Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is known as one of the great German thinkers who contributed immensely to various fields of philosophy, mathematics and history. In philosophy, Leibniz elegantly enriched the movement with his complex and mature rationalism. Unlike other rationalists before him, Leibniz exemplified a more comprehensive universe that was chosen by God as the best of all possible worlds. This perfect world is characterized by an infinite number of simple substances “monads” which are non-spatial and non-temporal entities. Every monad is like a mirror representing the whole universe from its own point of view.
Some of the prominent arguments of Leibniz in his works Monadology and Theodicy:
1) A cosmological argument that Leibniz uses to argue for the existence of God. Leibniz claims that everything that exists has a sufficient reason for its being and not otherwise. To avoid an infinite regress of this series of contingencies, there must exist some ultimate substance for all this diversity, and this is what we call God.
2) An argument of the world perfection. God is omnipotent and omniscient and benevolent and the free creator of the world. Suppose the world could be better. If this world is not the best of all possible worlds, then God was not powerful enough to bring about a better world, or God lacked knowledge, or God did not wish this world to be the best. Any of these statements contradict to what God is.
3) The problem of Evil. Critiques of Leibniz points out that an amount of pain in this world does not justify belief that God has created the best of all possible worlds. Leibniz argues that suffering is good because it is a part of the infinite goodness of God. Evil is just the product of our limited intelligence, which fails to grasp the true character of God’s creative intentions. We call things evil when they are viewed in isolation, but they might be good in relation to other events and processes. Moreover, Leibniz insists that earthly human happiness can not be considered the standard by which the goodness of worlds is to be judged.
