Gottfried Leibniz

“ Indeed, the less he could check the rushing torrent of events displeasing him, the more he would be tormented. But such suffering almost becomes a perverse pleasure; the wretched almost delight to find that they are tormented. Even among the living, the unhappy slander the blessed whom they envy, for no other reason than to be indignant that such inept people (in their opinion) should possess so many good things. But thus they make their own torments more abundant and their pain more wild; they also distort their envy to make it seem more reasonable. ”

“ So there you have an explanation for an amazing paradox. I maintain, not only is no one damned unless they desire it, but also that no one remains damned unless they desire it. For no one is damned unless they damn themselves; the damned are never wholly damned, but always remain damnable. They are damned by such a stubbornness and perversion of their desires, such a turning away from God, that their greatest delight is in having something which makes them suffer. They are always looking for a reason to become angry. ”

“ If God delights in everyone's happiness, why doesn't He make everyone happy? If He loves everyone, why does He damn so many? If God is just, why does He seem so unfair, making out of the same clay (as it were) some vessels for honour and others for shame? And if God knowingly allows and tolerates sin in the world, when He could eliminate it, isn't He then responsible for the sin? Indeed, isn't God the instigator of all sin, since He created everything such that sin would result? ”

“ These people who make themselves stubborn for some reason are foolish, as you have shown more clearly than the noonday sun. The time will come (I foresee it and pray for it) when you will be even better prepared for greater tasks, once you have studied the principles of our faith. The light of your reason will exorcise all the shadows and spectres of utterly vain difficulties, which confuse the soul and lead it astray. ”

“ Yet the most perfect harmony is that which brings the most chaotic discord unexpectedly into order, just as a beautiful painting is composed of very light and dark patches wonderfully arranged, or as beautiful music is composed of a wonderful arrangement of consonances and dissonances. This universal harmony also arranges that the true punishment for a sin is simply the logical consequence of the sin itself. Therefore, it follows that sins and their punishment result from God's existence. ”

“ But let me finish this proof with the definition of necessity. Something is necessary if its opposite is self-contradictory or cannot be conceived. Thus, the necessity of something is determined by its definition, not by its cause. In other words, something is necessary only by virtue of itself, by containing within itself its own reason for existence and for its truth, like the truths of geometry. Yet of all existing things, only God is necessary; everything else is contingent, although they follow from the existence of God, or rather from the established chain of events. ”

“ These seem like good models of the anger of the damned against the universal harmony, the nature of things, the eternal ideas which brought about this particular chain of events. It is truly a stupid anger, like one who makes an adding mistake and who discovers upon checking his work that it doesn't agree, and then flies into a rage against arithmetic and not against himself, regretting that three times three actually equals nine instead of ten. But the universal harmony arises from such fundamental, unchangeable ideas like three and nine. ”

“ For example, good music contains dissonances which may be jarring by themselves, but which are blended with consonances to create a beautiful whole. The dissonances serve to create balance; the harmony tolerates these dissonances. But only the whole is pleasing; only the whole is harmonious. Likewise, the happiness of the saved delights God, while the happiness lacking in the damned does not grieve Him, since He is not grieved by anything. The sorrow is erased by the balance of the universal harmony. ”

“ Unless we're given the power of unreasonableness, we never consider ourselves free enough! As if it were not the highest freedom to use our reason and desires as best as possible, with circumstances causing our reason to recognize truly good things, and our reason causing our desires to reach for them. ”

“ But if the damned heard such warnings, they still lacked the needed thoughtfulness and attention, the wisdom which is the greatest gift of grace. How unfair it is that, although all people sleep, only a few are awakened and others are left to be destroyed! Even if it were necessary that so many creatures should be lost, that the chain of events could not be otherwise, at least one should let off the unfortunate sinners.
Philosopher: Well, the situation is the same regardless of whether things happen by chance, by deadly Fate or by the universal harmony. ”

“ You must realize that there are two kinds of people in the world, just as there are in every nation: those who are satisfied with the present situation and those who hate it. Now the contented and neutral people go to work every day, seek to profit, to gather and increase their fortunes, friends, power, pleasures and fame; otherwise, they would be numb rather than satisfied. However, if their success is prevented by the laws of the state, they don't transfer their hatred to those laws nor do they suddenly desire to change things. ”

“ For to ask why this soul and no other was dropped into these circumstances, into this time and place (which determines that soul's life and death, including its salvation and damnation) is to ask why this soul is this soul. For if all souls are initially identical, then it makes no difference to substitute one soul for another. That soul is equivalent to this soul. If a farmer's son is indignant that he was not born the King's son, then he is indignant in vain. ”

“ Philosopher: I believe that with certainty and supported by that hope, I commend myself to the Universal One, to the Church, to the Christian State, to the wisdom of antiquity and to the accepted way of thinking of our age, and lastly to everyone who reaches a correct conclusion. I cannot help being attacked, but I hope that my critics will not be prejudiced. ”

“ They don't realize that, given the near infinity of things, or so to speak, in the reduplication of worlds within worlds (for space is infinitely divisible) , no impure mortal can grasp the whole universe. They do not see that the interspersed dissonances make the consonance of the universe all the more exquisite, just as adding two odd numbers produces an even one. They do not grasp that it is the very essence of harmony to unify diverse elements wonderfully into an unexpectedly beautiful whole. ”

“ Whatever is conscious of its own condition is a mind. Therefore, only a mind can be happy.
Philosopher: Well argued! But at any rate, happiness is the state of mind most pleasing to the mind itself; yet in truth, the mind is most pleased by harmony. ”

“ Moreover, no one ignorant of God can really love Him, although he can hate God nonetheless, by hating the nature of the world and the chain of events, since he who wishes to change these also wishes that God were different. Those who die dissatisfied, die hating God. The newly dead soul rushes headlong in the direction he began with after death, since nothing external holds him back; his senses are closed. He feeds his own soul with what he has within, with his own hatred of things, and with his own misery, disgust, indignation, envy, dissatisfaction, all of which ever increases. ”

“ God contributes everything to sin except the desire to sin, and consequently He does not sin. Thus, I feel that sins are not due to the divine Will, but rather to divine Reason, or to the eternal ideas of things, which are the same thing. These eternal ideas constitute the nature of everything, so one should not foolishly imagine that there are two basic elements of things and two gods, hateful to each other, one good, one bad. ”

“ Yet those who fault the divine justice seem to be demanding more for punishment than the determination of the sinner's desire, which seems ridiculous.
Theologian: You have convinced me that not the least shadow of an excuse is left for sinners. They have nothing to find fault with, but they still have reason to be indignant. Or rather, they have cause to complain, but nothing to complain about, like a dog angered by a stone, or an inept gambler at his bad luck, or a desperate man against himself. ”

“ I admonish them, "If God had eliminated that sin, a completely different chain of events would have followed. There would have been completely different people, circumstances and marriages, and thus a completely different human race. So we would not even exist if that sin were removed." Therefore, they have no reason to become indignant over Adam and Eve's sin, and even less over God's toleration of sin, since this is what brought about their existence in the first place. You see how people vex themselves with pointless questions. ”

“ Philosopher: I understand that to mean that whatever changes cannot stay the same. So also evil people are never damned, for they can stop being damnable whenever they desire it. In other words, they damn themselves from moment to moment. ”