Theodicy

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Theodicy

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Title: Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man
and the Origin of Evil
Author: G. W. Leibniz
Commentator: Austin Farrer
Translator: E.M. Huggard
Release Date: November 24, 2005 [EBook #17147]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Theodicy
Essays on the Goodness of God the Freedom of Man and the Origin of
Evil
G.W. LEIBNIZ
Edited with an Introduction by Austin Farrer, Fellow of Trinity College,
Oxford
Translated by E.M. Huggard from C.J. Gerhardt's Edition of the
Collected Philosophical Works, 1875-90
Open [Logo] Court
La Salle, Illinois 61301
* * * * *
[Logo]
OPEN COURT and the above logo are registered in the U.S. Patent &
Trademark Office.
Published 1985 by Open Court Publishing Company, Peru, Illinois
61354. This edition first published 1951 by Routledge & Kegan Paul
Limited, London. Second printing 1988 Third printing 1990 Fourth
printing 1993 Fifth printing 1996
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION
DATA
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716. Theodicy: essays
on the goodness of God, the freedom of man, and the origin of evil.
Translation of: Essais de Théodicée. Includes index. 1. Theodicy--Early

works to 1800. I. Title. B2590.E5 1985 231'.8 85-8833 ISBN
O-87548-437-9
[5] * * * * *
CONTENTS
* * * * *
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION page 7 PREFACE 49 PRELIMINARY
DISSERTATION ON THE CONFORMITY OF FAITH WITH 73
REASON ESSAYS ON THE JUSTICE OF GOD AND THE
FREEDOM OF MAN IN THE 123, 182, 276 ORIGIN OF EVIL, IN
THREE PARTS APPENDICES SUMMARY OF THE
CONTROVERSY, REDUCED TO FORMAL ARGUMENTS 377
EXCURSUS ON THEODICY, § 392 389 REFLEXIONS ON THE
WORK THAT MR. HOBBES PUBLISHED IN 393 ENGLISH ON
'FREEDOM, NECESSITY AND CHANCE' OBSERVATIONS ON
THE BOOK CONCERNING 'THE ORIGIN OF EVIL', 405
PUBLISHED RECENTLY IN LONDON CAUSA DEI ASSERTA 443
INDEX 445
[7] * * * * *
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
* * * * *
I
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