Leibniz vs.

Hume and Voltaire

Nicolas Renowitzky

March 18, 2018

 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a man of philosophy, math, science, and faith who lived in the

17th century and died in the early 18th. Though he made much advancement in the field of mathematics

and science, he also dabbled in religious philosophy and apologetics as well. Leibniz’s most notable and

controversial religious/philosophical claim, which he makes in his Theodicy, is that the universe as we

know it is the best possible one that God could’ve created out of all possible universes.1 He also makes a

few apologetic claims in which he attempts to defend the existence of God by using reason as a way to

counter arguments against the idea that a perfect God cannot exist because evil exists. Leibniz’s

optimistic philosophical claims would not be left unscathed however, as both Voltaire and David Hume

would ridicule and contradict the notion that this universe is the best possible one, especially when

there seems to be so much evil in the world. However, although Leibniz made various flawed arguments

which were easily disproved by Hume and ridiculed by Voltaire, Leibniz did make a couple of arguments

which are a bit more difficult to disprove. We’ll be taking a look at some of Leibnitz’s arguments below,

in order of increasing difficulty to disprove.

One of Leibniz’s most easily dismantled arguments is that evil can exist in the same reality as a

perfect creator God because the good in the universe outweighs the evil. 2 Through fictional characters

having a religious/philosophical debate, Hume first acknowledges Leibniz’s claim in his Dialogues

Concerning Natural Religion by using one of his characters’ conversations to imply that Leibniz is the first

author in history to deny the amount of pain and suffering that creation experiences and that he is also

the first author with the audacity to establish that ludicrous notion as the base of any argument. Hume

wrote that the implication of there being more good than evil in the universe is an impossible thing to

measure, and even if it were possible to measure, the opposite would likely end up being true because

of how much evil and chaos exists. Hume concluded that even though the purpose of all life, whether

1
Rowe, P.1
2
Rowe, P.5
human or animal, seems to be to seek pleasure and avoid pain, there’s a problem: nature doesn’t

concern itself with anyone’s or anything’s happiness and that all creatures are essentially at war with

each other for survival. Nature drives animals to kill each other for comfort. Hume deduces that if the

nature of the universe is one of brutal indifference towards the happiness, pleasure, and comfort of

creation, and this is the best universe that God could create, then God is either lacking in love, power, or

knowledge or just doesn’t exist.3

Leibniz tried to support his “there is more good than evil” argument by taking into consideration

that the goodness of those who are blessed is greater than the imperfection of the damned, and so

that’s why there is more good in the universe than evil.4 Hume’s previous counterarguments still apply

to Leibniz’s argument’s logic, in which goodness or evil cannot be measured and that evil seems to be

far more prevalent than good. Voltaire actually makes an excellent counterargument that supports

Hume’s observations about how much evil there is in the world with the entirety of his Candide, a story

in which a young man experiences humanity’s and nature’s cruelty in the most extreme ways. In

Candide, one can observe that religious people and church officials can sometimes be the most evil

people, since in Voltaire’s time, the Inquisition was still burning people alive and many clergy members

were corrupt and involved in scandals. Through Candide, one can see that the people who are in charge

of Church and State, who are supposed to be the most moral and selfless, are actually the most

depraved of us all, and that the ones who are most vulnerable and in need of the most help are the ones

who are taken advantage of and suffer the most. Though it is a fictional story, many things in Candide

are based on historical events and real people, which makes its implicit statement that there is more evil

in the world than good all the more powerful.

3
Rowe, P.39, 49
4
Rowe, P.15
 Leibniz also tried to support his “there is more good than evil” argument by arguing that good

goes on infinitely, whereas evil is limited.5 Hume’s previous counterarguments still apply, which state

that this can’t be empirically measured and that the opposite seems to be true. Voltaire, however, has a

very strong counterargument as well against Leibniz’s argument in Candide, in which one can observe

that poverty is rampant and the poor are suffering, but even those who are wealthy are discontent,

which means that even when a person has all the good things they can still be and are usually unhappy.

Hume also adds to Voltaire’s counterargument by stating that the pain in the world is far more frequent

and more durable than the joy that can be experienced, since one of the greatest physical joys, the

orgasm, peaks and soon leaves the body, whereas people who are extremely ill, injured, or poor often

suffer intensely for long periods of time. Hume also added that people who suffer greatly may

contemplate suicide, but don’t kill themselves en masse because of the instinctual fear of death that

everyone has, but whenever the suffering in a person’s life is far more powerful than their fear of death,

then that person will usually kill themselves in order to end their suffering. Just the fact that people do

commit suicide is a reality proves that the evil that people can experience can be greater than the

greatest evil- death, and that is why Hume argues that it’s really easy to see despair in the world and

extremely difficult to see true joy.6

Another of Leibniz easily disproved arguments is that even if there was more evil in the physical

realm than good, the sum of the goodness of all of God’s angels and God Himself outweigh the evils of

the world and the devil.7 Hume shot this argument down by stating that since all that we can trust are

our senses and we cannot empirically observe angels or God, then we cannot assume that they’re even

real.8 Voltaire’s implicit message in Candide is similar to Hume’s argument, which is that to assume that

5
Rowe, P.8, 15
6
Rowe, P.43-45
7
Rowe, P.16
8
Rowe, P.47-48
God is real is contrary to the evidence that can be observed since the way that the universe was made

resulted in a physical realm that is either apathetic or cruel towards the joy of its creatures (since natural

disasters can take the lives of thousands at any place and time), evil and injustice are rampant in the

world that we live in, and God is nowhere to be found. If it cannot be proven that God and His angels are

real, which Hume and Voltaire both argue, then the goodness of God and his angels cannot be used to

argue for the notion of a universe with more good in it than evil. Hume also wrote that to make a

hypothesis on top of another hypothesis, which Leibniz did in the arguments that have been reviewed so

far, is like trying to build things on air- it’s pointless because there is no foundation.9

The last of Leibniz’s weak arguments that will be mentioned here is that evils have been allowed

to exist so that God can turn them into greater goods.10 Hume argued and Voltaire demonstrated that

this argument can’t be proven and that out of the all of the natural disasters that have happened and

atrocities that have been committed by mankind, very few have led to any positive events, let alone

events that justify the occurrence of said disasters and atrocities.11 In Candide, many evils happened to

the main character even though he was a good and relatively innocent man, and in the end, the amount

of suffering that he experienced throughout the story was far greater than the amount of joy that he

had ever experienced. If Hume were alive today, he’d most likely use the holocaust as an example of

how vile and insensitive this argument is and refer to how many people suffered in concentration

camps, how many people died during WWII, how many atrocities were committed by all sides, how

much anger and pain people experienced, and how Hitler’s influence is still alive even today. Hume

would likely then continue building on the topic of the holocaust and say that if God allowed the

holocaust to happen so that a greater good would come out of it, it would seem like He’s taking His time

because there has nothing in the past 80+ years that has even come close to making up for it. 50 to 80

9
Rowe, P.44
10
Rowe, P. 14
11
Rowe, P.45
million people died as a direct result of WWII, and it doesn’t seem like the world is better off because of

it- in fact, if WWII never happened, the world would probably be a much, much better place than what it

is right now.

The first of Leibniz’s more decent arguments that will be covered here is the how the best

course is not always the one which avoids evil, since it’s possible that the evil may be accompanied by a

greater good. Leibniz’s two examples that demonstrate the logic behind his argument are: the army

general who would rather win a battle with a wound than lose a battle without a wound, and original sin

leading to the incarnation of the Son of God.12 Hume would of course disregard the latter example, since

it cannot be empirically proven that God exists or that Jesus was God incarnate and that his death had

any sort of great metaphysical effect, but he’d certainly address the first example. Hume would likely

argue against the army general example (assuming that God is the army general in this case) with the

fact that God can’t be compared with the army general in the example because the army general has

limited power, wisdom, and love, whereas God is supposed to possess all of those qualities to an infinite

degree. Hume could’ve potentially agreed with Leibniz’s army general example if Leibniz were arguing

for the existence of a God that is lacking power, wisdom, or love, but that isn’t the argument that Leibniz

is making; Leibniz was arguing for the existence of a perfect God in an imperfect world.13 In the end,

though there may indeed be good reasons for why an infinitely loving, powerful, and knowing being

would allow evil to exist when He Himself is devoid of evil, humanity cannot know the reasons, so the

fact of the matter is that Leibniz’s and Hume’s arguments arrive at a stalemate since it cannot be known

whether or not this universe is “the best of all possible universes.”

The second of Leibniz’s more reasonable arguments in Theodicy is the intelligent design

argument, in which God made the world in a way so that people could survive in order so that He would

12
Rowe, P.14-15
13
Rowe, P.50-51
be glorified.14 Though it’s not explicit, Leibniz’s argument does have some merit: if the world was any

closer or farther from the sun than what it is right now, then it would not be possible for humans or any

life to survive, and if the laws of gravity or physics were any different, then it’s possible that the universe

would be simply filled with hydrogen gas or plasma instead of stars and planets and life could not exist.

From Hume’s perspective though, things are different since he claims that the intelligent design

argument falls apart because of how much chaos there is in the universe. Hume argues that if the

universe were a house, it could barely considered a home because of all the chaos, evil, and

inconsistency that exists, so if there even was an architect that designed it (though Hume implies that

there probably isn’t), then that architect is very incompetent.15 If one takes a closer look at both Hume’s

and Leibniz’s arguments, it is clear to see that they aren’t being made from an objective stance, since in

Leibniz’s eyes the universe was made perfectly so that people would be able to live in it, and from

Hume’s eyes, the universe is so incompetently made that there’s no way an omnipotent and omniscient

being could’ve messed up so badly in designing it. These arguments also come to a stalemate not

because Leibniz’s argument was extremely well-thought out, but rather because Hume made an equally

bad counterargument.

Leibniz’s last and best argument that will be discussed here for the existence of a perfect God in

the face of a universe that is full of evil has two parts: the first is that because we are physical people

living in a physical universe, we are finite and limited, and on top of being finite and limited, we also

have free will, which would have made it possible for humans living in a perfect world (Adam and Eve) to

voluntarily sin. The second is that if God wanted to create a perfect universe, he would’ve had to either

eliminate or infringe upon humanity’s free will, but to do this would make it impossible for humans to

14
Rowe, P.7-8
15
Rowe, P.52-54
truly love God or even each other.16 It is impossible to know what Hume would reply exactly to this

argument, especially since there are a lot of Christian concepts that Leibniz implied that a non-Christian

such as Hume would not have understood, but from what can be gathered from Hume’s writings, it

seems that he’d prefer a world without evil than a world without free will. Hume also wrote that if one

assumed God was real, an observation that one could make is that God isn’t all-powerful due to how

frugal He is with His power in order to prevent evil and injustice17, but an argument that could be made

against that is that if God were constantly using His powers to prevent all evil, then free will would be

closer to an illusion and God would not be loved by anyone but feared by everyone as a tyrant and not

out of reverence. If the purpose of our existence, as Christians claim, is to love God, then erasing our

free will or running the universe as a tyrant which would produce fright in the hearts of people, then the

version of God that Hume would admit to be real would not be the Christian God that Leibniz is arguing

for.

In the end, Hume’s and Voltaire’s logic and arguments are still stronger than Leibniz’s in terms of

apologetics. Without empirical evidence, Leibniz’s case for the existence of the Christian God falls flat on

its face because of how many hypotheses he makes with other baseless hypotheses as their foundation.

Even Leibniz’s strongest argument in his Theodicy can only be used as far as to argue for the possibility

of the existence of God in an imperfect universe, rather than for the actual existence of God. Though

Leibniz proved that the idea of a perfect Christian God is not incompatible with the reality of a universe

that is riddled with evil through reason alone, Hume ultimately proved that it is impossible to use reason

alone in order to prove the existence of any deity. In any apologetic discussion between Leibniz and

Hume, Hume would ultimately be declared the victor, but in a discussion of whether or not the

16
Rowe, P.20
17
Rowe, P.50-51
existence of the Christian God is compatible with the current universe, Leibniz would be a force to be

reckoned with.

Bibliography

Rowe, William L. God and the problem of evil. Blackwell, 2007.

Voltaire, et al. Candide. Modern Library, 1992.