EARLY MODERN RATIONALISTS

From Classics in the Philosophy of Religion, by James Fieser

© 2026, updated 6/1/2026, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

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CONTENTS

• Nicholas Malebranche: God as Mediator Between our Minds and the World (from Search after Truth, Treatise on Nature and Grace, Dialogues on Metaphysics)

• Baruch Spinoza: God as Nature (from Short Treatise on God, Theological-Political Treatise)

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: God as Creator of an Infinite Harmonious Universe (from Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, "Ultimate Origination" Theodicy, Letter to Clarke).

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The scientific revolution had two major impacts on the entire field of philosophy of the time. First, it freed philosophers from the constraints of Aristotelean cosmological and metaphysical concepts. They could now discuss issues of ultimate reality and the human mind without invoking previously required notions of substantial forms and final causes. Second, the scientific revolution presented a fully mechanical scheme of the cosmos and everything within it. Philosophers could now apply this mechanical model directly to philosophical issues. Their writings took two distinct approaches. Some philosophers, a group we now call "rationalists" de-emphasized knowledge gained through the senses, thereby emphasizing knowledge obtained through human reason, similar to mathematical reasoning. Others, now called "empiricists", took the opposite approach, emphasizing knowledge through the senses as opposed to pure reasoning. In this chapter we look at rationalists, many of whom were inspired by Descartes, which we looked at in the previous chapter. Rationalist approaches to the concept of God followed in the path that Descartes laid out, where God is an active force in the cosmos. For some, God was little more than a placeholder for a governing law of nature. Nicholas Malebranche held that God shuttles information back and forth between the physical world and our human minds. Baruch Spinoza held that God is just another word for the natural world as a whole, of which each of us is a feature. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz held that God created an infinite vast cosmos where all its complex parts fit together like a harmonious machine. Each of these rationalists displays creativity in their conceptions of God and the cosmos. However, by straying too far from what our senses tell us about the world, their creativity was in many ways their downfall, as later empiricists were happy to point out.

 

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NICHOLAS MALEBRANCHE:

GOD AS MEDIATOR BETWEEN OUR MINDS AND THE WORLD

 

Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) was born in Paris with a malformed spine and weak constitution that kept him largely confined to home as a child, where he was privately tutored. He later studied philosophy and theology at the Collège de la Marche and the Sorbonne, then joined the Oratory, a congregation of secular priests, and was ordained in 1664. That same year, by his own account, he came across Descartes' Treatise on Man in a bookshop. Reading it left him so agitated with excitement, he said, that he had to stop repeatedly to let his heart palpitations subside. He spent the next decade working out his own synthesis of Cartesian philosophy and Augustinian theology, publishing it as The Search after Truth (1674–75). Its claims drew him into a long, bitter public dispute with the theologian Antoine Arnauld, and later a more measured one with Leibniz. In his final years he received a visit from the young George Berkeley. Tradition holds that their heated philosophical argument left Malebranche so overexcited that his health, already failing, gave out within days. He died in Paris later that year. The selections below are from three of his works.

          The first set of selections are from The Search after Truth, the two central positions of which are that (1) we perceive the world only by seeing ideas "in God", and that God is the only true cause of anything that happens. In the section "Our Minds are Deceived by our Bodies, but Enlightened by God" he sets out his governing picture: the mind sits between God above and body below. While our mind is always united to both, only the union with God gives it truth. By contrast, the mind's union with the body is the source of nearly all its errors. In the section "We only perceive Ideas of Things, not the actual Things Themselves" he argues that, since the soul cannot literally travel out to the sun or stars to see them, whatever we perceive is not the object itself but only an "idea" immediately present to the mind. This is proven by the fact that we can perceive things, like a mountain of gold, that don't exist at all. In the section "Ideas of Created Things Reside in God which he Allows us to See Within Him" he completes the argument that we see all things in God. Since (1) God must already contain the ideas of everything he created, and (2) God is intimately present to every mind, then (3) we see created things by seeing the ideas of them that already exist within God himself.

          This same logic extends to causal connections in the world, as he argues in the section "God is the True Cause of Physical Motion". No body, he says, has any power to move itself, and no finite mind has a demonstrable power to move a body either. Consequently, only God's will (which alone has a necessary connection to its effects) can be a true cause. One billiard ball striking another is merely the "occasion" upon which God moves the second ball, not the real cause of its motion. In the section "God is the True Cause of Human Bodily Motion"", he applies the same reasoning to our own bodies. We don't even know how our will manages to move our arm's muscles and nerves, which is itself evidence that our will isn't the true cause of the motion. God is that true case, and our will is merely the occasion.

          Malebranche turns to how his theory handles miraculous exceptions in the section "God Acts through General Natural Laws, only Rarely through Particular Volitions and Miracles". God normally governs the world through simple, general laws rather than by intervening case by case. Thus, a falling stone kills the good and the wicked alike. True miracles, he says, are rare departures from this pattern rather than God's ordinary way of acting. In the section "God's Plan executed through Nature as the Simplest Way", he adds that God prefers the most useful outcome achievable through the simplest and most general laws. The alternative would be God for God to act more locally to bring about a perfect outcome. But this, he argues, would require constant miraculous tinkering, which is inconsistent with God's simplicity. Thus, even a beneficial rainstorm should be credited to God's general design for weather, not to a particular miraculous act performed just for one farmer's field. The final two selections confront the problem of evil directly. In the section "Two Divine Principles" Malebranche argues that God does not merely aim to make the most perfect possible world at any cost. Rather, God aims at a world whose very manner of production reflects the divine principle of simplicity not perfection alone. In the section on the "Final Solution" he argues that evil results from a tradeoff between God's perfection and simplicity. Monstrosities and disorder exist within the world because God will not abandon the simplicity and generality of his laws just to prevent them case by case. Accordingly, such evils are made by God, but only indirectly, as the natural consequence of laws chosen for their overall wisdom and goodness.

WE PERCEIVE EXTERNAL OBJECTS IN GOD

Our Minds are Deceived by our Bodies, but Enlightened by God (The Search after Truth, Preface)

The human mind is, as it were, by its nature situated between its creator and corporeal creatures. Nothing, according to St. Augustine, is above it but God, nor beneath it but body. But because of the great elevation it obtains above all material beings, there is no hindrance to its uniting with them, and in some way even to its depending upon a piece of matter. However, despite the infinite distance between the sovereign being and the human mind, the latter is immediately and most intimately united with the former. This union with God raises the mind above all things. It is this which gives it life and light, and all its happiness, and St. Augustine speaks of this union in very many places of his works, as of that which is most natural and essential to it. By contrast, the union it has with the body extremely debases it, and is to this day the principal cause of all its errors and its miseries. . . .

          The soul, however united very strictly to the body, is nevertheless united to God. At that very time she receives through her body the lively and confused sensations her passions inspire, she also receives from the eternal truth, presiding over her understanding, the knowledge of her duty and disorders. When her treacherous body deceives her, God undeceives her. When it indulges, He wounds her. When it gives her incense and applauses, He strikes her inward with painful remorse, and condemns her through the display of a more pure and holy law than that of the flesh, which she has obeyed. . . .

          It is true that our union with God diminishes and weakens in proportion as our union with things sensible strengthens and increases. But it is impossible for the former union to be absolutely lost without the destruction of our being. For, however much people are immersed in vice and drenched in pleasures are insensible to truth, they are nevertheless still united to it. Truth never deserts them, it is they that desert it. Its light shines in darkness, but does not always dispel it, just as the light of the sun surrounds the blind, and those that wink, though it enlightens neither.

          The case is the same with the union of our mind with the body. That union decreases as fast as the other we have with God increases, but it is never quite dissolved, except by our death.  For though we were as enlightened, and as disengaged from all sensible things, as the apostles themselves, yet Adam's fall would necessitate us to a dependence on the body. We accordingly feel a law of our flesh constantly opposing and warring against the law of our mind.

          Proportionally as the mind increases its union with God, it grows purer, more luminous, stronger, and larger, since it is from this union it derives all its perfection. On the other hand, the mind becomes corrupt, blind, weak, and contracted, by the same degrees, as its union with its body strengthens and increases. For, this is the source of all its imperfection. Consider a man who judges of all things by his senses, who on all accounts pursues the motions of his passions, who has no other than sensible perceptions, and loves only flattering gratifications. That man is in the most wretched state of mind imaginable since he is infinitely remote from truth and from his good. But when a man judges things only by the pure ideas of the mind, carefully avoids the confused noise of the creatures, and retiring into himself, hears his sovereign teacher in the calm silence of the senses and passions, he cannot possibly fall into error. . . .

          From all this it is clear that it is our duty constantly to withstand the opposition the body makes against the mind. We must accustom ourselves by degrees to disbelieve the reports our senses make concerning all bodies around us, which they always represent, as worthy of our attention and esteem, because we must never make sensible things the object of our thoughts, or the subject of our employment. . . .

          In this work we will encounter several errors, especially such as have been of longest growth, of universal reception, and have caused the greatest disorder in the mind. We will show that they almost all proceed from the mind's union with the body. In different places we will attempt to make the mind sensible of its slavery and dependence on all sensible things, in order to awaken it from its lethargy, and to put it upon attempting its deliverance.

We only perceive Ideas of Things, not the actual Things Themselves (The Search after Truth, 3b.1.1)

I think everyone will acknowledge that we do not perceive external objects by themselves. We see the sun, the stars, and many objects outside of us. It is not probable that the soul can go out of the body and walk, as it were, through the heavens, to contemplate all those objects there. She does not, then, see them by themselves and as the immediate object of mind. When the soul sees the sun, for instance, it is not the sun, but something which is closely united to our soul. It is that which I call "idea" so that here by this word "idea," I mean only what is the immediate object, or the nearest thing to the mind when it perceives anything.

          It must be observed, that to make the mind perceive any object, it is absolutely necessary that the idea of this object should be actually present, of which we can have no doubt. But it is not required that there should be some external object which resembles this idea. For it often happens that we perceive things which do not exist, and which never did exist. Thus, we often have in our minds real ideas of things which never were. For instance, when a person imagines a mountain of gold, it is absolutely necessary that the idea of this mountain should be really present to his mind. When a mad person, a person in a high fever, or a person that is asleep, sees any terrible animal before his eyes, it is certain that the idea of this animal truly exists. Yet this mountain of gold, and this animal, never were.

          However, people being naturally inclined to believe that only corporeal objects exist, they judge the reality and existence of things quite differently than they should. For as soon as they are sensible of any object, they will certainly maintain that this object exists, although, it often happens, that there is nothing out there. Further, they affirm that this object is exactly the same as they see it, which never happens. But in respect to the idea which necessarily exists, and which can be nothing else besides what it appears to be, without any reflection, they commonly judge it to be nothing. They do this as if ideas had not a very great number of properties: as if the ideas of a square, for instance, were not very different from that of some number, and did not represent things perfectly distinct; which could never happen to nothing, since nothing has no propriety. It is therefore indisputable that ideas have a real existence. But let us examine their nature and essence, and see what it can be in the soul that is capable of representing all things. . . .

Ideas of Created Things Reside in God which he Allows us to See Within Him (The Search after Truth, 3b.6)

We have examined in the preceding chapters four different manners in which the human mind may see external objects, and these do not appear probable to us. There only remains the fifth, which alone appears agreeable to reason and is the most proper, which is the dependence that spirits have on God in all their thoughts.

          In order to understand it correctly, we must remember what has been said in the preceding chapter, that it is absolutely necessary that God should have in himself the ideas of all the beings he has created, since otherwise he could not have produced them. Thus, he sees all those beings by considering the perfections which he includes in himself, and to which all beings are related. Moreover, it is necessary to know that God is very strictly united to our souls by his presence, so that we may say that he is the place of spirits, just as space is the place of bodies. These two things being supposed, it is certain that the mind may see what there is in God, which represents created beings, since that is very spiritual, very intelligible, and most present to the mind. Thus the mind may see in God the works of God, supposing God be willing to disclose to our minds what there is in God which represents those works. These are the reasons which seem to prove that he wills rather than creates an infinite number of ideas in every mind.

OCCASIONALISM: GOD IS THE TRUE CAUSE OF ALL MOTION

God is the True Cause of Physical Motion, Nature is only the Occasional Cause (The Search after Truth, 6b.3)

To cast doubt on this miserable philosophy, the certainty of its principles, and clearness of the ideas we make use of, it is necessary to clearly establish those truths which are opposite to the errors of the ancient philosophy. In short, we must prove that there is only one true cause, because there is only one true God. Nature, or the power of everything, proceeds only from the will of God. All natural things are not true causes, but only occasional ones, and some other truths will be the consequences of these.

          It is evident that all bodies, both great and small, have no power of moving themselves: a mountain, a house, a stone, a grain of sand. In short, the least or biggest bodies we can conceive, have no power of moving themselves. We have only two sorts of ideas, that of bodies, and that of spirits. Since we ought to speak only of those things which we conceive, we should reason according to these two ideas. Since therefore the idea we have of all bodies shows us that they cannot move themselves, it must be concluded that they are moved by spirits only. But when we examine the idea we have of all finite minds, we do not see the necessary connection between their wills and the motion of any body whatever it may be. On the contrary, we see that there is none, nor can there be any. From this we ought to conclude (if we will argue according to our knowledge) that as no body is able to move itself, so there is no created spirit that can be the true or principal cause of the motion of any body whatever.

          But when we think of the idea of God, of a being infinitely perfect, and consequently almighty, we know that there is such a connection between his will, and the motion of all bodies. It is impossible to conceive that he should will the motion of a body, and that would not be moved. Thus, if we speak things as we conceive them (and not as we feel them), we must say that only his will can move bodies. The moving force of bodies, therefore, is not in the bodies which move, since this power of motion is nothing else but the will of God.

          Thus bodies have no action. When a ball is moved and contacts another ball which is in turn moved, it communicates nothing of its own. For in itself it does not have the impression that it communicates to the other. Yet a ball is the natural cause of the motion which it communicates. A natural cause, then, is not a real and true cause, but only an occasional one, and which determined the author of nature to act after such and such a manner, in such and such an occurrence.

          It is certain, that it is by the motion of visible or invisible bodies that all things are produced. For experience teaches us that bodies, whose parts are in greatest motion, always act more than others, and produce the greatest change in the world. All the powers of nature then proceed from the will of God. He has created the world because he willed it: dixit & facta funt ["he spoke, and it was there"]: he moves all things, and so produces all the effects that we see happen. Because he has also willed certain laws, according to which bodies communicate their motions in their encounters. Because these laws are productive, they act, and bodies cannot act. There is therefore no force, power, or true cause, in the material and sensible world, nor must we admit of forms, faculties, and real qualities, to produce effects that bodies cannot, and to divide, with God, the force and power which is essential to him.

          Not only bodies cannot be the true causes of anything, but the most noble spirits are similarly powerless. They can know nothing if God does not enlighten them. Nor can they have any sensation if he does not modify them. They are capable of willing nothing if God does not move them towards him. I confess they can determine the impression that God gives them towards him to other objects. But do not know whether that can be called a power. If the capability of sinning is a power, it would be a power which the almighty does not have. St. Augustine says in some of his works, if people had in themselves the power of loving good, we might say they had some power. But people can only love because God wills they should love, and because his will is effective. They love only because God continually inclines them to good in general, that is, towards himself. Since God created them only for himself, he never preserves them without turning them towards and inclining them to himself. They have no motion towards good in general, since it is God who moves them. They only follow by an entire free choice, this impression according to the law of God, or determine it towards a false good after the law of the flesh: they can only be determined by a prospect of good: for being able to do only what God makes them, they can love nothing but good.

God is the True Cause of Human Bodily Motion, Human Will only the Occasional Cause

But if we should suppose what is true in one sense, that spirits have in themselves the power of knowing truth and loving good, if their thoughts and wills produced nothing external, we might always say they were able to do nothing. Now it appears most certain to me, that the will of spirits is not capable of moving the smallest body in the world. For it is evident there is no necessary connection between the will we have of moving our arms, and the motion of them. It is true, they are moved when we please, and by that means we are the natural cause of their motion. But natural causes are not true causes; they are only occasional ones, which act merely through the power and efficacy of God, as I have already explained.

          For how can we move our arms? To move them we must have animal spirits, and convey them by certain nerves, into such and such muscles to swell and contract them. For by this means the arms move. Or according to the opinion of some, we do not know yet how it is performed. We see that people who do not even know they have spirits, nerves, and muscles to move their arms, yet move them with as much art and facility as those that understand anatomy best. It is then granted, that people will the motion of their arms, but it is only God that can and knows how to move them. If a person cannot knock down a tower, at least he knows well what must be done in order to do it. But there is no person that knows so much as what he must do to move one of his fingers by the help of his animal spirits. How then can people move their arms? These things appear evident to me, and to all those that will think of them, though perhaps they may be incomprehensible to such as will not consider them.

          Not only are people not the true causes of the motions produced in their bodies, it seems even a contradiction that they should be so. A true cause is such that the mind perceives a necessary connection between it and its effect. This is what I mean. Now it is only an infinitely perfect being whose mind can perceive a necessary connection between his will and the effects of it. It is only God, then, who is the true cause, and who has really the power of moving bodies. I say, moreover, it is not probable that God would transfer this power he has of moving bodies either to humans or angels. Those who pretend the power we have of moving our arms is a true power, must confess that God could also give to spirits the power of creating, annihilating, and performing all possible things. In a word, this implies that he can make them almighty, as I will further show.

          God has no need of any instrument to act. It is sufficient if he wills a thing for it to be, because it is a contradiction to suppose he wills it, and that it should not be. His power then is his will, and the communicating of his power is a communication of his will. But to communicate his will to a person or an angel, can signify nothing else but willing. Some body, for instance, should be effectively moved when it is willed by a person or an angel. Now in this case I see two wills which concur when an angel would move a body, that of God, and that of the angel. To know which of the two will be the true cause of the motion of this body, we must know which it is that is productive. There is a necessary connection between the will of God, and what he wills. God wills in this case, that a body should move when it is willed by an angel. There is a necessary connection therefore, between the will of God and the motion of this body. Consequently it is God who is the true cause of the motion of the body, and the will of the angel only an occasional one.

MIRACLES AND DIVINE SIMPLICITY (from Treatise on Nature and Grace, 1680)

God Acts through General Natural Laws, only Rarely through Particular Volitions and Miracles

1.21. There are still some infrequent cases where the general laws of motion need to cease to produce their effect. It is not that God changes or corrects his laws, but that some miracles must happen on particular occasions, by the order of grace, which ought to supersede the order of nature. Besides, it is appropriate that men should know that God is so much the master of nature, that if he submits to his established laws, it is more because he wills it so, rather than because of an absolute necessity. . . .

          1.57. If I thought what I have said was insufficient to convince attentive people that God does not act by particular volitions (like particular causes, and finite understandings) I would proceed to show that there were very few truths that would admit of greater testing, on supposition that God governs the world, and that the nature of the heathen philosophers is nothing. For indeed everything in nature proves this opinion, except miracles. Yet even these would not be miracles, or different from those we call natural effects, if it were true that God acted by particular volitions, since miracles are such only from their not happening by general laws. Therefore miracles suppose these laws, and prove the opinion I have established. But as to ordinary effects, they clearly and directly demonstrate general laws or volitions. If, for instance, a stone is dropped upon the head of passengers, it will continually fall with equal speed, not distinguishing the piety or quality, or good or ill-disposition of those that pass. If we examine any other effect, we may see the same consistency in the action of the cause of it: but no effect proves that God acts by particular volitions, though men commonly think God is constantly working miracles in their favor. In that way they would have God act in conformity with their own [favor], which is indulgent to self-love and centers all things on themselves. It would be very proportionate to their ignorance of the complication of occasional causes, which produce extraordinary effects, naturally falls into men's thoughts, when but newly studied in nature, and not consult with sufficient attention the abstract idea of an infinite wisdom, of a universal cause, and of an infinitely perfect being. . . .

          2.45. Now the laws of nature are always most simple and general. For God acts not by particular volitions unless order requires a miracle. This truth I have sufficiently proved in the first discourse. Thus when a stone falls on the head of a good man, and rids him of his life, it falls in consequence of the laws of motion; and not because that man is just, and God designs to reward him. When a similar accident destroys a sinner, it is not because God will actually punish him: for God, on the contrary, would have all men saved. But he is not to change the simplicity of his laws, to suspend the punishment of a criminal. So likewise when light breaks into our understanding, it is because our desires are the natural or occasional causes of it. It is because we hear some understanding person, and because our brain is disposed to receive the impressions of the speaker: and not that God has a particular will on our behalf, but that he follows the general laws of nature, to which he has obliged himself. I can see nothing mysterious in the distribution of these kinds of graces, and I stand not to draw consequences deducible from these truths. . . .

God's Plan executed through Nature as the Simplest Way

          2.63. If I mistake not, we are obliged to think that God, having a wisdom precious of all the events and consequences of all possible orders, and all their combinations, never works miracles when nature is sufficient, and that therefore he must choose that combination of natural effects, which, as it were, reducing him the expense of miracles, nevertheless most faithfully executes his designs. . . .

          4.9. When the preceding marks are not sufficient for us to judge whether a certain effects is or is not produced by a general will, we are to believe it is, if it is certain that there is an occasional cause established for the like effects. . . .

          For example, if we see it rain to some purpose in a field, we do not examine whether this rain falls or not in the great roads, and we know not whether it is harmful to the surrounding grounds. No, we suppose it only does good, and that all the attending circumstances are perfectly accommodated to the design for which we are obliged to believe that God would have it rain. Nevertheless, I say that we ought to judge that this rain is produced by a general volition, if we know that God has settled an occasional cause for the like effects. For we must not have recourse to miracles without necessity. We ought to suppose that God acts in these cases by the simplest ways; and though the lord of the field [i.e., the farmer] ought to return thanks to God for the harvest, yet he ought not to imagine it was caused in a miraculous manner by a particular volition. The owner of the field ought to thank God for the good he receives, since God saw and willed the good effects of the rain, when he established the general laws whereof it is a necessary consequence, and that it was for the like effects they were established. On the contrary, if the rains are sometimes hurtful to the earth, as it was not to render them unfruitful, that God established the laws which make it rain, since drought suffices to make them barren; it is plain we ought to thank God, and to adore the wisdom of his providence, even when we do not feel the effects of the laws established in our favor.

EVIL AND DIVINE SIMPLICITY (from Dialogues on Metaphysics, 1688)

Two Divine Principles: Perfection and Simplicity

9.10. Theodore. - You see, Aristes, it is not enough to have a glimpse of the principles, it is necessary to have well understood them so they come to mind when needed. Listen then, since Theotimus does not wish to tell you what he knows perfectly well.

          You are not mistaken to believe that the more a work is perfect, the more it expresses the perfections of the maker. Further, the work does him all the more honor when the perfections it expresses are more appealing to those who possess them. So, God wants to do his work the most that he can. But you have only half of the principle, and this is leaving you in the lurch. God wants his work to honor him; this you understand. But observe also that God does not want his work to dishonor him. This is the other half of the principle. God wants his actions, as well as his work to bear the character of its attributes. He is not satisfied that the universe honors him for its excellence and beauty. He also wants his actions to be glorified by their simplicity, their usefulness, their universality, uniformity, that is, by all characters that express the qualities he glories in possessing.

          So do not imagine that God wanted to make absolutely the most perfect work that he could, but rather the most perfect relative to the most worthy of his ways. . . .

Final Solution: Evil results from a Tradeoff between God's Perfection and Simplicity

          9.11. Aristes. - I see well your principle, Theodore. God acts only according to what he is, only in a way that bears the character of His attributes, only for the glory he finds in the relation of his work and his ways joined together with the perfections that it has, and which he glories in possessing. This is the greatness of the relation that God considers when forming his designs. For this is the principle: God can act only according to what he is, and he can only will absolutely and directly what is for his glory. If the defects of the universe we inhabit decrease this ratio, then the simplicity, usefulness, wisdom of its ways or laws which God follows would increase it all the more. A world more perfect, but which was produced in less useful and less simple ways, would not have the character of the divine attributes. That is why the world is full of the wicked, of monstrosities, and of disorder in all varieties. God could convert all men and prevent all disorders. But he must not disturb the simplicity and uniformity of his actions, because he must honor the wisdom of his ways, as well as by the perfection his creatures. He does not permit the monstrosities; it is he who makes them . But he does this to prevent changing his conduct, only out of respect for the generality of his ways, and only to accurately follow natural laws he established. He has not however established these because of monstrous effects they have produce, but because the effects are more worthy of his wisdom and goodness. That is why we can say that he permits them, although he is the only one who makes them. It is that he wants them only indirectly, because they are a natural consequence of his laws.

Source: The Search after Truth (1674-75), translated by Richard Sault, adapted; The Search after Truth (1674-75), and Treatise on Nature and Grace (1680), translated by Thomas Taylor, adapted; Dialogues on Metaphysics (1688), independently machine translated from the French, not based on previous translations.

 

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BARUCH SPINOZA:

GOD AS NATURE

 

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was born in Amsterdam to a family of Portuguese Jews who had fled the Inquisition. He was raised within the city's Jewish community and educated in its schools. By his early twenties, though, his private philosophical and theological views had become so unorthodox that in 1656 the community issued an excommunication (writ of cherem) against him, in unusually harsh terms, cutting him off from all contact with fellow Jews. He spent the rest of his life outside any religious community. He supported himself as a lens grinder, a trade whose fine glass dust likely contributed to the lung illness that killed him at forty-four. He turned down a professorship at Heidelberg, apparently to preserve his independence, and lived modestly in rented rooms in The Hague. Only one of his major works, a treatise on Descartes, appeared under his own name in his lifetime. His masterpiece, the Ethics, argued that God and Nature are one and the same substance. It was published by friends only after his death, and promptly banned by both Jewish and Christian authorities. He never married, kept few possessions, and reportedly asked that any debts be settled from his estate before it passed to his sister.

          The first set of selections are from is work A Short Treatise on God, composed in 1660. In the section "God is a single Substance with Infinite Attributes including Thought and Extension (1.2)" Spinoza's lays out his core claim: there is only one substance, infinitely perfect, and everything else is a mode of it. Of its infinite attributes, we know only two: thought and extension. Following directly from this, in the next sections he gives a "Proof that God and Nature are The Same (2.19)". Since extension is one of God's own attributes, and nothing can exist outside an infinite being, physical Nature simply is God under one of his attributes, not something he merely created. In the section on "Secondary Attribute: God is an Immanent Cause (1.3)" he adds that God does not act on the world from outside it, the way a craftsman acts on raw material; everything that exists, exists within God, so God is the cause of all things in the same sense that a whole is the cause of its parts. In the section "Secondary Attribute: Divine Providence as Striving Within Nature (1.5)", he redefines providence as simply the drive every part of Nature has to preserve and improve its own existence, operating both at the level of the whole and within each individual thing. In the section "Attributes that God does not Have (1.7)" he  then strips away the traditional predicates (omniscient, merciful, wise) as merely human ways of thinking that can't literally apply to a being who exists through himself alone. In "Good and Evil are only Relations, and Do Not Exist within Nature (1.10)" he argues that nothing is good or bad in itself, but only in comparison to something else. Thus, moral judgments are features of the human mind, not of the outside world.

          In the section "Humans as Part of God (2, Preface)", Spinoza turns to human beings, arguing that a person is not a substance at all, but only a particular arrangement of modes of thought and extension, the very attributes that belong to God. In "Against Free Will (2.16)" he draws out the consequence: since every act of willing has some cause outside itself, the will is never free but always necessitated, however much it feels otherwise from the inside. In "Against Immortality of the Soul (2.23)" he argues that the soul's duration depends entirely on what it is united to. When united to the body alone, it perishes with the body, but when united to something unchangeable, it endures. In "Against the Existence of Devils (2.25)" he areges that, since duration is a function of perfection, and a devil would by definition have none, such a being logically cannot exist, or even persist for a moment. In "True Freedom through Knowledge of Union with God (2.26)" he redefines freedom as the mind's own power, not as an uncaused will. We achieve this freedom through union with God, which produce ideas and effects that flow entirely from its own nature.

          The final set of selections are from Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (1670). In "Popular Conceptions of Miracles" he explains why people call an event miraculous: simply because its cause is unknown, and the ignorant take that ignorance as proof of God's direct hand. In "Everything in Nature follows Universal Laws" he counters that nothing violates Nature's fixed order, since that order just is the will of God, making a genuine miracle a contradiction in terms. In "Miracles in Scripture" he argues that biblical wonders were real natural events, but just described poetically in a supernatural way to move an uneducated audience toward reverence rather than to report literal causes.

GOD'S ATTRIBUTES (from A Short Treatise on God, composed 1660)

God is a single Substance with Infinite Attributes including Thought and Extension (1.2)

Now that we have proved above that God is, it is time to show what he is. Namely, we say that he is a being of whom all or infinite attributes are predicated, of which attributes everyone is infinitely perfect in its kind. Now, to express our views clearly, we shall premise the four following propositions:

1. That there is no finite substance, but that every substance must be infinitely perfect in its kind, that is to say, that in the infinite understanding of God no substance can be more perfect than that which already exists in Nature.

2. That there are not two like substances.

3. That one substance cannot produce another.

4. That in the infinite understanding of God there is no other substance than that which is formaliter [i.e., Aristotelean form] in Nature. . . .

Having so far discussed what God is, we will say just a word, so to speak, about his attributes: that those which are known to us consist of two only, namely, Thought and Extension. For here we speak only of attributes which might be called the proper attributes of God, through which we come to know him [as he is] in himself, and not [merely] as he acts [towards things] outside himself. All else, then, that men ascribe to God beyond these two attributes, all that (if it otherwise pertains to him) must be either an "extraneous denomination," such as that he exists through himself, is eternal, one, immutable, etc., or, I say, has reference to his activity, such as that he is a cause, predestines, and rules all things: all which are properties of God, but give us no information as to what he is. . . .

Proof that God and Nature are The Same (2.19)

Now to prove that there is a body in Nature, can be no difficult task for us, now that we already know that God is, and what God is; whom we have defined as a being of infinite attributes, each of which is infinite and perfect. Since extension is an attribute which we have shown to be infinite in its kind, it must therefore also necessarily be an attribute of that infinite being. As we have also already demonstrated that this infinite being exists, it follows at once that this attribute also exists.

          Moreover, since we have also proved that outside Nature, which is infinite, there is, and can be, no being, it is clearly seen that this effect of body through which we become aware [of it] can proceed from nothing else than from extension itself, and by no means from something else which (as some will have it) has extension in an eminent degree: for (as we have already shown in the first chapter) there is no such thing. . . .

Secondary Attribute: God is an Immanent Cause (1.3)

We will now begin to consider those attributes [of God] which we called Propria [i.e., secondary attributes that say nothing about God's substance]. And, first of all, how God is a cause of all things. Now, we have already said above that one substance cannot produce another ; and that God is a being of whom all attributes are predicated ; from which it clearly follows that all other things can by no means be, or be understood, apart from or outside him. Accordingly, we may say with all reason that God is a cause of all things. As it is usual to divide the efficient cause in eight divisions, let me, then, inquire how and in what sense God is a cause. First, then, we say that he is an emanative or productive cause of his works ; and, in so far as there is activity, an active or operating cause, which we regard as one and the same, because they involve each other. Secondly, he is an immanent, and not a transeunt cause [i.e., a mental cause affecting something outside the mind], since all that he produces is within himself, and not outside him, because there is nothing outside him. . . .

Secondary Attribute: Divine Providence as Striving Within Nature (1.5)

The second [non-essential] attribute, which we call a proprium [of God] is his Providence, which to us is nothing else than the striving which we find in the whole of Nature and in individual things to maintain and preserve their own existence. For it is manifest that nothing could, through its own nature, seek its own annihilation, but, on the contrary, that everything has in itself a striving to preserve its condition, and to improve itself. Following these definitions of ours we, therefore, posit a general and a special providence. The general [providence] is that through which all things are produced and sustained in so far as they are parts of the whole of Nature. The special providence is the striving of each thing separately to preserve its existence [each thing, that is to say], considered not as a part of Nature, but as a whole [by itself]. This is explained by the following example: All the limbs of man are provided for, and cared for, in so far as they are parts of man, this is general providence; while special [providence] is the striving of each separate limb (as a whole in itself, and not as a part of man) to preserve and maintain its own well-being. . . .

Attributes that God does not Have (1.7)

It is now also time for us to consider the things which they ascribe to God, and which do not, however, pertain to him, such as omniscient, merciful, wise, and so forth, which things, since they are only certain modes of the thinking thing, and can by no means be, or be understood without the substances whose modes they are, can, consequently, also not be attributed to him, who is a Being subsisting without the aid of anything, and solely through himself. . . .

Good and Evil are only Relations, and Do Not Exist within Nature (1.10)

In order to explain briefly what good and evil are in themselves, we will begin thus.

          Some things are in our understanding and not in Nature, and so they are also only our own creation, and their purpose is to understand things distinctly: among these we include all relations, which have reference to different things, and these we call Entia Rationis [things of reason]. Now the question is, whether good and evil belong to the Entia Rationis or to the Entia Realia [real things]. But since good and evil are only relations, it is beyond doubt that they must be placed among the Entia Rationis. For we never say that something is good except with reference to something else which is not so good, or is not so useful to us as some other thing. Thus we say that a man is bad, only in comparison with one who is better, or also that an apple is bad, in comparison with another which is good or better.

          All this could not possibly be said, if that which is better or good, in comparison with which it [the bad] is so called, did not exist.

          Therefore, when we say that something is good, we only mean that it conforms well to the general Idea which we have of such things. But, as we have already said before, the things must agree with their particular Ideas, whose essence must be a perfect essence, and not with the general [Ideas], since in that case they would not exist. . . .

HUMANS AS PART OF GOD

Humans as Part of God (2, Preface)

Having, in the first part, discoursed on God, and on the universal and infinite things, we will proceed now, in the second part, to the treatment of particular and finite things; though not of all, since they are innumerable, but we will only treat of those which concern man. In the first place, we will consider here what man is, in so far as he consists of certain modes (contained in the two attributes which we have remarked in God). I say of certain modes, for I by no means think that man, in so far as he consists of spirit, soul, or body, is a substance. Because, already at the beginning of this book, we proved (1) that no substance can have a beginning; (2) that one substance cannot produce another; and lastly (3), that there cannot be two like substances.

          As man has not been in existence from eternity, is finite, and is like many men, he can be no substance; so that all that he has of thought are only modes of the attribute thought which we have attributed to God. Again, all that he has of form, motion, and other things, are likewise [modes] of the other attribute which is attributed by us to God. . . .

Against Free Will (2.16)

Now that we know the nature of good and evil, truth and falsity, and also wherein the well-being of a perfect man consists, it is time to begin to examine ourselves, and to see whether we attain to such well-being voluntarily or of necessity.

          To this end it is necessary to inquire what the will is, according to those who posit a will, and wherein it is different from desire. Desire, we have said, is the inclination which the soul has towards something which it chooses as a good. From this it follows that before our desire inclines towards something outside, we have already inwardly decided that such a thing is good, and this affirmation, or, stated more generally, the power to affirm and to deny, is called the will.

          It thus turns on the question whether our affirmations are made voluntarily or necessarily, that is, whether we can make any affirmation or denial about a thing without some external cause compelling us to do so. Now we have already shown that a thing which is not explained through itself, or whose existence does not pertain to its essence, must necessarily have an external cause; and that a cause which is to produce something must produce it necessarily; it must therefore also follow that each separate act of willing this or that, each separate act of affirming or denying this or that of a thing, these, I say, must also result from some external cause. So also the definition which we have given of a cause is, that it cannot be free. . . .

Against Immortality of the Soul (2.23)

If only we consider attentively what the soul is, and from where its change and duration originate, then we will easily see whether it is mortal or immortal. Now we have said that the soul is an idea which is in the thinking thing, arising from the reality of a thing which exists in nature. From this it follows that according to the duration and change of the thing, so must also be the duration and change of the soul. We remarked, at the same time, that the soul can become united either with the body of which it is the idea, or with God, without whom it can neither be, nor be known.

          From this, then, it can easily be seen, (1) that, if it is united with the body alone, and that body happens to perish, then it must perish also; for when it is deprived of the body, which is the foundation of its love, it must perish with it. But (2) if it becomes united with some other thing which is and remains unchangeable, then, on the contrary, it must also remain unchangeable and lasting. For, in that case, through what will it be possible for it to perish? Not through itself; for as little as it could begin to exist through itself when it did not yet exist, so little also can it change or perish through itself, now that it does exist.

          Consequently, that thing which alone is the cause of its existence [i.e., the body], must also (when it is about to perish) be the cause of its non-existence, because it happens to change itself or to perish.

Against the Existence of Devils (2.25)

We will now briefly say something about devils, whether they exist or do not exist, and it is this. If the Devil is a thing that is completely opposed to God, and has absolutely nothing from God, then he is precisely identical with nothing, which we have already discussed before. If, with some, we represent him as a thinking thing that absolutely neither wills nor does any good, and so sets himself, once for all, in opposition to God, then surely he is very wretched, and, if prayers could help, then one ought to pray for his conversion.

          But let us just see whether such a wretched thing could even exist for a single moment. If we do so, we will immediately find out that it cannot. For whatever duration a thing has results entirely from the perfection of the thing, and the more essence and Godliness things possess, the more lasting are they. Therefore, as the Devil has not the least perfection in him, how should he then, I think to myself, be able to exist? Add to this, that the persistence or duration of a mode of the thinking thing only results from the union in which such a mode is, through love, joined to God. As the precise opposite of this union is supposed in the case of the Devils, they cannot possibly exist!

          As, however, there is no necessity whatever why we should posit the existence of devils, why then should they be posited? For we need not, like others, posit devils in order to find [in them] the cause of hatred, envy, wrath, and such-like passions, since we have found this sufficiently, without such fictions.

True Freedom through Knowledge of Union with God (2.26)

The true understanding can never perish; for in itself it can have no cause to destroy itself. . . . From all that has been said it may now be very easily conceived what is human freedom, which I define to be this. It is, namely, a firm reality which our understanding acquires through direct union with God, so that it can bring forth ideas in itself, and effects outside itself, in complete harmony with its nature; without, however, its effects being subjected to any external causes, so as to be capable of being changed or transformed by them. Thus it is, at the same time, evident from what has been said, what things there are that are in our power, and are not subjected to any external causes. We have likewise also proved here, and that in a different way from before, the eternal and lasting duration of our understanding, and, lastly, which effects it is that we have to value above all others.

AGAINST MIRACLES (Theological-Political Treatise, 1670, Sect. 6)

Popular Conceptions of Miracles

As men are accustomed to call divine the knowledge which transcends human understanding, so also do they call divine, or the work of God, anything of which the cause is not generally known. For the masses think that the power and providence of God are most clearly displayed by events that are extraordinary and contrary to the conception they have formed of nature, especially if such events bring them any profit or convenience. They think that the clearest possible proof of God's existence is afforded when nature, as they suppose, breaks her accustomed order, and consequently they believe that those who explain or try to understand phenomena or miracles through their natural causes are doing away with God and his providence. They suppose, indeed, that God is inactive so long as nature works in her accustomed order, and vice versa, that the power of nature and natural causes are idle so long as God is acting. Thus they imagine two powers distinct one from the other, the power of God and the power of nature, though the latter is in a sense determined by God, or (as most people believe now) created by Him. What they mean by either, and what they understand by God and nature they do not know, except that they imagine the power of God to be like that of some royal potentate, and nature's power to consist in force and energy. . . .

Everything in Nature follows Universal Laws

Nothing, then, occurs in nature in violation of her universal laws; indeed, everything agrees with them and follows from them, for whatever comes to pass, comes to pass by the will and eternal decree of God. That is, as we have just pointed out, whatever comes to pass, comes to pass according to laws and rules which involve eternal necessity and truth. Nature, therefore, always observes laws and rules which involve eternal necessity and truth, although they may not all be known to us, and therefore she keeps a fixed and immutable order. . . . We can again conclude that a miracle, whether in violation of, or beyond, nature, is a mere absurdity. Therefore, that what is meant in Scripture by a miracle can only be a work of nature, which surpasses, or is believed to surpass, human comprehension. . . .

Miracles in Scripture happened by Nature, but are Expressed Dramatically to Inspire Devotion

Thus it is plain that all the events narrated in Scripture came to pass naturally, and are referred directly to God because Scripture, as we have shown, does not aim at explaining things by their natural causes, but only at narrating what appeals to the popular imagination, and doing so in the manner best calculated to excite wonder, and consequently to impress the minds of the masses with devotion. If, therefore, events are found in the Bible which we cannot refer to their causes, indeed, which seem entirely to contradict the order of nature, we must not hesitate but assuredly believe that whatever did really happen happened naturally. This view is confirmed by the fact that in the case of every miracle there were many attendant circumstances, though these were not always related, especially where the narrative was of a poetic character. . .

          But perhaps someone will insist that we find many things in Scripture which seem in no way explicable by natural causes, as for instance, that the sins of men and their prayers can be the cause of rain and of the earth's fertility, or that faith can heal the blind, and so on. But I think I have already sufficiently answered this: I have shown that Scripture does not explain things by their secondary causes, but only narrates them in the order and the style which has most power to move people, and especially uneducated people, to devotion. Therefore scripture speaks inaccurately of God and of events, seeing that its object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold of the imagination. If the Bible were to describe the destruction of an empire in the style of political historians, the masses would remain unstirred, whereas the contrary is the case when it adopts the method of poetic description, and refers all things immediately to God. When, therefore, the Bible says that the earth is barren because of men's sins, or that the blind were healed by faith, we ought to take no more notice than when it says that God is angry at men's sins, that he is sad, that he repents of the good he has promised and done; or that on seeing a sign he remembers something he had promised, and other similar expressions, which are either thrown out poetically or related according to the opinion and prejudices of the writer.

          We may, then, be absolutely certain that every event which is truly described in Scripture necessarily happened, like everything else, according to natural laws. If anything is there set down which can be proved in set terms to contravene the order of nature, or not to be deducible therefrom, we must believe it to have been foisted into the sacred writings by irreligious hands; for whatsoever is contrary to nature is also contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd, and, ipso facto, to be rejected.

Source: Baruch Spinoza, A Short Treatise on God, composed 1660, translated by Abraham Wolf, adapted; Theological-Political Treatise, 1670, translated by Robert Harvey Monro, adapted.

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GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ:

GOD AS CREATOR OF AN INFINITE HARMONIOUS UNIVERSE

 

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was born in Leipzig to a professor of moral philosophy who died when Leibniz was six, leaving him free run of his father's library. He entered the University of Leipzig at fifteen and finished a law degree by twenty, but the university refused him a doctorate because of his youth. Instead, he took the doctorate at Altdorf, which offered him a professorship on the spot, although he declined it, preferring a life outside the university. He spent most of his career as a courtier, diplomat, and librarian for the dukes of Hanover. His responsibilities included compiling a genealogical history of the ruling family, stretching back nearly a thousand years, a project that consumed decades and was never finished. Alongside this he corresponded with much of intellectual Europe and invented a mechanical calculator that could multiply and divide. He developed calculus independently of Newton, which led to a bitter dispute between the two that consumed much of his later life. He also pursued a lifelong, unsuccessful effort to reunite the Catholic and Protestant churches. He died in Hanover in 1716, so estranged from the court he had served for decades that only his secretary attended the funeral. Of Leibniz's enormous output, only a handful of works appeared in print during his lifetime, just one being a full-length philosophical book, the Theodicy (1710). The remainder was only gradually published over the following centuries, with substantial portions still being edited and released today. The following selections are from several of his works.

          In the section "All about Monads and the Plenum" Leibniz lays out his basic view of the cosmos. Reality is ultimately built from monads, which are infinitely small indivisible substances with no parts. They cannot be created or destroyed by natural means and are distinguished from one another only by their internal perceptions and appetites. Each monad mirrors the whole universe from its own point of view. In "No Vacuum: God's Perfection makes him Fill all Space in a Plenum" he extends this picture outward. Since matter is more perfect than empty space (God gives every possible perfection that doesn't compromise another) then God must have filled all space with matter, leaving no vacuum and no ultimate, indivisible atoms either.

          Leibniz then turns to arguments for God's existence. First is his famous version of the Cosmological Argument, which can be formulated as follows:

1. The world contains an infinite series of dependent objects.

2. The explanation of the series is either within the series itself or a necessary being outside that series.

3. The explanation of the series cannot reside in the series itself, since the very fact of the series' existence would still need an explanation (principle of sufficient reason).

4. Therefore, the explanation of the series consists of a necessary being outside the series.

Second is his version of the ontological argument, which is this:

1. If it is possible that a necessary being exists who possesses eternal truths, then a necessary being must exist (in order to make those truths eternal).

2. It is possible that a necessary being exists (since this is not a contradictory idea).

3. Therefore, a necessary being exists.

Next is his discussion of miracles, where he holds that, what we call "miracles" are just extraordinary events that surpass our limited, animal-like understanding of physical rules; however, they remain perfectly integrated into God's ultimate, unbreakable cosmic order. In the section "Miracles Conform to God's General Order but Contrary to Subordinate Natural Operations" he argues that miracles only break the "subordinate" regularities that we call nature, but never break the single most universal law governing the whole universe, which has no exceptions. In the section "We Understand Natural Operations" he explains why miracles still surprise us. Our finite natures grasp only the lesser regularities within natural operations that are within our own power, but not God's general order of nature in which even miracles are already included. In the section "Types of Miracles" he distinguishes between two types of miracles. Lesser miracles are those that are done by angels who simply obey natural laws that are unfamiliar to us. Then there is a small number of greater miracles (creation, the Incarnation) that exceed the power of any creature whatsoever.

          In the final set of selections, Leibniz's addresses the problem of evil. In the section "God Creates in the most Perfect Manner" he argues that an infinitely perfect God necessarily acts in the most perfect way possible, both physically and morally. In the section "God Balances the Simplicity of the Means against the Richness of the Effect" he reiterates Malebranche's argument that perfection is not measured by beneficial outcomes alone, but also by the simplicity of the laws used to produce it. This is much like how a good architect balances beauty against budget. Following Augustine, in "Evil as a Negativity", he argues that the source of sin is not any overt act of God, but rather the built-in limitation of finite creatures, which God graciously offsets with grace to whatever degree he chooses. In "Evil Brings About a Greater Good" he argues that a world containing evil can still be the best possible world. For, particular evils, like Adam's fall, can be more than offset by the greater good they occasion. Finally, in "Irregularities in the Parts leads to Perfection in the Whole" he offers a mathematical illustration. An apparently disordered sequence of numbers or an erratic-looking line can still follow a hidden, elegant rule. This is just as the universe's apparent defects may express a underlying order that is invisible from our limited vantage point.

MONADS IN AN INFINITELY DIVISIBLE PLENUM

All about Monads and the Plenum (from "Principles of Nature and Grace," 1714, 1-3)

1. Substance is being, capable of action. It is simple or compound. Simple substance is that which has no parts. Compound substance is a collection of simple substances or monads. Monas is a Greek word which signifies unity, or that which is one. Compounds, or bodies, are multitudes; and simple substances, lives, souls, spirits are unities. There must be simple substances everywhere, because without simple substances there would be no compounds; and consequently all nature is full of life.

          2. Monads, having no parts, cannot be formed or decomposed. They cannot begin or end naturally; and consequently last as long as the universe, which will indeed be changed but will not be destroyed. They cannot have shapes; otherwise they would have parts. Consequently a monad, in itself and at a given moment, could not be distinguished from another except by its internal qualities and actions, which can be nothing else than its perceptions (that is, representations of the compound, or of what is external, in the simple), and its appetites (that is, its tendencies from one perception to another), which are the principles of change. For the simplicity of substance does not prevent multiplicity of modifications, which must be found together in this same simple substance, and must consist in the variety of relations to things which are external. Just as in a center or point, altogether simple as it is, there is found an infinity of angles formed by lines which there meet.

          3. All of nature is a plenum. There are everywhere simple substances, separated in reality from each other by activities of their own which continually change their relations; and each simple substance, or monad, which forms the center of a compound substance (as, for example, of an animal) and the principle of its unity, is surrounded by a mass composed of an infinity of other monads, which constitute the body proper of this central monad; and in accordance with the affections of this it represents, as a center, the things which are outside of itself. This body is organic when it forms a sort of automaton or natural machine; which is a machine not only in its entirety, but also in its smallest perceptible parts. As, because the world is a plenum, everything is connected and each body acts upon every other body, more or less according to the distance, and by reaction is itself affected thereby; it follows that each monad is a mirror, living or endowed with internal activity, representative according to its point of view of the universe, and as regulated as the universe itself. Perceptions in the monad spring one from the other, by the law of appetites or by the final causes of good and evil, which consist in visible, regulated or unregulated perceptions; just as the changes of bodies and external phenomena spring one from another, by the laws of efficient causes, that is, of movements. Thus there is perfect harmony between the perceptions of the monad and the movements of bodies, established at the beginning between the system of efficient causes and that of final causes. In this consists the accord and physical union of the soul and body, although neither one can change the laws of the other.

No Vacuum: God's Perfection makes him Fill all Space in a Plenum (from "Fourth Letter to Clarke", 1715)

All those who maintain a vacuum are more influenced by imagination than by reason. When I was a young man, I also gave into the notion of a vacuum and atoms. But reason brought me into the right way. It was a pleasing imagination. People carry their inquiries no farther than those two things [i.e., a vacuum and atoms]. They, as it were, nail down their thoughts to them. They imagine they have found out the first elements of things, a non plus ultra ["the final word"]. We would have nature to go no farther and to be finite, as our minds are. But this is being ignorant of the greatness and majesty of the author of things. The smallest corpuscle is actually subdivided in infinitum, and contains a world of other creatures, which would be absent in the universe, if that corpuscle was an atom (that is, a body of one entire piece without subdivision). In like manner, to admit a vacuum in nature is ascribing to God a very imperfect work. It is violating the grand principle of the necessity of a sufficient reason which many have talked of, without understanding its true meaning; as I have lately shown in proving, by that principle, that space is only an order of things, as time also is, and not at all an absolute being. To omit many other arguments against a vacuum and atoms, I will here mention those which I ground upon God's perfection, and upon the necessity of a sufficient reason. I lay it down as a principle, that every perfection which God could impart to things without taking away from their other perfections, has actually been imparted to them. Now let us imagine a space wholly empty. God could have placed some matter in it, without detracting in any respect from all other things. Therefore he has actually placed some matter in that space. Therefore, there is no space wholly empty. Therefore all is full.

          I will add another argument grounded upon the necessity of a sufficient reason. It is impossible that there should be any principle to determine what proportion of matter there ought to be, out of all the possible degrees from a plenum to a vacuum, or from a vacuum to a plenum. Perhaps it will be said, that the one should be equal to the other. But, because matter is more perfect than a vacuum, reason requires that a geometrical proportion should be observed, and that there should be as much more matter than vacuum, as the former deserves to have the preference before the latter. But then there must be no vacuum at all. For the perfection of matter is to that of a vacuum, as something to nothing. The case is the same with atoms. What reason can anyone assign for confining nature in the progression of subdivision? These are fictions.

ARGUMENTS FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE

Cosmological Argument for God: Why an Infinite Chain of Contingent Causes Exists (from "On The Ultimate Origination Of Things",1697)

Besides the world or aggregate of finite things we find a certain Unity which is dominant, not only in the sense in which the soul is dominant in me, or rather in which the self or I is dominant in my body, but also in a much more exalted manner. For the dominant Unity of the universe not only rules the world, but also constructs or makes it; and it is higher than the world and, if I may so put it, extramundane; it is thus the ultimate reason of things. Now neither in any one single thing, nor in the whole aggregate and series of things, can there be found the sufficient reason of existence. Let us suppose the book of the elements of geometry to have been eternal, one copy always having been written down from an earlier one; it is evident that, even though a reason can be given for the present book out of a past one, nevertheless out of any number of books taken in order going backwards we shall never come upon a full reason; though we might well always wonder why there should have been such books from all time why there were books at all, and why they were written in this manner. What is true of the books is true also of the different states of the world; for what follows is in some way copied from what precedes (even though there are certain laws of change). And so, however far you go back to earlier states, you will never find in those states a full reason why there should be any world rather than none, and why it should be such as it is.

          Indeed, even if you suppose the world eternal, as you will still be supposing nothing but a succession of states and will not in any of them find a sufficient reason, nor however many states you assume will you advance one step towards giving a reason, it is evident that the reason must be sought elsewhere. For in things which are eternal, though there may be no cause, nevertheless there must be known a reason; which reason in things that are permanent is necessity itself or essence, but in the series of changeable things (if this be supposed to be an eternal succession from an earlier to a later) it will be, as will be presently understood, the prevailing of inclinations, in a sphere where reasons do not necessitate (by an absolute or metaphysical necessity, in which the contrary implies a contradiction), but incline. From this it is evident that even by supposing the world to be eternal we cannot escape the ultimate, extra-mundane reason of things, or God.

          The reasons of the world then lie in something extramundane, different from the chain of states, or series of things, whose aggregate constitutes the world. And so we must pass from physical or hypothetical necessity, which determines the subsequent things of the world by the earlier, to something which is of absolute or metaphysical necessity, for which itself no reason can be given. For the present world is necessary physically or hypothetically, but not absolutely or metaphysically. In other words, when once it is determined that it shall be such and such, it follows that such and such things will come into being. Since then the ultimate root must be in something which is of metaphysical necessity, and since there is no reason of any existent thing except in an existent thing, it follows that there must exist some one Being of metaphysical necessity, that is, from whose essence existence springs; and so there must exist something different from the plurality of beings, that is the world, which, as we have allowed and have shown, is not of metaphysical necessity.

Ontological Argument for God: Eternal Truths require a Necessary Being to Make them Eternal (Monadology)

          40. We may hold that the supreme substance, which is unique, universal and necessary with nothing independent outside of it, which is further a pure sequence of possible being, must be incapable of limitation and must contain as much reality as possible.

          41. From this it follows that God is absolutely perfect, perfection being understood as the magnitude of positive reality in the strict sense, when the limitations or the bounds of those things which have them are removed. There where there are no limits, that is to say, in God, perfection is absolutely infinite.

          42. It follows also that created things derive their perfections through the influence of God, but their imperfections come from their own natures, which cannot exist without limits. It is in this latter that they are distinguished from God. An example of this original imperfection of created

          43. It is true, furthermore, that in God is found not only the source of existences, but also that of essences, in so far as they are real. In other words, he is the source of whatever there is real in the possible. This is because the understanding of God is in the region of eternal truths or of the ideas upon which they depend, and because without him there would be nothing real in the possibilities of things, and not only would nothing be existent, nothing would be even possible.

          44. For it must be that if there is a reality in essences or in possibilities or indeed in the eternal truths, this reality is based upon something existent and actual, and, consequently, in the existence of the necessary Being in whom essence includes existence or in whom possibility is sufficient to produce actuality.

          45. Therefore God alone (or the Necessary Being) has this prerogative that if he is possible he must necessarily exist, and, as nothing is able to prevent the possibility of that which involves no bounds, no negation and consequently, no contradiction, this alone is sufficient to establish a priori his existence. We have, therefore, proved his existence through the reality of eternal truths. But a little while ago we also proved it a posteriori, because contingent beings exist which can have their ultimate and sufficient reason only in the necessary being which, in turn, has the reason for existence in itself.

          46. Yet we must not think that the eternal truths being dependent upon God are therefore arbitrary and depend upon his will, as Descartes seems to have held, and after him M. Poiret. This is the case only with contingent truths which depend upon fitness or the choice of the greatest good; necessarily truths on the other hand depend solely upon his understanding and are the inner objects of it.

MIRACLES

Miracles Conform to God's General Order but Contrary to Subordinate Natural Operations (from "Discourse on Metaphysics," 1686)

7. Now since nothing is done which is not orderly, we may say that miracles are quite within the order of natural operations. We use the term "natural" of these operations because they conform to certain subordinate regulations which we call the nature of things. For it can be said that this nature is only a custom of God's which he can change on the occasion of a stronger reason than that which moved him to use these regulations. As regards general and particular intentions, according to the way in which we understand the matter, it may be said on the one hand that everything is in accordance with his most general intention, or that which best conforms to the most perfect order he has chosen. On the other hand, however, it is also possible to say that he has particular intentions which are exceptions to the subordinate regulations above mentioned. Of God's laws, however, the most universal, i.e., that which rules the whole course of the universe, is without exceptions.

We Understand Natural Operations, but not God's General Order which includes Miracles (from "Discourse on Metaphysics," 1686)

16. There remains for us at present only to explain how it is possible that God has influence at times upon men or upon other substances by an extraordinary or miraculous intervention, since it seems that nothing is able to happen which is extraordinary or supernatural in as much as all the events which occur to the other substances are only the consequences of their natures. We must recall what was said above in regard to the miracles in the universe. These always conform to the universal law of the general order, although they may contravene the subordinate regulations. Since every person or substance is like a little world which expresses the great world, we can say that this extraordinary action of God upon this substance is nevertheless miraculous, although it is comprised in the general order of the universe insofar as it is expressed by the individual essence or concept of this substance. This is why, if we understand in our natures all that they express, nothing is supernatural in them, because they reach out to everything, an effect always expressing its cause, and God being the veritable cause of the substances. But as that which our natures express the most perfectly pertains to them in a particular manner, that being their special power, and since they are limited, as I have just explained, many things there are which surpass the powers of our natures and even of all limited natures. As a consequence, to speak more clearly, I say that the miracles and the extraordinary interventions of God have this peculiarity that they cannot be foreseen by any created mind however enlightened. This is because the distinct comprehension of the fundamental order surpasses them all. On the other hand, that which is called natural depends upon less fundamental regulations which the creatures are able to understand. In order then that my words may be as irreprehensible as the meaning I am trying to convey, it will be well to associate certain words with certain significations. We may call our "essence" that which includes everything that we express and which expresses our union with God himself, nothing going beyond it. But that which is limited in us may be designated as our "nature" or our "power". In accordance with this terminology, that which goes beyond the natures of all created substances is supernatural.

Types of Miracles: Apparent Violations and Genuine Violations (from Theodicy, 249)

As for miracles (concerning which I have already said something in this work), they are perhaps not all of one and the same kind: there are many, to all appearances, which God brings about through the ministry of invisible substances, such as the angels, as Father Malebranche also believes. These angels or these substances act according to the ordinary laws of their nature, being combined with bodies more rarefied and more vigorous than those we have at our command. And such miracles are only so by comparison, and in relation to us; just as our works would be considered miraculous amongst animals if they were capable of remarking upon them. The changing of water into wine might be a miracle of this kind. But the Creation, the Incarnation and some other actions of God exceed all the power of creatures and are truly miracles, or indeed Mysteries. If, nevertheless, the changing of water into wine at Cana was a miracle of the highest kind, God would have thereby changed the whole course of the universe, because of the connection of bodies; or else he would have been bound to prevent this connection miraculously also, and cause the bodies not concerned in the miracle to act as if no miracle had happened. After the miracle was over, it would have been necessary to restore all things in those very bodies concerned to the state they would have reached without the miracle: whereafter all would have returned to its original course. Thus this miracle demanded more than at first appears.

EVIL AND THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

God Creates in the most Perfect Manner (from Discourse on Metaphysics, 1686, 1)

The conception of God which is the most common and the most full of meaning is expressed well enough in the words: God is an absolutely perfect being. The implications, however, of these words fail to receive sufficient consideration. For instance, there are many different kinds of perfection, all of which God possesses, and each one of them pertains to him in the highest degree.

          We must also know what perfection is. One thing which can surely be affirmed about it is that those forms or natures which are not susceptible of it to the highest degree, say the nature of numbers or of figures, do not permit of perfection. This is because the number which is the greatest of all (that is, the sum of all the numbers), and likewise the greatest of all figures, imply contradictions. The greatest knowledge, however, and omnipotence contain no impossibility. Consequently power and knowledge do admit of perfection, and in so far as they pertain to God they have no limits.

          From this it follows that God who possesses supreme and infinite wisdom acts in the most perfect manner not only metaphysically, but also from the moral standpoint. With respect to ourselves it can be said that the more we are enlightened and informed in regard to the works of God the more will we be disposed to find them excellent and conforming entirely to that which we might desire.

God Balances the Simplicity of the Means against the Richness of the Effect (from Discourse on Metaphysics, 1686, 5)

It is sufficient therefore to have this confidence in God, that he has done everything for the best and that nothing will be able to injure those who love him. To know in particular, however, the reasons which have moved him to choose this order of the universe, to permit sin, to dispense his beneficial grace in a certain manner, this passes the capacity of a finite mind, above all when such a mind has not come into the joy of the vision of God. Yet it is possible to make some general remarks touching the course of providence in the government of things. One is able to say, therefore, that he who acts perfectly is like an excellent Geometer who knows how to find the best construction for a problem; like a good architect who utilizes his location and the funds destined for the building in the most advantageous manner, leaving nothing which shocks or which does not display that beauty of which it is capable; like a good householder who employs his property in such a way that there shall be nothing uncultivated or sterile; like a clever machinist who makes his production in the least difficult way possible; and like an intelligent author who encloses the most of reality in the least possible compass.

          Of all beings those which are the most perfect and occupy the least possible space, that is to say those which interfere with one another the least, are the spirits whose perfections are the virtues. That is why we may not doubt that the happiness of the spirits is the principal aim of God and that he puts this purpose into execution, as far as the general harmony will permit. We will recur to this subject again.

          When the simplicity of God's way is spoken of, reference is specially made to the means which he employs, and on the other hand when the variety, richness and abundance are referred to, the ends or effects are had in mind. Thus one ought to be proportioned to the other, just as the cost of a building should balance the beauty and grandeur which is expected. It is true that nothing costs God anything, just as there is no cost for a philosopher who makes hypotheses in constructing his imaginary world, because God has only to make decrees in order that a real world come into being; but in matters of wisdom the decrees or hypotheses meet the expenditure in proportion as they are more independent of one another. Reason wishes to avoid multiplicity in hypotheses or principles very much as the simplest system is preferred in Astronomy.

Evil as a Negativity: A Limited Human is of Necessity Imperfect (from Discourse on Metaphysics, 1686, 30)

For God foresees from all time that there will be a certain Judas, and in the concept or idea of him which God has, is contained this future free act. The only question, therefore, which remains is why this certain Judas, the betrayer who is possible only because of the idea of God, actually exists. To this question, however, we can expect no answer here on earth excepting to say in general that it is because God has found it good that he should exist notwithstanding that sin which he foresaw. This evil will be more than overbalanced. God will derive a greater good from it, and it will finally turn out that this series of events in which is included the existence of this sinner, is the most perfect among all the possible series of events. An explanation in every case of the admirable economy of this choice cannot be given while we are sojourners on earth. It is enough to know the excellence without understanding it. It is here that must be recognized altitudinem divitiarum ["highest riches"], the unfathomable depth of the divine wisdom, without hesitating at a detail which involves an infinite number of considerations. It is clear, however, that God is not the cause of ill. For not only after the loss of innocence by men, has original sin possessed the soul, but even before that there was an original limitation or imperfection in the very nature of all creatures, which rendered them open to sin and able to fall. There is, therefore, no more difficulty in the supralapsarian view than there is in the other views of sin. To this also, it seems to me can be reduced the opinion of Saint Augustine and of other authors: that the root of evil is in the negativity, that is to say, in the lack or limitation of creatures which God graciously remedies by whatever degree of perfection it pleases him to give. This grace of God, whether ordinary or extraordinary has its degrees and its measures. It is always efficacious in itself to produce a certain proportionate effect and furthermore it is always sufficient not only to keep one from sin but even to effect his salvation, provided that the man co-operates with that which is in him. It has not always, however, sufficient power to overcome the inclination, for, if it did, it would no longer be limited in any way, and this superiority to limitations is reserved to that unique grace which is absolutely efficacious. This grace is always victorious whether through its own self or through the congruity of circumstances.

Evil Brings About a Greater Good (from Theodicy, 1710, summary)

The best course is not always that one which tends towards avoiding evil, since it is possible that the evil may be accompanied by a greater good. For example, the general of an army will prefer a great victory with a slight wound to a state of affairs without wound and without victory. I have proved this in further detail in this work [i.e., in the Theodicy] by pointing out, through instances taken from mathematics and elsewhere, that an imperfection in the part may be required for a greater perfection in the whole. I have followed therein the opinion of St. Augustine, who said a hundred times that God permitted evil in order to derive from it a good, that is to say, a greater good; and Thomas Aquinas says (in libr. 2, Sent. Dist. 32, qu. 1, art. 1) that the permission of evil tends towards the good of the universe. I have shown that among older writers the fall of Adam was termed felix culpa, a fortunate sin, because it had been expiated with immense benefit by the incarnation of the Son of God: for he gave to the universe something more noble than anything there would otherwise have been amongst created beings. For the better understanding of the matter I added, following the example of many good authors, that it was consistent with order and the general good for God to grant to certain of his creatures the opportunity to exercise their freedom, even when he foresaw that they would turn to evil: for God could easily correct the evil, and it was not fitting that in order to prevent sin he should always act in an extraordinary way. It will therefore sufficiently refute the objection to show that a world with evil may be better than a world without evil. But I have gone still further in the work, and have even shown that this universe must be indeed better than every other possible universe.

Irregularities in the Parts leads to Perfection in the Whole: Mathematics Example (from Theodicy, 1710, 242)

It should be no cause for astonishment that I attempt to elucidate these things by comparisons taken from pure mathematics, where everything proceeds in order, and where it is possible to fathom them by a close contemplation which grants us an enjoyment, so to speak, of the vision of the ideas of God. One may propose a succession or series of numbers perfectly irregular to all appearance, where the numbers increase and diminish variably without the emergence of any order. And yet he who knows the key to the formula, and who understands the origin and the structure of this succession of numbers, will be able to give a rule which, being properly understood, will show that the series is perfectly regular, and that it even has excellent properties. One may make this still more evident in lines. A line may have twists and turns, ups and downs, points of reflection and points of inflexion, interruptions and other variations, so that one sees neither rhyme nor reason therein, especially when taking into account only a portion of the line; and yet it may be that one can give its equation and construction, wherein a geometrician would find the reason and the fittingness of all these so-called irregularities. That is how we must look upon the irregularities constituted by monstrosities and other so-called defects in the universe.

Source: Discourse on Metaphysics (1686) and Monadology (1714), translated by George Montgomery, adapted; "On The Ultimate Origination Of Things" (1697), translated by Mary Morris, adapted; Theodicy (1710), translated by Eric M. Huggard, adapted; "Principles of Nature and Grace" (1714) and "Letters to Clarke" (1715), translated by George Martin Duncan, adapted.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. According to Malebranche in The Search after Truth, why are our human minds deceived by the body but enlightened by God, and why do we perceive eternal ideas in God rather than perceiving external objects directly?

2. According to Malebranche in The Search after Truth, what is occasionalism, and why does he argue that neither physical bodies nor finite human wills can be the true causes of motion?

3. According to Malebranche in the Treatise on Nature and Grace and Dialogues on Metaphysics, why does God govern the universe through simple general laws rather than particular volitions, and how does this tradeoff between divine perfection and simplicity explain the presence of physical monstrosities and moral evil?

4. According to Spinoza in A Short Treatise on God, why are God and physical Nature one and the same single infinite substance, and what are the only two divine attributes known to human beings?

5. According to Spinoza in A Short Treatise on God, why does he reject traditional divine attributes like omniscience and mercy, and how does he redefine divine providence as a striving within nature?

6. According to Spinoza in A Short Treatise on God, why are good and evil merely human concepts rather than real entities in nature, and why is the human concept of an uncaused free will an illusion?

7. According to Spinoza in A Short Treatise on God, why is the existence of devils logically impossible based on his principles regarding perfection and duration?

8. According to Spinoza in the Theological-Political Treatise, why are miracles in the sense of violations of natural law a mere absurdity, and how does he explain the biblical accounts of miraculous events?

9. According to Leibniz in Principles of Nature and Grace and his Letter to Clarke, what are monads, and why does God's absolute perfection require that all space be filled as a plenum without any vacuum or indivisible atoms?

10. According to Leibniz in On the Ultimate Origination of Things, how does he formulate his cosmological argument to prove that an infinite series of contingent states requires an ultimate, extramundane necessary being?

11. According to Leibniz in the Monadology, how does he construct his ontological argument to show that the reality of eternal possibilities and necessary truths depends upon an existing necessary being?

12. According to Leibniz in the Discourse on Metaphysics, how do miracles conform to God's universal general order while simultaneously violating the subordinate regulations of nature?

13. According to Leibniz in Theodicy, what is the distinction between lesser miracles performed through angels and greater miracles like Creation or the Incarnation?

14. According to Leibniz in the Discourse on Metaphysics, how does God balance the simplicity of his means against the richness of his effects when creating the world?

15. According to Leibniz in the Discourse on Metaphysics, how does he draw upon Augustine's view of evil as a negativity or limitation inherent in finite creatures to explain how God foresaw sin without causing it?

16. According to Leibniz in Theodicy, why can a world containing evil still be the best of all possible worlds, and how does he use the concept of felix culpa to illustrate this principle?

17. According to Leibniz in Theodicy, how does his mathematical analogy of an irregular series of numbers or a twisting geometric line explain the apparent disorders and monstrosities in the universe?

18. Compare Malebranche and Leibniz on the nature of miracles: how do both thinkers reconcile miraculous interventions with God's preference for simple, general laws?

19. Contrast Spinoza's view of God as an immanent cause identical with Nature with Malebranche's view of God as a transcendent mediator between human minds and the physical world.

20. Compare Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz on the question of human free choice: how does each rationalist address whether human actions are free or strictly determined?

21. Short Essay Options: Please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.

(a) Critics argue that Malebranche's occasionalism turns God into a micromanaging tyrant who is directly responsible for every trivial physical event and moral evil, thereby undermining human moral responsibility. How might Malebranche respond?

(b) Critics argue that Spinoza's pantheistic collapse of God into Nature eliminates any meaningful sense of religious worship, moral accountability, or divine purpose, effectively reducing his philosophy to atheism. How might Spinoza respond?

(c) Critics argue that Leibniz's claim that this is the "best of all possible worlds" is a naive optimism that callously dismisses genuine human suffering and horrific evils as mere structural blemishes in a cosmic painting. How might Leibniz respond?

(d) Critics argue that Malebranche's claim that we see all things "in God" makes God the direct container of physical, extended ideas, thereby compromising divine immateriality and simplicity. How might Malebranche respond?

(e) Critics argue that Spinoza's denial of biblical miracles rests on a circular argument: assuming that natural laws are immutable to prove that miracles cannot happen. How might Spinoza respond?

(f) Critics argue that Leibniz's Monadology leads to solipsism, because if windowless monads only perceive their own internal states, there is no way to verify that an external physical world actually exists. How might Leibniz respond?

(g) Critics argue that Malebranche's trade-off argument between divine simplicity and world perfection implies that God prioritizes aesthetic elegance of physical laws over the moral well-being of conscious creatures. How might Malebranche respond?

(h) Critics argue that Spinoza's argument against free will makes all human moral praise, blame, laws, and punishment entirely arbitrary and unjust. How might Spinoza respond?

(i) Critics argue that Leibniz's cosmological argument fails because an infinite temporal regress of contingent causes is self-explanatory and does not require an extra-mundane necessary being. How might Leibniz respond?

(j) Critics argue that the early modern rationalists' attempts to explain God through mathematical models and mechanical physics stripped religion of its personal, spiritual, and devotional core. How might either Malebranche, Spinoza, or Leibniz respond?