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brainstorming for essay PHIL 384 - Suffering and Belief in God
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PHIL 384 - Suffering and Belief in God outline and brainstorming for the final argumentative essay. An examination of key issues pertaining to suffering and belief in God. Topics include the problem of evil, arguments from suffering, original sin, everlasting suffering, and providence.

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  • February 19, 2021
  • 5
  • 2018/2019
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Samantha Twist
Phil 3
October 4, 2018

Leibniz, Voltaire, Hume Comparison Paper

Hume and Voltaire are both responding to Leibniz. Leibniz is not trying to come to the conclusion of
whether or not God exists, but that God is morally justified. Leibniz’s main point is that this is the best of
all possible worlds. He is proven to be an optimist of the world as a whole. Hume disagrees with the idea
of this being the best possible world. On top of that Hume thinks that Leibniz is asking the wrong
question. He believes and tries to convince the reader that looking at the world, the most natural
conclusion is that is was not made by a good and all-powerful God. Voltaire thinks that Leibnizian
thinking is just a bunch of empty words.

To best understand Hume and Voltaire, we must first understand the main points of Leibniz.
Leibniz’s main point is that this is the best of all possible worlds. An analogy used is that the universe is
like a painting; not every color can be the best and most beautiful, some ugly colors like dirt brown, dull
grey, and baby food orange are needed to make it the best and most beautiful painting. It is the same
thing with this universe, Leibniz says. The idea is that God could see all the possible worlds and he chose
this one because it is the best option. Leibniz says that “the infinity of possible, however great it may be,
is no greater than that of the wisdom of God, who knows all possibilities” (6, Rowe). He believes two
ways of thinking. The first, and most prominent one, is that evils are necessary in order to maximize
good; therefor, this is the best of all possible worlds. The second one is that God is maximally good and
powerful; therefor, this is the best of all possible worlds. Leibniz was an optimist. Not an optimist of
individuals, but of the universe as a whole. He believes that overall there is more good than bad. He
notes that creation is made with free will on page 14 of Rowe. In the same paragraph he references St.
Augustine saying that “God permitted evil in order to derive from it a good, that is to say, a greater
good” (14, Rowe). Leibniz says, on page 6 of God and the Problem of Evil by Rowe, that people should
believe that virtue and happiness exceed misery and suffering in this world because “the City of God
must be the most perfect of all possible states, since it was formed and is perpetually governed by the
greatest and best of all Monarchs”. Leibniz believes that it is a “very reasonable thing, that the glory and
the perfection of the blessed may be incomparably greater than the misery and imperfection of the
damned” (15, Rowe). Basically, he is saying that even if a small amount of people go to heaven, and
everyone else goes to hell, the joy of the people in heaven will outweigh the misery of people in hell.
On page 6 of Rowe, Leibniz talks about God’s antecedent will which is the best and that some vices are
just the consequent will which works out the details. Leibniz was not trying to come to the conclusion
that God exists but that God is morally justified.

Unlike Leibniz, Hume was trying to convince us that looking at the earth it does not logically
conclude that a good and all-powerful god exists. He believed that Leibniz was asking the wrong
question. He discusses this through three characters: Cleanthes who believes reason alone will lead us
to God, Philo who is the mouthpiece of Hume, and Demea the middle man who believes faith alone can
lead us to God. We see through the discourse of these three characters, Hume struggle with many of
Leibniz’s beleifs. One example is that Leibniz says that this is the best possible world and Hume suggests
four ways that the Earth could be just a little bit better. Hume is probably the one I believe the most
because to me he is in the middle of Leibniz and Voltaire.

, Voltaire has two characters in his story that represent a Leibnizian way of thinking. The first character is
Pangloss, who is the teacher in this story of what Voltaire understands as a Leibnizian way of thinking.
Pangloss means empty words in Greek. Panglossia is wordiness, and Panglossian is empty words. This is
very intentional. Voltaire does not believe in the teachings of Leibniz at all in his book Candide. The
second character, the main character, is Candide. He represents a maybe a bastardized or uneducated
version of Leibniz’s theology. He is possibly Voltaire showing us what happens if someone takes Leibniz
and applies his thinking all of the time in every scenario. Candide’s name is similar to the word “candid”
which means without preparing or unthinking, so it is not far of a stretch at all to bring that to
unthinking, naïve, and stupid.

I don’t believe that Pangloss represents Leibniz well. Even though it is an obvious representation
of Leibniz it is a bit unfair to him. On page 4 of Candide, Voltaire has Pangloss share a teaching of
Leibniz’s well known teachings called the Principle of Sufficient Reason which talks about how there is a
reason for everything. Pangloss says “everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves
the best end. Observe: noses were made to support spectacles, hence we have spectacles” (4, Voltaire).
Pangloss goes on to say that Legs were made for pants. This is obviously absurd. The point is to flip it so
we notice the ridiculousness, and to let Voltaire make a jab at Leibnizian thinking. Another way that
Voltaire unfairly represents Leibniz right from the start of the book and then throughout the entire novel
is through the representation of optimism and the understanding of the best of all possible worlds.
Leibniz is an optimist of the universe as a whole, he believes that the world is the best of all possible
worlds, even if everyone doesn’t have the best and even if most people suffer and go to hell. Voltaire
twists this. Instead of applying this belief to the overall universe, he applies it to the particulates
including Candide’s house, life, leg. He has Candide think that just because it is his house that it is the
best possible house. Overall, I think that Voltaire warps Leibniz’s philosophy in a way that is satirical but
not necessarily always the best representation.

Voltaire believes that Leibnizian thinking is unthinking, just a bunch of empty words. That it isn’t
really founded in anything and that since it doesn’t have strong roots it will eventually fall short. In just a
matter of pages Voltaire shows this through Candide’s wavering faith. On page 37 of Candide, Candide
says that he will “let Providence be our guide” (cite) showing his trust in God, or at least in Pangloss. On
page 44 he has a temporary lapse of faith, he recovers three pages later, but this is the biggest falling of
faith which will eventually help his faith deteriate throughout the entire book until both him and
Pangloss no longer believe what they are saying. Candide says that he has to give up Pangloss’s
optimism and way of thinking. He then goes further to say that optimism “is a mania for saying things
are well when one is in hell” (44, Voltaire). It doesn’t take long to notice that on the good days, Candide
belives Panglossian philosophy and that he rejects Pangloss on that bad days. This Voltaire intentionally
showing us how shallow and unrealistic Leibnizian thinking can be. Overall, we see Candide’s faith in
Leibnizian thinking deteriate the more bad experiences he has throughout the book. Once we reach the
end of the book we learn that goodness is fleeting, for example example the money that is now all gone
and through Cunegonde loosing her beauty, and isn’t that great anyways, which we learn about when
he visits Pococurante. Candide’s belief turns from optimism to the belief that the only good is to live the
simple life and that keeps you busy.

Perhaps Voltaire believes that the love of money and possessions is the root of moral evil. That
having a want inside you is where moral evil comes from. In Voltaire’s El Durado, paradise, there was
riches everywhere and none of the locals seemed to care. Again at the end of the book we are given the

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