Leibniz’s Conception of Metaphysical Evil

Abstract

The first part of Leibniz's Theodicy ranges over many different subjects pertaining to justification of God's goodness, wisdom, and power in face of world's ills, many of which are taken up in greater detail later in work. It is perhaps this synoptic character of part one which accounts for relative brevity and obscurity of Leibniz's initial stab at question regardant la cause du mal. In section twenty Leibniz is concerned with marking out a position which avoids at once ascribing cause of evil to will of God and locating its source in some reality, such as matter, existing independently of God. The solution he offers is one which in its essentials is found in his writings both early and late: that origin of evil must be sought in the ideal nature of creature, insofar as this ideal nature exists in divine understanding, since there is an original imperfection in creature before sin, because creature is essentially limited.' Original imperfection is due to fact that God create gods, and therefore any possible creature will inevitably fall short of fullness of perfection which God possesses. In some ways imperfection helps to explain occurrence of evil, as Leibniz illustrates using example of evil of sin: because of original limitation, creature cannot know all, and can deceive itself and commit other faults.2 Leibniz then presents a kind of taxonomy of species of evil: Evil can be taken metaphysically, physically and morally. Metaphysical evil consists