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The Best of All Possible Worlds: A Story of Philosophers, God, and Evil

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Applying reason to the world's most perplexing questions -- the nature of God, the problem of evil in the world, the meaning of our own existence -- isn't easy. That hasn't stopped philosphers from pondering those conundrums from the earliest days of recorded history, however. In the 17th century, the questions were well-known, but the evolution of scientific knowledge was starting to transform the ways in which they were addressed. Meanwhile, the conclusions philospohers reached could literally result in matters of life and death in the midst of a violent century where the conflict between Catholic and Protestant theologians reached a violent climax.
Writing about philosophical concepts is, perhaps, even less simple; perhaps that is one reason that much of such work has been penned by scholars and directed at other scholars. Thankfully, Steven Nadler, already the author of several books devoted to Spinoza and other 17th century thinkers, has decided to target this book at a more general audience, and succeeds in making it just accessible enough (although it remains a challenging read).
The focus of the book is the effort by German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz to tackle one of those key questions: why does a world designed by God contain so much apparently random evil and misfortune? Why do virtuous and pious people fall victim to these woes? In the final decades of pre-Englightenment philosophy, such theological quandaries established a framework for moral reasoning that exists to this day. And Leibniz's reasoning that God had indeed created the best of all possible worlds (if not the world that best suited each of its inhabitants) was one that shook up the 17th century philosophical landscape.
But Nadler's real contribution isn't just rehashing Leibniz's thinking, but showing how such philosophical breakthroughs are reached. The popular conception of a philosopher locking himself in a room and isolating himself and his brain from the rest of the world could not be further from the truth. Instead, Nadler shows how Leibniz reacted to traditional Aristotlean thinking, to the Cartesian revolution and to Spinoza's radical arguments. In particular, he focuses on the ways in which two French Catholic religious figures -- Antoine Arnauld and Nicolas Malebranche -- first encountered during a four-year sojurn in Paris in the 1670s played an ongoing role in the shaping of Leibniz's own contributions to the philsophical debate. Through letters among the trio, the ways in which they responded to each others' ideas in their published works and other documentary records, Nadler has managed to capture the flavor of the intellectual environment of the time and shown the reader how such cross-fertilization can prove vital to the philosphical as well as the creative process.
It's a compelling narrative, especially for those with a thorough grounding in Western philosphical history. I am not, alas, among that group and did find myself having to pause and retrace some of the details of the philosophical arguments that Nadler details and analyzes. But careful re-reading was productive, and this reader, at least, emerged after a week of solid reading with a far greater comprehension of not only the tenets of Leibniz's thinking but an understanding of their implications.
This isn't an easy read, by any means (for a still more accessible approach to Leibniz, in my view at least, try [[ASIN:0393329178 The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World]. But for those with time to invest and the interest in following the ways these great minds worked and formed their theories, it's a book that repays the effort it requires to read it.
Perhaps more effort will be made, in the wake of this and other evaluations of this group of philsophers (including Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reasonto blend history and philosophy for popular readers in other eras or geographies? I'm not aware of a similar approach to the work of Hobbes, Locke and Newston in England at roughly the same point in history, for instance.

_The Best of All Possible Worlds: A Story of Philosophers, God, and Evil_ (2008) by philosopher Steven Nadler is a discerning account of the philosophical problems that plagued philosophers during the 17th century including the problem of God, the problem of evil, and the notion that this world is the best of all possible worlds. In particular, this book focuses on the debates between three important philosophers - the Catholic priest Malebranche, the Jansenist Arnauld, and the Lutheran polymath Leibniz (also a discoverer of the calculus). The book also relates the thoughts of these individuals to the philosophies of the medieval Scholastics (e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas, et al), the rise of Cartesianism, and the philosophical difficulties raised by Spinoza. In particular, the character of Leibniz is important because not only did he seek to promote an ecumenism between the Protestant and Catholic churches, but also for his notion that this world was the best of all possible worlds chosen by God. Nadler maintains that the issues raised by these philosophers were important in that they all sought to take up the "challenge of getting God right". In particular, the problem of evil was the most important issue of the day, and in their efforts to understand this problem it became necessary to question the nature of God and his agency.

This book includes the following chapters:

Leibniz in Paris - begins with the history of France following the Thirty Years War and the conflicts between Catholics and Huegonots in France and explains how Leibniz came to be taken up with the French intellectual scene. Leibniz was a man of a great many interests and a genius of the highest order. In particular, he sought a reconciliation between the churches explaining that "Most objections that can be made against Rome involve the practice of the people rather than the dogmas." Leibniz was to take up the problems of philosophy including the attempt to create a universal "alphabet of human thought" and the culmination of his philosophical understanding in his notions of a "monadology" and a "preestablished harmony". This chapter explains the relationships between Leibniz and his patrons.

Philosophers on the Left Bank - explains the conflict between the old Aristotelians and the new issues raised by Rene Descartes. In particular, Cartesianism proposed a dualism between mind and body and many came to see this philosophy as problematic in that they believed it could not explain the transubstantiation at the eucharist (it was likely for this reason that his books were placed on the Index). The issues raised by Cartesianism came to be taken up by the Catholic priest Malebranche who developed a warm relationship with Leibniz.

Le Grand Arnauld - explains the conflicts that arose between the Jansenists and the more orthodox Catholics. In particular, Jansenism was seen by many as a form of Calvinism within the Catholic church, while Jansenists tended to view the more orthodox Catholics as bordering on Pelagianism. Arnauld was an early Jansenist "solitaire" who developed a relationship with Malebranche in their discussions of the philosophical issues of the day. This three way philosophical discussion forms the basis for this book.

Theodicy - discusses the relationships between Malebranche and the Cartesians and notes the role of Pierre Bayle who was important for Leibniz and who maintained that human reason was incapable of solving the problems of philosophy. In particular, this chapter considers the problem of evil, tracing its development through Augustine, Aquinas, and Maimonides, and finally the understanding of Leibniz that God had chosen the best of all possible worlds. This Leibnizian optimism was seen as hopelessly naïve by many and was mocked by Voltaire in _Candide_ in the character of Dr. Pangloss. Others such as Aquinas had already rejected it maintaining that there could be no such thing as a best of all possible worlds, and it was also rejected by Arnauld.

The Kingdoms of Nature and Grace - explains the role of nature and grace in Malebranche's occasionalism (who also proposed a notion he referred to as the "Vison of God") and the relationship and differences between Malebranche and Leibniz. Also, considers the problem of God's will and how to make sense of God's attributes particularly as this concerned the nature of sin and the problem of evil.

"Touch the Mountains and They Smoke" - examines the conflict between Arnauld and Leibniz and Malebranche concerning divine agency. In particular, this issue concerned the role of grace, and Arnauld was to maintain that there was no distinction between God's will and his wisdom advocating for a form of volitionism as opposed to the occasionalism of Malebranche.

The Eternal Truths - considers the role of piety and the fundamental question - Does God make something because it is good or is something good just because God does it? This question may be seen to have first arisen in Plato's dialogues in the encounter between Socrates and Euthyphro (who maintained that "What is pleasing to the gods is pious, and what is not pleasing to them is impious."). The issue of whether there is a limit to God's omnipotence became an important one particularly as this was to be understood in terms of his other attributes. In particular, it was asked whether God could will a contradiction or violate the laws of mathematics. Many of the Scholastics including Aquinas and Ockham were to maintain that He could not. On the other hand, Descartes advocated a radical notion of deity that would allow God to will a contradiction. This distinction became the issue of absolute divine voluntarism versus divine rationalism. In particular, Arnauld was to maintain God's reasons are not man's reasons and thus reject the notion of a rational God as an anthropomorphization, maintaining instead that God "knows truths only became he wills them to be" and thus rejecting all theodicy. Both Malebranche and Leibniz were to take the more traditional approach that God is bound by rationality in that God's other attributes can only be made sense of if His actions are bounded by practical rationality. This conflict is mirrored in the political conflict between a absolute despotism (where rule is by fiat of the monarch) and a constitutional monarchy (where even the king is bounded by normative constraints), although such notions did not always correspond to the actual politics of their defenders.

The Specter of Spinoza - explains how both these viewpoints taken to their extremes came to be expressed in the heretical philosophy of Spinoza. Spinoza was a Jewish philosopher who had been ex-communicated for his radical views on the traditional Abrahamic God (maintaining in fact that God was synonymous with Nature) and the inerrancy of the Bible (maintaining that the Bible was written by men and not God). Leibniz was to oppose the philosophy of Spinoza as heretical and harmful but was nevertheless to develop a friendship with him. This chapter examines some of the further issues raised by Spinoza's philosophy in relationship to the other three thinkers.

Epilogue - sums up the important issues raised by these philosophers for the philosophy of the 17th century and details the end of their encounters. Arnauld was to undergo a near-death experience and was to subsequently write about it. Leibniz was to remain an optimist until his last days. And, Malebranche was to suffer from a long and severe illness. The issue of divine voluntarism contined to remain problematic for many while the issue of divine and moral rationality came to take on more prominence (culminating in the secular version of this notion in the philosophy of Kant).

This book provides a fascinating examination of the problem of evil, the nature of God, and the issues of theodicy as they arose for these three great thinkers of the 17th century. In light of current debates over the existence of God and His nature, this book provides much interesting material as to how these issues were discussed in that period.

I read many of these primary sources many years ago as a philosophy major. Nadler has done a superb job of weaving philosophy, history, biography into an immensely good read. He shows relations among the philosphers he covers and their arguments that I never noticed before. I sell most of the books I buy on Amazon after I read them, but this one is a keeper.

"The Best of All Possible Worlds" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Nadler's book interview ran here as a cover feature on January 30, 2009.