@prothero,
prothero;118868 wrote:I am with Voltaire and Candide against Dr. Pangloss, the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds is ludicrous. That idea should have died in ancient times but certainly died in WWI and with the death camps in WWII. Except as an exercise in abstract logic to the traditional problem of evil the Leibniz solution carries no weight and no purchase in the popular mind.
To question the traditional medieval scholastic assertion about God as omnipotent and omniscient is a far better theological solution.
But I am with Voltaire and Candide too. But we have to distinguish the logical problem of freedom of the will, from the metaphysical problem of freedom of the will. The logical problem is whether the existence of an all good and all powerful God is logically consistent with the existence of evil in the world. And, given certain assumptions (like that God cannot violated the laws of logic) Leibniz has, I think, shown a way out of this problem. He has shown it is
logically possible for there to be such a God and for evil to exist. But then, there is the metaphysical problem of freedom of the will. Namely, forgetting that it is logically possible for God and evil to exist together, is it
true or even
plausible that this is the best of all possible worlds, and that all the evil in this world is, in fact, necessary for the amount of good in the world, and, furthermore, the good so compensates for the evil, that this amount of good could not be accomplished without this amount of evil? And other possible combination of good and evil would be a less good world than the one we have now? And this, of course, is a different proposition from the logical one. It is hard to swallow that this is the best of all possible worlds, indeed. And Leibniz knew that too, since he thought that after the logical problem had been dealt with, to believe it was true that this is (in fact) the best of all possible worlds would be a matter of faith, and not of reason. He was able (he thought) to show that is
might be true that this is the best of all possible worlds, but not that this is actually the best of all possible worlds.
Candide is, of course, a lampoon, not of Leibniz so much as his followers (like Pangloss) who were not so bright, and did not make the essential distinction between whether it is possible for this to be the best of alll possible worlds, and whether this is, in fact, the best of all possible worlds. And, to tell the truth, it may very well be that Voltaire himself was not very clear about the distinction, nor was he (I think) particularly concerned about it. He had other fish to fry.
Candide is a polemic, not a work of philosophy. Voltaire makes it seem as if the issue is whether there could be a world with no evil in it. Voltaire say, "of course there could be, so if there is an all powerful, all good God, why did he not make such a world?" End of story. But the issue is not whether God could have made a world without evil in it. Of course He could have. The real issue is whether such a world would have been as good as a world with evil in it, and, in particular as good as the actual world. So, C
andide is a satire, a parody. It is not a subtle philosophical criticism of Leibniz.
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