"This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God"
About this Quote
Leibniz is pressing his Principle of Sufficient Reason to its endpoint. Every contingent thing and every change calls for a reason why it is thus and not otherwise. A chain of contingencies, no matter how long, cannot furnish its own ultimate ground, because each link still could have been different. To avoid an infinite regress of unanswered why-questions, explanation must terminate in something whose reason lies in itself, a necessary substance. That is what he identifies as God.
Necessary means that the being cannot be otherwise or not exist; its essence entails its existence. By contrast, all finite substances and their states are contingent and variable. When he says that the differentiation of changes exists eminently in the source, he draws on a scholastic distinction: a cause can contain its effects formally, as the same kind of thing, or eminently, as a higher power capable of producing them. The diverse histories of the world are not copies inside God, but are contained in the divine intellect and will as their generative reason.
This claim integrates several pillars of Leibnizs system. God, as the necessary substance, understands all possible worlds and freely chooses to actualize the best. The complete concepts of created individuals, with their entire series of states, exist as ideas in the divine understanding and are brought into being by Gods decree. Preestablished harmony among monads is secured because their internal changes unfold according to plans coordinated by that single source, rather than by causal interaction.
Leibniz thereby offers a rationalist cosmological argument that seeks to avoid Spinozas strict necessitarianism. There is a necessary being, but what that being creates remains contingent, grounded in wisdom and goodness rather than blind force. The upshot is both metaphysical and explanatory: only by positing a necessary substance that contains creaturely multiplicity eminently can reason fully account for why there is something rather than nothing, and why things occur in the orderly ways they do.
Necessary means that the being cannot be otherwise or not exist; its essence entails its existence. By contrast, all finite substances and their states are contingent and variable. When he says that the differentiation of changes exists eminently in the source, he draws on a scholastic distinction: a cause can contain its effects formally, as the same kind of thing, or eminently, as a higher power capable of producing them. The diverse histories of the world are not copies inside God, but are contained in the divine intellect and will as their generative reason.
This claim integrates several pillars of Leibnizs system. God, as the necessary substance, understands all possible worlds and freely chooses to actualize the best. The complete concepts of created individuals, with their entire series of states, exist as ideas in the divine understanding and are brought into being by Gods decree. Preestablished harmony among monads is secured because their internal changes unfold according to plans coordinated by that single source, rather than by causal interaction.
Leibniz thereby offers a rationalist cosmological argument that seeks to avoid Spinozas strict necessitarianism. There is a necessary being, but what that being creates remains contingent, grounded in wisdom and goodness rather than blind force. The upshot is both metaphysical and explanatory: only by positing a necessary substance that contains creaturely multiplicity eminently can reason fully account for why there is something rather than nothing, and why things occur in the orderly ways they do.
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| Topic | God |
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