them up as confused forms of something else. A chair in metaphysical philosophy becomes analogous to a chair in tropical diseases: what is taught from it is not the propagation but the cure. Confidence in metaphysical construction has ebbed and flowed through philosophical history; periods of speculation have been followed by periods of criticism. The tide will flow again, but it has not turned yet, and [8] such metaphysicians as survive scarcely venture further than to argue a case for the possibility of their art. It would be an embarrassing task to open an approach to Leibnitian metaphysics from the present metaphysical position, if there is a present position. If we want an agreed starting-point, it will have to be historical. The historical importance of Leibniz's ideas is anyhow unmistakable. If metaphysical thinking is nonsensical, its empire over the human imagination must still be confessed; if it is as chimerical a science as alchemy, it is no less fertile in by-products of importance. And if we are to consider Leibniz historically, we cannot do better than take up his _Theodicy_, for two reasons. It was the only one of his main philosophical works to be published in his lifetime, so that it was a principal means of his direct influence; the Leibniz his own age knew was the Leibniz of the _Theodicy_. Then in the second place, the _Theodicy_ itself is peculiarly rich in historical material. It reflects the world of men and books which Leibniz knew; it expresses the theological setting of metaphysical speculation which still predominated in the first years of the eighteenth century........ In Order To Be Truly Free, Must You Act Arbitrarily? If An Event Did Not Happen, Could It Have Happened? Since There Is Evil, And God Could Have Made The World Without Evil, Did God Fail To Pick The Best Course? Grappling With Such Simple£yet Still Intriguing£puzzles, Leibniz Was Able To Present Attractively His New Theories Of The Real And The Phenomenal, Freewill And Determinism, And The Relation Between Minds And Bodies. Theodicy Was Leibniz's Only Book-length Work To Be Published In His Lifetime, And For Many Years The Work By Which He Was Known To The World. Fully At Home With The Latest Scientific Advances, Leibniz Ultimately Rejected The New Atomistic Philosophies Of Descartes, Gassendi, And Hobbes, And Drew Upon The Old Cosmology Of Aristotelian Scholasticism. There Could Be No Conflict, He Argued, Between Faith And Reason, Freedom And Necessity, Natural And Divine Law. Ingeniously Defending His Postulate Of Pre-established Harmony, Leibniz Made Important Advances In The Precise Analysis Of Concepts--publisher Description. Preliminary Dissertation On The Conformity Of Faith With Reason -- Essays On The Justice Of God And The Freedom Of Man In The Origin Of Evil, In Three Parts -- Appendices -- Summary Of The Controversy, Reduced To Formal Arguments -- Excursus On Theodicy -- Reflexions On The Work That Mr. Hobbes Published In English On 'freedom, Necessity And Chance' -- Observations On The Book Concerning 'the Origin Of Evil', Published Recently In London -- Causa Dei Asserta. G.w. Leibniz ; Edited, With An Introduction By Austin Farrer ; Translated By E.m. Huggard From C.j. Gerhardt's Edition Of The Collected Philosophical Works, 1875-90. Translation Of: Essais De Théodicée. Originally Published: London : Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951. Includes Index.