Leibniz's Meaning Of God

Jonathan Edwards in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d,” proposes one very significant question. What can man do to achieve perfection? Edwards states that:

Nothing can be added to that perfection. Only man has potential. God gets His existence only from Himself and owes such to no other being because He is the original cause of all things, including Himself.

God does what He does and we do what we can do and good things are the result. I have also realized there are some things that God will not do. It doesn’t mean that God can’t do them; it’s just that He won’t do them. Big difference! God has no limitations but He does have boundaries. God has placed certain restrictions upon Himself these restrictions are a reflection of His nature and essence within our created world. God created all of humanity to be participants in His creation and not to be spectators of it

Newton and Boyle's laws have helped to explain how our world and universe works, along with

God has perfect morals but yet again it begs us to question that. If god created us and he, himself is perfect why are we not perfect? Why did he create us to be so imperfect? if god himself is perfect; does a god like that deserve to be worship? If god has this attribute then god would actually want his creation to be just as perfect as himself. If god is perfect and we are mirror image of god then we too should be perfect, and if we are in fact perfect then we should acquire the moral perfection attribute. But this is not the case, humans are imperfect by nature. Humans lie, disobey, steal, and murder amongst many other things. Some are better at resisting visceral urges than others but Humans are anything but perfection. We lack the moral perfection attribute that God possesses. If Moral perfection refers to doing good deeds, why are we not given such attributes if we are to live among one another in this

One of the stronger contributing factors to my rejection of Leibniz's view of God is based on the definition proposed. Omnipotent, in its true essence is a contradictory thought, and basing a definition of God with this attribute in mind voids the

Why does an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God allow natural and moral evil to happen without any restrictions? John Hick, a proponent of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s theodicy defense, answered: “in order that human beings, as free responsible agents, may use this world as a place of “soul making,” which involves the spiritual perfection of our character and persons” (Pojman 74). According to Hick, creation has not been finished its work, it is still undergoing a process, that is, the lives of individual human beings. Hick believed that God is omnibenevolent because he is allowing us to learn how to be perfect on our own.

The consequences of accepting that the goodness of actions consists simply in the fact that God favours them are obviously disagreeable. However, the consequences of accepting the alternative also appear unfortunate. If it is maintained that God favours certain actions because they are objectively good, it seems that their goodness is independent of His will. But such a view appears to be inconsistent with the conception of God as the omnipotent creator and sustainer of all that is. It means that there is a realm of moral values which exist quite apart from God's creative will and to which His will must conform. Such a view must inevitably appear blasphemous to all those who believe in God, for it makes God out to be less than He is.

A solution would be to say that a Supremely Perfect Being is omnipotent, is to hold that they can do everything that is logically possible and consistent with their nature. Although, it is still hard to grasp how a Supremely Perfect Being could for instance freely ‘choose’ to do something or other. Since they would bound to act accordance with their nature, and are also understood to be unchanging. Problem being that, saying a Supremely Perfect Being cannot do simple things that we can do suggests that they are far from being omnipotent.

One possible answer is the fact that we can not see what God’s plans are, and so in the scheme of the entire universe our error could be making everything perfect. A second and more in-depth answer Descartes argues errors are mistaken judgments. When looking at what a judgment is composed of, one finds it involves two things, the intellect and the will. Both are faculties of the soul or self; whose existence is proved in the second meditation. The Intellect is limited, “through the intellect alone, [one] merely perceives ideas about which [one] can render a judgment. Strictly speaking, no error is to be found in the intellect when properly viewed in this manner.” (56) There is no error because the intellect does not make a judgment it simply takes in information. Descartes says error arises when the will affirms or denies a judgment the intellect has

It could easily be a result of God's eternal nature in that he has the ability either to freely choose to create something, or freely choose not to being fully complete in himself. Furthermore, even if by acting God is perfect it is not clear why this is a problem. It could be that God acts in the creative way eternally, his acting being an essential part of his nature. If he does this he is still perfect from eternity in his nature. Nor is it clear to me why a later cause should not be just as perfect as the initial. It is perfectly conceivable that God should contain within his nature the property of causing the initial cause with the express aim of causing the final cause. As such it would be in his eternal nature to act in the specific way that he would at the given temporal time, creating the more perfect effect than the initial one. Furthermore, the initial action by God could have been freely chosen by God, not being an eternal aspect of his nature. If this is the case then the final cause could easily be greater than the

Whether the Bible speaks of holiness, righteousness, justice, mercy, loving-kindness, love, or any other topic, it is communicating the words inspired by the God who is perfect in each of these attributes. The word God itself implies perfection. When we consider God, we consider One who is perfect. Not many who believe in God would deny His perfection. It is irrational to think of God as one who is less than perfect. A perfect God is perfect for all His

The fact that Leibniz rejects the Divine Command Theory is significant, for he is one of the most committed theists in the Western intellectual tradition. He argues at great length that there must be an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God and consequently that this must be the

The existence of God has been in question for as long as mankind has existed and thought logically. Many questions have plagued the human mind in regards to God, and there have been many arguments drawn with the hopes of proving the existence of a supreme being whom we know as God. The “God” question has been presented to every individual at some point in their lives. It is a topic that will bring forth never-ending questions and an equal amount of attempted answers. Many philosophers have formulated different rationales when examining the topic of God, some of which include how the word itself should be defined, what his role is in human existence, whether or not he loves us, and ultimately, if he even exists at all. Mankind cannot

My aim is to attempt to prove the point of two general division in the problem of evil, and initially clear up the confusion of the dichotomy between the probabilistic problem (how plausible is God's existence given evil) and the problem Leibniz deals with, the logical problem (pure possibility).