The author contextualizes the Problem of Evil in Open Theism system, listing its main theses, primarily the logic-of- love-defense (and free-will-defense) connected to Trinitarian speculation. After evaluating the discussion in Analytic Philosophy of Religion, the focus is on the personal mystery of evil, claiming that, because of mystery and vagueness, the Problem of Evil is undecidable. Recalling other schools of thought (Pareyson: ontology of freedom; Moltmann: Dialectical theology; Kenotic theology; Original Sin hermeneutics), the author tries to grasp their common insights. (...) One of them is the evident explanatory failure of theodicies, expressed in the antinomian statements ‘God is not innocent’. The author follows these insights, developing the concept of Eternal Immolation (Bulgakov), arguing that, without a proper understanding of its mystery (what is, and what is not), theistic theodicy could remain compromised. ‘Eternal Immolation’ is considered consequent – or already present – in recent speculations, it stands or falls when we accept that these reveal some unresolved points in Christian doctrine. Hence, ‘Eternal Immolation’ becomes a coordinating-concept, able to bring together their assumptions: several kinds of kenosis, the ontology of freedom with a logic-of-love defense, strongly linked to a libertarian human freedom, and the acknowledgement of the unresolved mystery of evil. (shrink)

Evil poses a particular problem to early modern thinkers. Late scholasticism, while itself variegated, provided a number of resources for dispelling concerns about the justice of God raised by the existence of evil. With much of the metaphysics of the scholastics rejected, the new philosophers needed either to find inventive ways to make the old solutions fit into their new systems, to come up with new resources for dispelling the difficulties, or to accept the difficulties as insurmountable, likely via fideism (...) or atheism. Leibniz, I claim, provides a provocative mixture of the first two approaches. Many readers think Leibniz's solution to the problem of evil can be summed up in as little as a page, perhaps even a compound sentence, that sentence being, "God created the best possible world, and so He cannot be blamed for the existence of evil." My primary purpose is to show that this conception is false. Not only does Leibniz offer a complex response to the problem of evil which involves a unique combination and reinterpretation of components from the history of philosophical thinking about evil, but his solution changes a number of times throughout his career. And how could it not? It is nearly uncontested that Leibniz's metaphysics underwent important changes between the early 1670s and the mid 1680s. The thesis that Leibniz's metaphysics changed significantly at least once between the mid 1680s and the end of his life is becoming more and more accepted among scholars. Given the importance of theology to Leibniz's metaphysical thinking and the importance of metaphysics to Leibniz's theological thinking, it could hardly be the case that Leibniz's thought on the problem of evil could remain unchanged throughout these changes. What follows is structured as three developmental stories each revolving around the role of one conceptual tool used by Leibniz as a part of a solution to the problems posed by evil--these conceptual tools being the doctrine that God created the best possible world, the distinction between willing and permitting (in particular as it relates to God's relationship to evil), and the doctrine that sin is a privation. Each chapter highlights the way Leibniz's conception and use of the particular tool changed throughout his life and the differing ways these concepts interact with each other. I begin by examining the doctrine that this is the best possible world. Early in his career (in particular in the Letter to Magnus Wedderkopf of 1671) Leibniz thought that this doctrine was sufficient for explaining the goodness of God in spite of the evils in the world. In that letter he explicitly denied that divine permission was possible, and within a few years explicitly denied that the doctrine that sin is a privation was of any use in securing the goodness of God. The doctrine that God created the best possible world itself went through a few changes as Leibniz's thought developed. Of most significance is the change from seeing God's creation of this world as necessary to holding that it is a contingent fact that God created the best possible world. Shortly after this change occurs and, I argue, partly because this change occurs, Leibniz begins to see the problem of evil split in such a way that it is no longer sufficient for procuring divine goodness to point out that God has a good reason for bringing evils about. It must now be argued that God brings evils about for a good reason and remains morally upright in doing so. Regarding the other two doctrines--divine permission and the privative nature of sin--Leibniz's thought undergoes radical change. Once Leibniz feels the need to go beyond giving a reason why God choose to create a world that contains evil, he reverses his opinion about whether God can be said to permit anything. Regarding privations, Leibniz's thought undergoes a number of changes. Around 1678, He reverses his opinion about whether there is any value to holding that sins are privations. Further, the phrase `sins are privations' takes on different meanings as Leibniz develops. In 1686, he takes the phrase to mean that sins are the result of the limitation of the creature. By the time of the Theodicy(1710), however, he thinks of sins both as the result of limitations of creatures and as having a privative aspect (i.e., there is a defect in the action itself, and thus a double-role of the concept of privation). These changes require changes in Leibniz's metaphysics and in particular a change in the way Leibniz thinks of the causal interactions between God and human actions, and substances and human actions. This lends support to the still controversial but increasingly accepted view that Leibniz's metaphysics undergoes a significant change between the Discourse on Metaphysics and the Monadology. (shrink)

¿Qué es lo que hace, según Leibniz, que se pueda decir que nuestro mundo es el mejor posible? Varias interpretaciones, no siempre posibles de conciliar, se han propuesto. Sería el mejor porque en ese mundo las criaturas razonables obtendrían la mayor felicidad, o por cuanto realizaría la mayor cantidad de ser y realidad a nivel total, o incluso porque sería el que asocia las leyes más simples con los fenómenos más ricos y variados. El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar (...) que lo mejor ha de comprenderse en el sentido del método de Formis optimis, es decir, como lo que remite, en un genero dado, a la forma más determinada, la cual es a la vez única y la más racional. Así, la perfección del mundo no resulta de que concentraría la mayor cantidad de esencia y bien, sino de que constituye el orden más inteligible, donde cada cosa, sin ser forzosamente la más perfecta en sí misma, contribuye no obstante a la armonía universal, a saber, a la unidad de una multiplicidad que cumple mejor los fines divinos. For Leibniz, what makes our world be the best? Several interpretations not always compatible have been proposed. It would be the best, insofar as it would maximize the happiness of reasonable creatures, or insofar as it would achieve the largest quantity of being and reality as a whole, or insofar as it would combine the simplest laws with the richest and most varied phenomena. The aim of this paper is to show that the best is to be understood in the sense of the method de Formis optimis, as what refers, for a given sort of things, to the most determined form, which is both unique and the most rational one. Thus, the perfection of the world does not result from its containing the largest quantity of essence and of good, but from its forming the most intelligible order, in which every single thing, without being necessarily the best in itself, nevertheless contributes to the universal harmony, that is to the unity of a manifold fulfilling the divine ends in the best possible way. (shrink)