Georg Friedrich Meier: Thoughts on the condition of the soul after death – Heaven and hell

After pondering our physical condition in the hypothesised life after death, Meier turns to the question what is our moral condition. By this moral condition or state of the soul he means everything that is dependent on its freedom, including free actions and capabilities together with all consequences following from them, such as rewards, punishments, perfections and imperfections.

Meier begins by dividing all good and evil into two types. The first of these types consists of goods and evils that is from a closer standpoint not dependent on the freedom of the soul, but either belong to its nature in a physically necessary manner or occur in combination with external causes we are used to call luck. Meier names these physical goods and evils, while the second type consists of moral goods and evils. The latter are then dependent from a closer standpoint on the freedom of the soul. Examples of such moral goods and evils are good actions, sins, virtues and vices.

As long as a finite substance exists, Meier insists, it acts. Now, every action causes a change or an accident in the finite substance, by which the sum of its perfections either increases or decreases. As long as a finite substance exists in the world, it is in connection with all other finite substances, which affect it and thus either increase or decrease its realities. If the soul continues living after death, Meier explains, this increase or decrease will also continue. Because our immortality is uncertain, it is also uncertain whether our soul will be happy or unhappy. If it is more blessed after death than in this life, we say that the soul is in heaven; but if it is more corrupt, we say that it is in hell.

Heaven and hell require actions, virtues, sins and vices, Meier says, thus, heaven and hell can be ascribed only to substances performing free actions. If a soul goes to heaven or hell, it must then be able to use its understanding and live like a person after its death. In other words, the soul must continue living after its death, it cannot sleep eternally or live only in a sensuous manner, but it must be conscious of itself, think reasonably and perform free actions. According to Meier, none of these things can be proven from reason, therefore it is uncertain whether there is heaven and hell for humans. Still, Meier considers it certain that if the soul can use its higher capacities after death, it will become either more blessed or more corrupt than in this life and that it is necessarily either in heaven or in hell. Furthermore, he is convinced, because of the Bible, that heaven and hell exist. Meier is also quick to add that while he thinks their existence is uncertain, he doesn’t deny it, and indeed, considers that high probability of heaven and hell can be proven by reason.

Meier explains that his purpose is not to do an exegetical treatise on what the Bible says about heaven and hell. Still, he emphasises that while some theologians have declared explanations of heaven and hell, other than their own, blasphemous, interpretations of the Bible can be objected with good conscience. Even so, Meier quickly adds that he won’t use biblical expressions to declare something about the Bible, but only as shorthands.

Reason cannot give as stimulating a concept of heaven as God reveals in the Bible, Meier continues. The Bible, he thinks, says that all moral evil with its bad consequences will disappear in heaven and all its denizens will be so perfect, despite their finity, that they will not be disturbed by anything in their happiness. Reason, on the other hand, cannot ascertain that souls in heaven will not sin, since even the most virtuous have in this life a capacity to sin, so that mere divorce from the body seems not reason enough to assume that sinning will end. Such a change we could understand, if it happened gradually, while sudden disappearance of sin would be a wonder, which cannot be proven by reason.

Similarly, Meier suggests, reason cannot tell with certainty whether there will be no consequences for sin in heaven, such as guilt and punishments. Sin naturally has consequences, according to Meier, and death as such could not take away these consequences, because it shouldn't break the order of nature. Thus, by reason we should assume that punishments continue in heaven, but God could miraculously suppress the natural order. This is in line with what the Bible tells us about the Saviour, Meier says, but reason cannot prove the existence of Christ. Meier also thinks that reason cannot say souls living in happier parts of heaven will remain there eternally. In order to remain, they would have to continue living virtuously, but we cannot be certain whether they won’t sin again. The Bible, on the other hand, assures us God will strengthen the souls in heaven so that they will not sin again, but this is a miracle that reason cannot prove.

So far Meier hasn’t been able to find anything certain about heaven, but there are such things, he assures us. Souls in heaven will be more blessed than they are in current life, in other words, in heaven blessedness must be greater than the opposite imperfection. Now, blessedness is not possible without virtue, so that the blessed in heaven will do more morally good than morally bad actions. They will especially do their duties toward God, but also toward themselves and others. Thus, Meier concludes, they will have to have good understanding, and clearer, more distinct and livelier concepts than in this world. Nothing else can we say about heaven with the help of reason, Meier insists.

Meier considers the question whether heaven is a reward for virtuous actions in this world. He thinks it cannot be just that, for then there could be people in heaven who would not act virtuously anymore after death or who would sin in heaven. Thus, blessedness in heaven should be a consequence of good deeds in heaven, although it could also be a reward for virtuous deeds in this world. Reason can regard heaven with certainty only as a natural reward or consequence of good actions, although it understands the possibility of God freely choosing to share extra rewards.

Meier thinks that everything he has said of heaven could be applied analogously to hell. The Bible gives a detailed view of the hell that reason could not demonstrate. Philosophers cannot say whether the damned could still make good actions, although we can assume that people who were more vicious than virtuous during their life will probably continue in the same manner and will thus find themselves in hell. To reason it seems probable that the damned can still do good things. Indeed, since no finite thing can be completely imperfect, in Meier’s opinion, reason cannot think a damned person without any perfections, because they must still have their essence, force and actuality. Reason might even assume that the damned will receive some rewards in hell, even if the Bible says that cannot happen, because good deeds will have their natural rewards, and where is a human being who would never do any good deeds?

Eternity of hell and punishment cannot be demonstrated by reason, Meier says. If hell had no exit, there would be no improvement nor conversion and God’s mercy would be eternally deprived from the damned. Reason can prove neither of these with certainty, because the amount of vice is contingent and thus damned could become virtuous and leave hell: God might harden the hearts of the damned, but reason cannot know this.

The only thing reason can say about hell with certainty, according to Meier, is that damned are less blessed there than in this life, and indeed, their unblessedness weighs clearly more than their remaining perfections, and all their unblessedness is based on sin and vice. The damned will have to do free actions in hell, hence, they will do more and greater sins than morally good actions. Because all sins presuppose practical errors, Meier thinks, the damned will have to think about many good and bad things, and these thoughts will either be as a whole false or then be so weak that they cannot determine the will of the damned. Indeed, they will have to have some satisfaction, but just of wrong things. The damned will sleep and be awake, and this will increase their pain, since the occasional sleep will make the pain clearer. Reason cannot say that the hell would be punishment only of sins in this world, since the damned will continue sinning and these sins will lead to at least natural punishments. Just like in the case of heaven, reason cannot say whether God will decree to those in hell additional punishments beyond the natural punishments.

Are the souls of the damned in hell physically more perfect than in this life? Will they have greater and stronger forces, will their powers of cognition and understanding be greater, will they have clearer, more distinct, more correct, more certain and livelier concepts than in this life? Meier reminds us that earlier we saw that we cannot decide on the basis of mere reason whether souls in general will be physically more or less perfect, yet, he at once adds, this is a different question. If the souls of the damned would be less perfect, they would not be as conscious of what was happening to them. Therefore, if the damned are to be punished properly, they should be more perfect. The problem is how could their will still be imperfect. Meier suggests that the damned must be lacking in truth, that is, their practical cognition must be either erroneous or not lively enough.

Meier still considers the question whether a dying person can know just on the basis of reason whether they are going to heaven or hell. He denies this, since we cannot know with certainty whether we have been more virtuous than vicious. Indeed, he adds, self-love often makes us confuse our vicious actions with virtuous deeds.

Meier concludes the chapter by considering attempted proofs for the immortality of the soul that are based on the goodness, wisdom and righteousness of God. Starting from goodness, he states that to show that something is in accord with the goodness of God, we should not just show that it is good in itself, but that it belongs to the best world. Indeed, something can be good in itself, but might cause imperfections in connection with other things: perfection of a part might contradict perfection of the whole. Meier thinks that we can know that all that happens in the world must be part of the best world, but we cannot beforehand say what is in accordance with God’s goodness. Indeed, even such a surprising thing as the fall of humans must have been for the best. Thus, he concludes, we cannot know whether denying immortality from the soul might serve other things, even if it takes some perfections away from the soul.

Meier thinks that it is even more difficult to argue anything on the basis of God’s wisdom: we know that best in every case is in accordance with God’s wisdom, but what is best? The system of the divine goals in the best world is incomprehensible to finite spirits, Meier insists, and we cannot do anything, but to wait for God’s plans to unfold. We cannot therefore say with certainty that immortality of our souls is in accordance with divine wisdom. It might seem unwise to first create something and then destroy it, Meier admits, but this is actually something we cannot be certain of: maybe human souls are so insignificant to the overall good of the universe that it is best to just get rid of them. Of course, we can abstractly say that human souls play an important part in achieving God’s goal of the best world and that eternally living soul would serve this goal better than a mortal spirit, but in relation to the whole creation of God the answer might be different. As a further point Meier notes the analogy that from an abstract viewpoint a sinless soul is better than sinful, but God has still allowed millions of souls to fall to sin.

Many people want to justify the immortality of human souls from divine righteousness, Meier notes, because God must reward and punish souls proportionally. Meier admits this, but immediately adds that we couldn’t then just assume that rewards and punishments in this world were not enough. At least natural rewards and punishments in this world are always equal to their causes and thus proportionate, although not always remarkable. Thus, if a virtuous person appears to face bad luck, they are either justly punished for some sins or then we are dealing with mere apparent evil. Meier considers the final objection that the free actions at the final moment of life should also require rewards and punishments, which cannot be given anymore in this life. His answer is that humans lose the ability for free actions long before the final moment of their life.

Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - What God does

The final part of Crusius’ natural theology is dedicated to the question of what God does, that is, what effects the divine activities produce. The obvious first answer for Crusius is that God has created the world, that is, the world that earlier was not has become existent. In the strictest sense, Crusius adds, creation refers to the generation of simple substances and their fundamental forces. In addition, God has also ordered these simple substances, but this is not something that only God could do.

God has not just created the world and everything in it, Crusius continues, but they also sustain all these things. Why couldn’t God just have created the things in such a manner that they would keep on existing without the help of God? Crusius’ answer is that this would have been impossible. Because the created things are contingent, their current existence is no reason why they would continue existing and thus they require the help of God for their continuous existence or otherwise they might as well just blink out of existence.

In addition to sustaining the existence of the things in the world, Crusius states, God also sustains the very order of the world. The threat here is not that the world would be completely wiped out of existence, but only that it would collapse into chaos. This threat is real, Crusius adds, because by themselves, material things would quickly move and change any given order.

Crusius adds that in some cases God sustains the actuality of certain things, but when free choices are involved, God can only sustain their possibility, while the actuality is then left for the decision of free beings. Thus, Crusius explains, God is not responsible for evil actions of free creatures, but merely sustains the possibility of such actions, which the action of a free person then makes real.

God does not just sustain the world, Crusius continues, but they direct the world in accordance with certain purposes. Original guidelines of this divine providence, he clarifies, are God’s fundamental desires, while what God attempts to achieve must have something to do with creatures capable of free actions, not with the mechanism of the material world. God is, as it were, building a kingdom, where the divine will morally obligates free creatures to do certain actions.

Crusius divided divine providence into such where God uses the course of nature to make something purposeful happen at appropriate time and such where God uses miracles or personally acts on the worldly things to make something happen. Since free spirits cannot be forced to do anything by natural causes, he points out, miracles must be especially used with them. Thus, particularly if there are plenty of evil free creatures, God has to do miracles, in order to assure the fulfilment of divine purposes. This still doesn’t mean that we should see miracles everywhere, since God can well use less miracles to produce more effects. In addition, Crusius notes, God need not make miracles obviously visible, unless the explicit purpose of the miracle is to be noted by human beings.

Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - What God is

It is one thing to say that something is, another to say what it is. Thus, it is no wonder that Crusius considers the question on the attributes of God, in addition to attempting to prove their existence. Yet, he also has to at first argue that we can speak reasonably about God. After all, as he himself admits, God should be so far above all finite things that we cannot ever really comprehend their essence.

One common way to describe God is through metaphors taken from human life, for instance, when we say that God hears or sees all things. Crusius accepts such anthropopathies, assuming that they are not understood in a too literal manner that would imply God's finity - this would be anthropomorphism.

Yet, Crusius is also keen to find out more literal attributes of God, in order to alleviate all accusations of humanising God. He notes that anthropathies can still provide an inkling of such literal attributes, if one can just remove the metaphorical element from them.

In fact, Crusius adds, all things can provide hints of what God is like. Firstly one can concentrate on how things are perfect and then assume that God is eminently more perfect. Secondly, one can pay attention to the fact that God must be able to create everything in the world. Beyond these two roads, Crusius suggests we have only a third route of describing God - negative one.

Well, Crusius does admit also a fourth, that of revelation. He especially refers to the notion of God as a Trinity, which he considers as the closest we come to knowing God's essence - or at least knowing an attribute that is not either an infinitised attribute of finite things or a relation. Indeed, Trinity - that of being a substance composed of three individuals - is something completely unique to God.

The other, non-revelatory attributes of God Crusius divides into non-active and active attributes, depending on whether the attributes involve any action or a capacity to an action. Foremost of the non-active attributes is infinity. This means, Crusius says, that God cannot have any imperfections. Furthermore, it implies that God has majestity, that is, that he is infinitely removed from all finite beings and inconceivable to them.

Although Trinity, Crusius insists, God is still simple. That is, the three persons of Godhead are in themselves incomplete, although they can e.g. have different actions. Furthermore, the simplicity of God implies that God is not material and that human souls are not a part of God.

Crusius is also convinced of the uniqueness of God, although he is not satisfied with many of the proofs suggested for this position. For instance, Crusius does not think that one could prove the uniqueness of God from the supposed impossibility of distinguishing infinite things, which would have all the same attributes - he points out that this distinction could still happen through relations or spatio-temporal characteristics. Neither does he approve the attempt to prove the uniqueness from the necessity of God, since there is nothing to show that there are only necessary things. Instead, Crusius favours a rather idiosyncratic proof: gods exist in space, and if there are several gods, they must exist in the same or different space, but in the latter case they would be finite, while the former is impossible.

In addition to these rather general attributes, Crusius’ non-active attributes for God contain also attributes related to what he calls the abstractions of existence or space and time. Here the case of time is perhaps easier to understand, since it just means that God is eternal or exists at all times (he does make the interesting suggestion that Trinity explains what God did before creation of the world: the three persons interacted with one another somehow).

The case of space is quite analogous, although Crusius’ result seems unusual: God is immense or they cannot be limited by anything. Crusius notes that this does not mean that God would consist of parts - the usual objection against God’s spatiality. Crusius explains himself by saying that the space of God is a mere abstraction and mere abstractions cannot be really broken into parts.

The active attributes of God refer, then, to those attributes of God that involve an action or a capacity for an action. On a general level, these attributes include that of God having an infinite force, that is, a force that can do everything that just happens to be possible. Some of the actions resulting from God using this force are a necessary part of their essence. Yet, all of them cannot be necessary, Crusius insists, and must be such that God can begin and stop doing them, because otherwise God would be less perfect than humans, who can do this.

Crusius also divides God’s actions into immanent actions that belong merely to the inner state of God’s essence and transient actions that either create a new substance or change the condition of a substance different from God. But can God create something different from itself, if God exists everywhere? Yes, Crusius asserts, as although two gods cannot occupy space, apparently God and a finite creature can.

Crusius notes that there are three kinds of actions: movement, understanding and will. Of these, God really cannot move, because as has been noted, God is everywhere. Then again, Crusius notes, God can definitely understand or think things - denying this would be implicit atheism, because otherwise God would be just a blind mechanism.

God’s understanding, Crusius says, should be infinite. This means, firstly, that God knows all there is and all there could be. Secondly, it means that God’s knowledge of actualities and possibilities must be perfect. For instance, God cannot take impossibilities as possibilities, God must know everything as distinctly as possible and therefore God definitely cannot know anything through sensations or deductions.

Crusius points out that God knows different things in a different manner. Some things, like possibilities and God’s own existence, God would know even if the world did not exist. God also has an encompassing vision of the world: its past, present and future. This vision includes, Crusius insists, also the actions of free creatures - we cannot understand how God can know them, but it is not contradictory. Between the two types of knowledge, Crusius states, God has also a third type: knowledge of what would happen, if a free person chose to do something.

In addition to understanding, Crusius assures us, God also has a will. Just like with divine actions, some of God’s volitions are necessary - these are God’s fundamental desires. With humans, Crusius recounts, fundamental desires include drive toward perfection, drive to share perfection to others, drive of conscience and bodily drive. The two latter cannot really be divine drives, but the two others can. God thus always desires to be perfect, and because they are, God is always infinitely happy or blessed.

God also desires perfection in things created, Crusius says, and this means that the world, if such exists, must form a moral system, where choices of free creatures can reflect divine perfection and all the other things can serve free creatures in fulfilling this purpose. Acting in accordance with divine perfection, Crusius suggests, means especially that free creatures must understand their dependence on God. God must thus give the free creatures laws that must be obeyed, and if the laws are not obeyed, God must punish the sinner. Crusius goes even further and insists that God can never really end the punishment, because this would mean that transgression would ultimately be forgotten and justice would not be served. He does concede that this might not mean that God would put sinners in an eternal torture, but only that a sinner is prevented from reaching the highest state of happiness possible.

Why did God then allow sinners to exist in the first place? Crusius’ first line of defence is that sinners were not created as sinners, but they freely chose to be such. Yet, this line of defence seems inadequate, since God still knew that the sinners would sin. Crusius’ second and rather cruel defence is that God had to be shown as a stern and righteous judge, since righteous punishment of sinners is a perfection.

In addition to punishing the sinners, God’s righteousness demands also rewarding the virtuous. Yet, God has also further reasons for this, since the second fundamental drive of God, Crusius says, is a desire to do good and show love to free creatures. Thus, God’s dice are loaded toward mercy and charity. Still, Crusius says, God won’t just hand out maximal amount of goodness to every creature, since this is ultimately impossible: there is no maximal goodness for finite creatures, since their goodness can always be increased.

In addition to these fundamental desires, God also has freedom, Crusius insists, that is, God can begin actions that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. This does not mean that even God’s free actions would be completely against their fundamental desires, in other words, that they wouldn’t satisfy God's desire for perfection and goodness. It is more that God has a complete freedom of not creating such a world at all, but has freely chosen to create it. Furthermore, Crusius emphasises, world could also have been otherwise, since God could have chosen many different means to fulfill the perfection of the world.

Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - Proving God’s existence

Diverging clearly from the Wolffian order of metaphysics, Crusius proceeds after ontology to natural theology. His justification is that while knowing the properties of things in the world requires knowing the properties of their creator, natural theology presupposes only a general concept of the world as a sum of all things, of which we we perceive a part and of which we ourselves are a part, and additionally some individual truths about souls.

Crusius’ first task in natural theology is to prove the existence of God, that is, an intelligent and necessary substance, which differs from the world and is the effective cause of the world. Crusius’ strategy is to throw everything at the wall and see what happens to stick, as he is willing to provide a whole bunch of different proofs, deeming the topic so important that it must be decided by any means necessary - the various proofs convince different people and corroborate one another. Crusius doesn’t even provide any other systematisation of this hodgepodge of proofs, except a classification based on the supposed strength of them.

The most certain proofs, Crusius says, are demonstrations that are ultimately based on the three principles of human cognition and of course principles derivable from them, such as the principle of sufficient reason and the principle of contingency (things that can be thought not to exist are contingent). Crusius presents altogether five of these demonstrations, all of which can be regarded as modifications of the cosmological proof in the Kantian classification. I will not go in detail to these proofs, but merely note their prominent features:

• Crusius bases the existence of complex things on the existence of simple things, which they consist of. Then he uses the principle of contingency to show that simple things in the world are contingent and so require God for their existence.
• Crusius argues, as we have seen, that there are no infinite series of changes. This means, he insists, that the world must have been created by a substance that has existed eternally before creation.
• Crusius notes that all series of movements must be ultimately derived from an action of an infinite force.
• Crusius also uses the principle of contingency to directly conclude that the world is contingent.
• Crusius insists that plant and animal species must have originated from single individuals, which due to their well ordered nature must have been created by God.

The last of the demonstrations provides also a sort of link to what Crusius calls an infinitely probable proof of God’s existence. This proof is basically the old argument from the order in the world to someone creating it in an orderly fashion. Crusius insists that it is not just a question of teleology - it is a question of plants, animals and other things having a well ordered structure and not just them being mere means for human purposes.

Crusius admits that it is possible that this order would have been fashioned from blind chaos by pure chance, or as Crusius suggests some atheists said, by a revolution in the structure of the world. Yet, Crusius instantly counters, such a revolution would have required an infinite number of coincidences, making the only option or the existence of God thus infinitely probable. Indeed, he argues, this proof shows clearest why God would have to be an intelligent substance and not mere force of nature.

The final or the lowest level of the proofs in Crusius scheme consists of such that result in finite probability. First two of those involve history. Crusius argues that the oldest history books (by which Crusius refers especially to the Bible and other myths) assume that the humankind has not existed forever and it is not probable that the first humans would have been created with natural means that do not work nowadays (e.g. humans being generated in the bowels of the earth). Furthermore, Crusius emphasises that during human history all nations have believed in some divine being or beings and asserts the improbability of a so widely spread deception.

Third of the merely probable proofs is based on the supposition that all humans have a conscience or a natural propensity to know what is right and what is wrong. Crusius argues that the universal existence of such a propensity cannot be a mere coincidence, generated by lucky circumstances, but must have been planned by the creator of humankind to help humans to decide what to do and what to avoid doing.

There is a conspicuous absence in Crusius’ battery of proofs - the ontological, or as it was then often called, the Cartesian proof. I noticed in an earlier post that Crusius would have accepted the proof in his ontology, but his theology clarifies that this is not the case - no proof of God’s existence can be based on a mere principle of contradiction, but some consideration of causality must happen. Crusius’ justification is evidently inherited from Hoffmann: although we cannot think the most perfect being without accepting its existence in our thoughts, this does not tell whether the most perfect being has existence outside our thoughts. If it would be a valid, Crusius adds, we might as well prove that the most perfect man and woman must exist, although the existence of men and women altogether is contingent.

What the Cartesian proof does say, according to Crusius, is that if God’s existence has been guaranteed otherwise, we can say this existence is necessary. This strategy is not that far from Wolff’s, who first proved God’s existence through a cosmological argument and then proceeded to show through an ontological argument why God must exist (because God is the most perfect being).

The main target of Crusius’ proofs are atheists. Crusius includes under atheists also people who doubt God’s existence. Such doubting atheists attack only the supposed weaknesses in the proofs of God’s existence, for instance, they might reject proof from the order in the world by pointing out imperfections in the world. Crusius’ answer to this particular objection is that what is imperfection from a limited point of view can actually contribute to the perfection of the whole world.

Another point the doubting atheists make, Crusius says, is that humans cannot really have a perfect conception of God and therefore it is as reasonable to deny as to accept God’s existence. Crusius insists that we do not need such a fully adequate concept of God to speak about their existence, but we have to just be able to distinguish God from other things. God is no empty word, Crusius assures, although we as finite things can know God mostly through negations or through God’s relations to other entities.

The more strict atheists, Crusius says, deny outright the existence of God. Some of these atheists are materialists, like ancient atomists, who consider even thinking and willing to be mere movement of matter and who do deny the existence of all simple intelligent substances. Other atheists Crusius groups under the title of universalists. Universalists he divides into those like Anaximander, who suppose that the final cause of the world can lie in the simple substances of the world, which may be intelligent, and those like Spinoza, who think of world as a unified simple substance, with things in it as mere properties of the substance. All of these forms of atheism, Crusius thinks, fall short in that they have to assume an infinite series of causes.

Crusius ends the discussion of the existence of God by noting that atheism is not the only erroneous view on theological matters. There are also deists, or as he also calls them, virtual atheists, who do not deny the existence of God, but only that of God being a moral lawgiver and judge. This is a topic he leaves for the next chapter on the attributes of God.

Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - Worshipping God

After talking about duties toward oneself, Crusius turns his interest to duties toward God. In some sense, he notes, we have been talking about them all the time, because all duties are based on God’s will and therefore duties toward God. Still, there are some duties that are specifically duties about God, which is their immediate object.

Now, one might wonder how God can be an object of a duty, since God is supposedly immutable and no one can actually do anything to him. Crusius clarifies that it is more a question of, firstly, our notion of God, and secondly, of our relationship to God. In other words, it is our immediate duty toward God to act in accordance with his perfection and our relationship to him.

It is thus our duty to obey God, Crusius says. In fact, he says, all duty is in a sense obeying God since God wants us to obey all duties. Crusius considers the question whether the duty to obey God would make God an awful tyrant. Crusius notes that this duty is not just arbitrary whimsy of a dictator, but flows from the very nature of divinity.

Two sides exist in human mind, Crusius continues, cognitive understanding and volitive will, and both have their own duties toward God. If we start from the side of the understanding, Crusius notes that we are obligated to know God, since it is noblest thing to know the ultimate source of everything. This does not mean that we should know God perfectly, since as we are imperfect entities, our knowledge is always limited. Still, we should try to know what God actually is and what kind of properties he has, what he wills and what he has achieved in the world (creating and sustaining the world, to start from the obvious). Furthermore, Crusius remarks, we should try to know other things as parts of a hierarchy, the pinnacle of which is God.

Yet, knowing God is not the only cognitive duty toward God that Crusius recognises. Indeed, he notes that in addition to knowledge we might have beliefs, not just in the broad sense of convictions, but in the sense of weaker convictions that might still be doubted. Now, Crusius says, we might have rational reasons to believe in this strict sense something, even if we couldn’t demonstrate its certainty. Particularly, he says, if disbelief would break an obligation toward God, we should choose belief, even if the truth of this belief could not be perfectly demonstrated. For instance, accepting general skepticism would imply that God has made us incapable of knowing anything, which Crusius considers a blasphemy. Even seemingly absurd statements about God (e.g. his trinitarian nature) should be believed, Crusius concludes, if there just is external evidence making it probable.

When it comes to will, Crusius suggests, we have a duty to love God, since God loves us also. This love of God implies that we try to live as virtuously as possible, since God wants us to be good. Other things implied by love of God, Crusius goes on, are that we should respect God, be thankful to him and humble ourselves before him.

All the duties mentioned thus far have been internal duties, that is, they concern our mental actions. We do have external duties toward God, Crusius insists. Firstly, all the so-called internal actions have some external signs, and we might say that showing the external signs of appropriate internal actions is an external duty. Then again, Crusius continues, we also have an external duty to e.g. pray to God, if we have difficulties in upholding our internal duties. Still, he concludes, there is no external duty toward God that would have no relation to internal duties.

Joachim Darjes: Elements of metaphysics 2 – The city of God

While the metaphysical compendiums in Wolffian tradition have usually ended with a look on natural theology, Darjes has left cosmology as the final chapter of his metaphysics. This makes some sort of sense, since he has already emphasised that cosmology is no proper part of metaphysics, since it does not deal with characteristics of all things or of things from one of the highest genera of things – cosmology is about world, which is a certain complex of things, consisting of many kinds of things (in Darjesian philosophy, material bodies and immaterial souls and spirits).

Another oddity is Darjes' inclusion of certain notions from natural law to his discussion. He is particularly interested of the concept of right and possession. Right to something, for Darjes, means that a person has the ability to use that something without hurting other persons or their rights. This seemingly innocuous definition allows Darjes to conclude that in fact God is the primary owner of everything – God surely can control everything that exists, and he cannot really hurt rights of others, since he made all things in the first place.

Darjesian definition has also important consequences for the rights of finite entities. Firstly, he notes that finite entities can really have rights only for complex things, because they have no power to do anything to simple entities. Secondly, since all things already belong to God originally, finite entities can have right to anything, only if God has provided them the right to use things in some manner.

In addition to owning everything, God also governs world. This means that he sets the goals toward which this ”city of God” strives. The main purpose divinity has set for everything, according to Darjes, is the happiness and perfection of all rational beings. Thus, Darjes concludes, all rational beings should strive for their own happiness and perfection and help others to find these also – and definitely not hinder others in their search.

Darjes does not go into particularities of what actions are good for happiness and perfection, but merely notes what tools God uses for guiding rational entities toward their appointed goal. Firstly, God can directly reveal some guidelines. Secondly, God might appoint further rewards and punishments and even a kind of heaven and hell, to provide further incitement for good actions. Despite these rather naive Christian notions, Darjes also supposes that all rational entities will eventually be able to perfect themselves – the purpose of punishments is also just to help personal perfection.

We are now finally finished with Darjesian metaphysics. Next up on the list is a return to the work of Martin Knutzen.

Joachim Darjes: Elements of metaphysics 2 – Goal of creation

All Wolffian metaphysics thus far have concluded with natural theology – study of the infinite entity behind everything else. Although natural theology isn't the end of Darjesian metaphysics, he certainly wasn't able to ignore it completely. He starts by noting that an infinite entity is characterised by being perfect in all senses. Thus, infinite entity must be active and spontaneous. It must also not be dependent on anything, hence, it cannot be a material entity consisting of other entities. In other words, infinite entity must be a spirit, which acts perpetually. If there are infinite entities, Darjes finally notes, there can be only of them.

Now, Darjes notes that some philosophers have denied the existence of any infinite spirit. Such philosophers can be called atheists, since they deny the existence of God, which would be infinite spirit. But Darjes goes even further and insists that even skeptics that doubt the existence of an infinite spirit should be called atheists. Indeed, Darjes extends the notion of atheist even further, by defining God as a certain kind of infinite spirit – that is, God is also defined, according to him, by having freely created all the finite entities. Therefore, Aristotle, who thinks that the perfect self-thinking intellect has not created anything, and Stoics, who think that even divine Logos doesn't do anything freely, could be called atheists, Darjes concludes.

Darjes spends quite a lot of time on debunking the arguments of all these supposed atheists, but his main argument is undoubtedly his supposed proof of God's existence. While Christian Wolff based his assumption on the existence of God to a variant of cosmological argument – the existence of e.g. my own soul can be explained only through God – and used the so-called ontological argument merely as an explanation of God's existence (i.e. by noting that God in its perfection has all that it takes to exist) and while Baumgarten had exclusively relied on ontological argument (that is, by arguing that a combination of all perfections must also contain perfection of existence), Darjes appears to just try to throw various arguments and see what sticks. He begins by noting that a notion of infinite spirit must be possible – indeed, spirits are possible, and there seems to be no problem in supposing a spirit that is more perfect than anything else, he insists. Then, Darjes continues, infinite spirit must exist, because it is such a thing that exists, if it just is possible. As if not completely convinced of this ontological proof, Darjes defends the existence of God with two other proofs – firstly, he uses the cosmological argument that all finite entities must be dependent on God, and secondly, a somewhat weaker proof that God's existence is probable, because otherwise we would have to make too many assumptions to explain everything in the world.

A topic that Darjes seems to regard as wanting a more thorough examination is the characterisation of God. A general foundation of the examination is that as a perfect entity God must have also perfect attributes. Indeed, these attributes are unique to God, Darjes says, and one cannot then make a true distinction between God's essence and his attributes, because there isn't any entity that would have similar attributes and still not be God.

Darjes notes that some attributes of God, such as his infinity, spirituality, immutability, necessity and uniqueness, do not concern anything that God does, while others or the so-called operational attributes do. A good example of the latter is the cognition of God, which should be the best kind of cognition possible – that is, Darjes says, God should be omnipotent. This omnipotent cognition of God is for Darjes threefold. Firstly, God knows through his very constituting force all the things that could be – this is natural cognition of God. Secondly, God also knows freely all the things happening through his spontaneous actions. Finally, Darjes notes, God must have cognition mediating between the other two kinds of cognition, that is, cognition of causal chains that lead to actualisation of different possibilities.

A counterpart to God's cognition is his volition, which Darjes classifies into two kinds corresponding with two kinds of God's cognition. Firstly, God wills through his very nature that all things must cohere with all the attributes of God. Of course, Darjes notes, all things simply must cohere with the perfection of divinity. In other words, God wills that some things, which necessarily are in a certain manner, must be as they are. Secondly, God's volitions are not restricted to necessities, but God also wills things that might not be as they are, such as the existence of some non-divine entities. Whatever the kind of volition, Darjes notes, the object of this volition must be optimally good. More particularly, God wills that there are finite, but free entities, that they will always have means for perfecting themselves through their free actions and that they should not squander their freedom. Furthermore, Darjes remarks, God never wills anything evil, but at most permits evil, that is, lets something bad happen, if it is necessary for the existence of something even more good. God doesn't even punish people, Darjes says, if this punishment does not contribute to the development of the punished persons.

Merely willing, God would just decree things, but in addition, he also executes his decrees, Darjes notes. In particular, this means that God has caused the existence of finite entities, that is, has created them. Darjes notes that it is unsure whether this act of creation happened at some particular point or whether it has been going on through eternity. In any case, Darjes continues, God does not just create finite things, but also continues to sustain them with the same act, by which he created them in he first place. God could, undoubtedly, just annihilate all finite entities, but he doesn't have any reason to do that.

Baumgarten: Metaphysics – Divine deeds

Like majority of the German philosophers at the time, Baumgarten was quick to distance his ideas from Spinozism. Thus, he insists that God is not just a passive source of emanation, but an active creator. Of course, God has not created everything, Baumgarten says. Essences of all things are necessary and thus in need of no creation. Since essences of things contain their necessary limitations, Baumgarten can also say that God is not the cause of these limitations – whatever evil there is in the world, is then ultimately no fault of God.

What God has done then is that he has given existence to some of the essences and their complex or the world. With the world, he created all its parts, down to the simple substances or monads. Because God knows best, this world must be the best possible, even though it necessarily has some evil due to the limitations of the substances. Quite traditionally, Baumgarten suggests that the end of the creation is to reflect the glory of divinity, especially in the eyes of all substances with intellect to comprehend the perfection of the world and its creator.

Baumgarten also states, again quite traditionally, that God has not just created the world, but also sustains its continued existence. This means especially that God makes sure that world follows certain stable physical laws. Such stable laws might allow some evil to happen – a human being might be killed, because a bullet follows a certain trajectory. Still, this is not something that God would have positively wanted to happen, but just something he has allowed as a consequence of the working of natural laws.

God can have more specific influence in world's events. Such special influence cannot then have any bad effects, since it is something God has positively willed to happen. Indeed, Baumgarten assures us, the aim of these divine interventions is often to help the frail worldly creatures and prevent them from succumbing to their limitations. One particular type of such interventions is revelation, which in strict sense means for Baumgarten God speaking supernaturally to finite beings. The content of such revelation is usually something that humans could not have found out by themselves, but it can never contradict what philosophy has to say about world and God.

With such traditionally religious notions ends Baumgarten's Metaphysics. Next time, I shall take a look at how to combine necessity with freedom.

Baumgarten: Metaphysics – Pulling God out of the hat

It is especially in his rational theology where Baumgarten diverges most from standards set by Wolff. As we should know by now, for Wolff, it was the cosmological argument that ruled the field of theology. With Baumgarten, we find no traces of this argument. Instead, Baumgarten starts straightaway with the ontological argument, which with Wolff clearly played a second fiddle.

The two gentlemen don't just have different taste in arguments, but their very arguments are different. Indeed, when with Wolff, ontological argument was essentially dependent on cosmological argument, with Baumgarten, the ontological argument obviously has to work on its own.

There's already a clear difference in the manner, in which Wolff and Baumgarten try to prove the possibility of God. With Wolff, the proof was based on the fact that he defined God as a sum of known possibilities that are also known to be possible in combination – it requires just quick analysis to see that this proof must work. Baumgarten, on the contrary, bases his proof on more spurious ideas. He defines God as a sum of positive characteristics, which have no negations or limitations in them. He then suggests that contradiction could only occur, if such a combination of characteristics would have some negations in them. This leap of thought seems to require a more careful justification – after all, one might think that characteristics might restrict one another without being literal negations of one another. Yet, it seems that with Baumgarten, development of a thing in one dimension is completely indifferent to its development in another dimension – basic characteristics are independent of one another.

Now, with Wolff, it is then all about knowing whether his combination of perfect possible characteristics is just a contingent entity or also necessary – in the former case, we can say nothing about its existence, in the latter case, we can conclude infallibly that it does exist. The only manner in which Wolff could decide this was to show that necessary things existed – this is where the cosmological argument came in.

Baumgarten, on the other hand, simply assumes that existence is one of the independent dimensions, of which the sum of all positive characteristics consists of. As one knows well, Kant was very much against this idea and denied that being or existence would be even a characteristic in the same sense as other characteristics of things. Wolff did not go as far, because he noted that Baumgartenian line of thought could not lead very far – even if you added existence as a characteristic of some possible entity, it would still be just possible existence (this is why he had to prove a stronger notion that he could add necessity to the required possible combination of perfect characteristics). With Baumgarten, actual existence is something you can just add to a possible thing and make it exist – indeed, existence is defined by him as a completeness in the combination of all characteristics of a thing.

Baumgarten then thinks that he has shown the necessity of God's existence – God comes out, when you start to add all sorts of perfections and finally existence. God cannot then fail to exist, because that would mean contradiction. Baumgarten's final account of all the properties of God is rather traditional (he is all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good), but one should not even expect originality in such carefully observed part of education.

Next time, I shall wrap up Baumgarten's natural theology, and with it, all of Baumgarten's metaphysics.

Christian Wolff: Natural theology, posterior part – The enemies of faith

Included with the second book of Natural theology is also Wolff's first complete take on worldviews that rivaled Christianity – one might suppose that it was especially atheism controversy that generated his interest in the topic. It is no wonder that Wolff rejects all these theories, but what is interesting is how he groups these various viewpoints into distinct sets.

The most important of the wrong theories is obviously atheism, which Wolff thinks is so important that it deserves a chapter of its own. We all know atheists are of the opinion that God does not exist. What is more, a consistent atheist must even deny the possibility of God, because by Wolff's a priori proof, God would exist, if he just were possible. Because God does not exist, there is no final explanation of the world, but instead, the world must be an independent entity requiring no explanation – a strange conclusion in Wolffian eyes, because nothing extended could be really independent for Wolff. The worldly events must either go on forever or form a loop in which things repeat one another. In any case, they must follow an iron necessity, since nothing outside the universe could come and change anything. This doesn't mean that there would be no freedom, since human souls might still have the freedom to do things – this freedom just probably would have no consequences on the level of material world. Still, it means that morality is difficult to combine with atheism, because the necessity of the world makes it impossible to apply values like good or bad to it.

After atheism, Wolff groups together fatalism, deism and naturalism, probably because his pietist opponents had often grouped these three together. Fatalism, or the idea that everything in the world happens necessarily, is evidently the one Wolff likes least. Wolff clearly states that atheists must inevitably be fatalists, at least if they want to accept the laws of physics. Still, all fatalists need not be atheists, but they may well be deists, that is, they may believe that God has just created the world, but does not afterwards interfere with it in any manner. Wolff also points out that deist, like atheist, cannot use the idea of divine providence as a way to booster people's behaviour, yet, deist can be more consistent with morality, because he can accept that God might have chosen another world, which might have been better or worse.

Still, it is the third idea or naturalism that is the most interesting of the three theories. By naturalism Wolff does not mean belief in natural sciences, but the idea of natural theology as the only true source of religion. Wolff might have sympathised with the view, but he clearly wanted to show also that natural theology and revealed religion need not be rivals, but could in many cases meet one another.

It is not so strange to see materialism and idealism in the same chapter, but anthropomorphism seems a stranger bedfellow. Yet, Wolff obviously has a point – if God is thought to be shaped like a human, he is obviously material or at least has a material constituent. This also shows that materialist need not necessarily be atheist, since she can just assume that God is some material things (perhaps even the world itself).

Wolff criticizes both anthropomorphists and materialists, because they make God into something very ungodlike – a material object that could be cut to pieces. Interestingly Wolff is less critical of idealism and even says that idealist need not deny physics, because she can just think it concerns an apparent world. Still, Wolff finally denies idealism, because it takes away from the glory of God, who then wouldn't have created an independent world.

The final chapter of the book gathers together various philosophical theories, but also paganism or belief in the existence of several gods, which is perhaps highlihted, because it shares similarities with Manicheanism: both theories suggest that there are several principles guiding world and thus they essentially lower the status of God. The final two systems, Spinozism and Epicureanism, are quickly dealt with. Spinoza has the disadvantage, because it clearly confuses the notion of independency and substance – God is the only independent thing and others are God's creations, but these creations surely are not parts of God. Epicureanism, on the other hand, falls from traditional reasons – emphasising mere sensual pleasure destroys values in themselves.

Finally a last page on Wolff's natural theology. Next time I'll turn to a new philosopher.

Christian Wolff: Natural theology, posterior part (1737)

The second part of Wolff's Theologia naturalis appeared just a year after the first part. While the first part had given an empirical proof of God's existence and his attributes by using a cosmological argument that moves from the existence of worldly things to the existence of their creator, the second part should begin with an a priori proof of these very same matters. Of course, it seems unclear why the first proof was required, if an a priori proof was already going to be written. Yet, one should remember that for Wolff, a priori meant simply all deduction of propositions, no matter whether the premises of the deductions contained some empirical statements. Indeed, we shall see that the second deduction is essentially based on the ideas of first deduction and cannot work without it.

What we should do, for now, is to forget all Kantian thoughts about the impossibility of ontological proof. We should ignore the idea that existence is not a true predicate, but positing of something. We should not say that e.g. possibility requires coherence with all the presuppositions of experience and generally forget all Kantian ways to understand modalities. All these concerns are anachronistic, and as we shall see, Wolffian proof has weak points, even when evaluated by its own standards.

Let us then summarise Wolff's proof. Wolff starts from the Leibnizian idea that when you just admit the possibility of God or perfect being that has all compossible realities and also accept that such a being would also have necessity as its property, then, because necessity just means something that exists, if it just is possible, then God would definitely exist. We might figuratively say that all possibilities reside in some shadowy world of potentialities, all waiting for some external push to move themselves to the actuality – all except one, that is, the being that pushes itself to actuality with its own power. Wolffian God is then like baron Münchhausen, who could get himself out of a mire just by pulling his own hair.

Wolff's proof has then three crucial points. Firstly, we may at first ask what this whole discourse of realities and their compossibilities actually means. Secondly, we may question whether such a perfect being would be possible. Finally, we should consider how we can be sure that necessity is one of these compossible realities.

Starting with the question of realities we find a bit of a problem. Although we would expect the word ”reality” to be explained in all its details in Wolff's ontology, it is actually something that Wolff just mentions briefly in passing. What little we can see from this mention is that reality is connected somehow with the concept of res or thing. Now, one should remember that for Wolff thing means something that is at least a possibility and that might well actually be a mere possibility. Reality is then that which makes something res or thing. Note that reality has nothing to do with actuality – actualities are not said to be more ”thinglike” than possibilities. Instead, by reality Wolff appears to refer to what makes something as perfect as it can be: all restrictions and limitations limit also the ”thingness” of something.

Now, each individual reality itself must be something possible, that is, it must be a feature of some possible thing. This doesn't mean that putting two realities together would make another possible thing: if squareness and circularity were both realities, they surely could not belong to a single possible thing. Thus, it makes sense to speak of compossibles, that is, realities that together can make up a possible thing. Thus, it makes some sense to ask whether there could not be several sets of compossible realities, but we may assume for the sake of argument that Wolff could somehow describe the set defining God in more detail and in such a manner that it would refer only to him and to nothing else.

Is then such a combination of realities possible? We know that the realities themselves are by definition possible. Because we are not yet trying to determine what these realities are, we need not prove individually of any of them that they are possibilities and thus realities. Combining the realities or possibilities should also produce something possible, because once again by definition, the realities are meant to be compossibilities. So, we may conclude that the notion of perfect being is always a possibility – there just isn't yet any guarantee what actual features this supposedly perfect being would have (for all we know, it might be something really mundane, like a shiny coin).

The most important part then lies in proving that necessity is one of these realities. What we should then do is to show that necessity is a possibility: because necessity would then clearly be more unlimited than contingency or impossibility, we could then suppose it is also a reality. Problem is that there seems to be no straightforward way to prove the possibility of anything – we could know something as possible, if we knew it was or at least had been actual or if we could infer the possibility of something from the actuality of something else.

Wolff solves this problem rather straightforwardly. A necessary being exists, therefore necessity is a possibility. And how do we know some necessary being is actual then? Why that is simple – it has been proven in the first part of Wolff's natural theology. We know that God exists, because world requires some final explanation, and we know that God is necessary, so surely we know that necessity is also a possibility.

The audacity of Wolff's argument cannot fail to be noticed. The supposed a priori proof of God's existence requires the assumption of God's possibility, which Wolff then sets out to do by invoking an a posteriori proof of God's existence. Firstly, it must be noted that Wolff really cannot have done otherwise. Ultimately, the only justification of possibility in Wolff's philosophy can only be through actuality – we know some actual red things, so we know redness is a possible feature of things, or we know actual things that require some other type of things for their existence, so we know that these other type of things must also be possible.

Secondly, we have to remember what a priori knowledge means in Wolffian philosophy – it is merely any type of knowledge based on proofs, no matter what the premisses of these proofs are. Thus, it matters not so much if Wolff's a priori proof of God's existence is based on some previous a posteriori proof.

It is still strange that Wolff decided to use such a circuitous reasoning – after all, if we do know God's existence, why bother proving it a second time, if we have to use God's existence as a premiss of the proof? I suspect the case is a bit similar as with the relation of rational to empirical psychology – rational psychology adds in a sense nothing new to empirical psychology about the activities of human consciousness, but merely explains the data of empirical psychology through a reasonable hypothesis. Similarly, the a priori proof of God's existence does not note anything new about its apparent topic, but it does open a new perspective by highlighting the role of God as the perfect being - no wonder then that Wolff uses many chapters to show that all of the God's attributes proved in the first book reflect actually God's absolute perfection.

Christian Wolff: Natural theology, prior part (1736)

Wolff's Latin series of metaphysical works is finished by his Theologia naturalis. While from the modern perspective this must be the least interesting part of Wolff's system, it is, on the contrary, largest of all the Latin metaphysical works, and indeed, was published in two volumes. The first volume begins with a brief explanation of what natural theology is all about, but is especially characterised by an a posteriori method – that is, Wolff attempts to use experience to determine the existence and properties of God. The second volume should then obviously use an a priori method – a novelty in Wolffian system, and we shall see how it fits in with the more established part of his theology.

Wolff's primary route for God's existence has always been through what Kant would later call a cosmologial proof. Wolff begins by admitting the existence of reader's own soul – if nothing else exists then I at least exist. Then Wolff notes that there must be a complete grounding of the existence of this soul. Complete ground or reason can then be only something which does not require any further explanation or anything external for its own existence. It is clear this proof has a number of weak points. What is this grounding supposed to mean? If it is just a nickname for a mental demand of human consciousness that all things must be fully grounded, then we clearly need not take it seriously as an ontological principle – even if I'd have to insist on God's existence, this would not necessitate God's actual existence. Then again, it appears unreasonable to suppose that the complete ground in an ontological sense couldn't be an infinite series of past events, especially if one believed that such a series would be necessary.

Whatever the case, the rest of the book sets out to discover further characteristics of this final explanation of everything. The most straightforward feature is that while God, like all entities, must have some force, it must be a force that requires nothing external for activating it. In effect, if there is no inherent contradiction in the structure of God, it will, as it were, actualise itself, no matter what – we shall return to this idea, when we are dealing with the second book on natural theology. Figuratively one can say that God existed before anything else and God will exist after anything else.

God's necessity and self-sufficiency reveal at least what God cannot be. God cannot have been generated in a literal sense of the term and he definitely cannot be destroyed – thus, he cannot be material. Then again, because human souls are essentially dependent on the world they represent, God cannot be a human soul. Still, God has chosen to create a particular world and so must have some mental activities or be spirit. In fact, by thinking what sort of spiritual activities are required in an act of creation, one can try to determine what God is like.

Now, in order that God can choose a world to create, he must have first checked out all the possibilities from which to choose the world to be created – in effect, God must have considered all the possible worlds. This means that God must have some cognitive activities, yet, they are of quite different type than human cognition. For starters, God does not have any passive faculties, because he is constantly acting or cognising things. Furthermore, God does not need to move from one aspect of a world to another, but he comprehends immediately everything that would happen in one possible world. Because possible worlds contain all that there might be, God is definitely omniscient.

If God then knows all things perfectly well, can he also know what we know, as we know it? Well, God cannot fail to have a perfect knowledge, thus, he cannot force himself into a mode in which he would have only human type of knowledge of world and cannot therefore have any firsthand experience on the condition of human consciousness. Still, God can know that some other person has a more imperfect view of the world.

Because God can at once see all the past, present and future events, he has complete historical knowledge of all individual things. This does not mean that God could not have universal or philosophical knowledge also. Indeed, God can intuitively know whether certain feature of things is universally connected to another feature, so making him the greatest scientist of all times. Of course, even in universal knowledge God is not restricted to any use of symbols, although he does see that humans usually require such aids for universal knowledge.

Before moving onto more active side of divine attributes, it is good to note in passing that Wolff also used considerable number of pages for determining whether Bible got it right – that is, whether e.g. Bible is correct, if it says that God sees something, or whether it must be using symbolic language. It is a bold move, especially considering accusations of atheism against Wolff and the recent schism with the Wertheimer Bible, that Wolff even considers such questions, even if these questions feel rather dated nowadays. Next time more about the divine will.

Philosophical commentary on the origin and acceptance of evil, especially moral evil (1724)

A considerable problem for most theistic systems is presented by the question of theodicy. God is usually portrayed as infinitely benevolent person who wishes good for everyone. Furthermore, he is also thought to be omnipotent or capable of anything possible. Given these premises, it would seem a necessity that God would eradicate world of all evil. Yet, the world is clearly full of evil things, and not just minor evils, like the pain that I got when my toe hit a stone, but also evil of major proportions, such as earthquakes and wars. These considerations thus present a challenge for anyone accepting the existence of omnipotent and benevolent deity.

Bilfinger considers the problem in the section of Dilucidationes concerning natural theology, but he had also dedicated for it earlier a whole treatise, De origine et permissione mali, praecipue moralis, commentatio philosophica. While apparently only about this particular question, Bilfinger takes considerable time defining and explicating all concepts involved in the problem and thus goes through a significant portion of other metaphysical issues. Thus, it is no wonder that central concepts for solving this problem are actually physical or psychological: causation and letting things happen.

Of the two concepts, causation appears easier to understand: if A does something that makes B happen, then A has caused B, that is, if my pressing the trigger leads to the death of the person, the pressing was the cause of the death and I am thus to be blamed. Being a cause of something then requires a) that the cause was active in causing something and b) that without this activity that which was caused wouldn't have happened.

Letting or allowing things to happen is then, in a sense, a concept contrasting with the concept of causation. The crucial difference lies in the clause a), which in this case would say that the allowing factor was in a sense passive or did not act in some manner. Furthermore, the clause b) would be otherwise identical, but instead of activity, the lack of activity is the crucial element required for the event. Thus, if I don't push a person away when she is about to be hit by a rock, I could be said to have allowed the rock to hit the person.

Now, it is clear that the notion of allowing something to happen is meaningful only from the perspective of conscious agents, who can be said to have considered whether to act or not. Thus, we wouldn't say that an immovable stone allowed a robbery to happen by not dropping onto the head of the robber, because stones usually don't have any say in how they happen to be moved.

An intriguing question, especially from the viewpoint of ethics and justice, is whether allowing something to happen should have the same status as causation. In one sense, causation is something more: I am punished by law, if I actively make bad things happen, but not if I allow them to happen with my own passivity. Thus, it is no wonder that Bilfinger adopts this distinction as a partial explanation of the problem of evil. That is, he argues that we couldn't blame God for all the evil in the world, because he hasn't really caused it, but merely admitted it within the world.

Bilfinger's justification might still not completely satisfy us. After all, we do sometimes reproach people also for not doing things, especially if they are very powerful and would have had the capacity to prevent some extreme evil to happen: politicians who do nothing for things such as pollution and poverty fall to this category. It appears preposterous to suppose that God Almighty could get away from all guilt merely by saying that he had nothing to do with the evil in the world, he just watched it unfold.

Bilfinger thus must also have recourse to the Leibnizian idea that God has chosen the optimally good of all possible worlds. Whatever evil there is, it should be just a necessary ingredient of and condition for ultimate goodness – and if we could see things from God's viewpoint, we could immediately see how all the seeming evil falls into a greater pattern of goodness.

What then is the real cause of evil, if not God? Ultimately, Bilfinger says, it all comes down to the finiteness or imperfection of the world and its denizens: only God can be perfect, so all things outside him might possibly lead to some evil consequences. God cannot be faulted for their imperfections, because imperfection is in their nature. Instead, God merely gave these finite substances actuality, which is positive in itself.

A particular source of evil Bilfinger emphasizes is free will: because humans and other conscious beings are imperfect, but free to choose their own fates, they might e.g. make their egoistic desires into maxims guiding their action. Evil following from perverted use of free will Bilfinger calls moral, distinguishing it from general metaphysical evil associated with finity and from physical evil.

The most problematic is Bilfinger's account of physical evil: if a stone falls on my head and kills me, I cannot blame the stone, because it had no choice in the matter. Some responsibility obviously lies with free agents: if I get angry to a person and drop a stone on him, it is my fault and not stone's. In these cases physical evil is just a consequence of moral evil, but it appears that a fair portion of physical evil is not of this kind: witness, for instance, earth quakes. True, we could suppose that there is an evil supernatural entity behind all such phenomena, but this seems overly complicated. Bilfinger himself adopts a different defense: physical evil that has not been caused by actions of a morally evil person is probably God's punishment for immoral life. Although this notion is consistent, I find it rather barbaric that a God would have to unleash earthquakes and volcanoes for punishing criminals.

So much for Bilfinger, next time I shall return to the beginning of the atheism controversy, that is, Wolff's lectures on Chinese philosophy.

Christian Wolff: Remarks on Reasonable thoughts on God, the world and the human soul, also on all things in general - Fragments of cosmology, rational psychology and natural theology

It has become evident that Wolff clearly wants to distance himself from the image of a radical atheist and Spinozist. This is even more evident, if we take into consideration his comments on cosmology, which he straightforwardly defines as a discipline required especially for the proof of God's existence. Indeed, it is the contingency of the world and its dependence on God that Wolff especially wants to emphasize in his comments – thus, he once again uses considerable efforts to state the difference between absolute and hypothetical necessity, which his opponents had muddled.

Wolff also clarifies the notion that things are infinitely dependent on other things, which I also noted to be somewhat confusing statement and which the pietists read as a commitment to the eternity of the world. Wolff notes that he is merely stating what the worldly things would have to be like, if only natural explanations or causation according to natural laws would be allowed. In other words, there couldn't have been a natural beginning of the world, because every natural law requires a previous state from which the current state arose.

Such an impossibility does not of course rule out a supernatural beginning or a beginning that did not happen according to natural laws. Indeed, Wolff is convinced that the principle of sufficient ground must then lead us to accept such a supernatural beginning – infinite series of causes just isn't a possibility. Wolff is here underlining the contingency of natural laws: they are necessary only within the world, but not from a more extensive perspective.

Furthermore, Wolff even makes it clear that in a sense natural laws are not necessary even within the world, that is, if God is taken into account. Wolff states that God need not follow laws of nature, but if he so desires, he can make worldly things behave in a manner they usually wouldn't. Of course, Wolff is quick to point out that God doesn't do such miracles, unless there is a good reason, but it is evident that he wants to make God's freedom stand more out.

Interestingly, Wolff appears to take the principle of the identity of indiscernibles as a mere natural law. Indeed, he does consider it a real possibility that God could have created two completely equal things, although he just has had no reason to do it. We can see Wolff distancing himself here from Leibniz, who apparently suggested that the identity of indiscernibles might somehow be based on the principle of sufficient reason.

Even clearer is Wolff's struggle against becoming identified a a mere Leibnizian in his behaviour towards monadology. Wolff does want to present the theory of monads in as plausible manner as possible, but he emphasizes forcefully that he himself does not believe in it. Main reasons for his disbelief are physical. Wolff is unconvinced that all the richness of phenomena could be reduced to elements that all share the same force of representation. True, one could on basis of this power understand why elements or monads can form larger totalities, such a material objects, but the further characteristic of material objects that resist the intrusion of other material objects into the same place is something Wolff cannot understand as derived from force of representation.

Still further clue of Wolff's growing disenchanment of Leibniz is provided by Wolff's clarification of the status of pre-established harmony as a mere hypothesis, but this is something we have already dealt with. In addition, Wolff seems keen to downplay the importance of whole rational psychology: if one just knows e.g. that movements of soul and body somehow correspond with one another, nothing more is required, if one does not have a scientific bent for discovering grounds for everything.

The urge to distinguish himself from Leibnizian thought is probably a symptom of Wolff's need to answer the accusations of atheism and fatalism, which becomes even more evident in the rest of Wolff's book. Thus, Wolff spends considerable number of pages in explaining that while one can derive all properties of souls from its representative capacities and all properties of God from his capacity to view all possible worlds at once, this does not mean that the nature of soul and God would be mere theoretical or passive regard of actual and possible worlds, but that both soul and God are active. And just like Wolff decided to defend the freedom of the soul, equally certain is his tendency to defend the divine liberty – even if the act of creating this world is the most reasonable and God as eminently good and wise will then inevitably choose to create it, this still doesn't mean that God couldn't have chosen completely different world to create.

Thus end Wolff's remarks on his metaphysics, which set his scheduled publication back a year – it was only the next year that Wolff could finally publish his account of biology, to which I shall turn next time.

Johann Joachim Lange: Humble and detailed research of the false and corruptive philosophy in Wolffian metaphysical system on God, the world, and the men; and particularly of the so-called pre-established harmony of interaction between soul and body: as also in the morals based on such system: together with a historical preface on that what happened with its author in Halle: among treatises of many important matters, and with short check on remarks concerning duplicated doubts on Wolffian philosophy - Infinite computer

We might state Lange's main criticism of Wolffian theology quite simply: God has very little to do in Wolff's system. True, Wolff does admit that God exists and even proves his existence, but Lange cannot even commend Wolff's proof, which he deems to be faulty. Indeed, Lange hits on a crucial defect. Wolff's principle of sufficient reason or ground states that all things should have some ground, that is, all physical things should derive from a previous cause and all conscious actions should be somehow motivated. From this principle Wolff suddenly moves to a stronger principle that all things should have a full ground, that is, they should be based on an ultimate ground that requires no further ground for its existence. Lange notes that Wolff's original principle of sufficient ground is consistent with an infinite causal series bringing about the current event, thus, making the leap to the stronger principle unjustified.

Even if Wolff does accept God, Lange continues, Wolff's deterministic world system leaves almost no room for divine push on events. Wolff does make a halfhearted attempt to explain the possibility of miracles: God can supernaturally affect world, if he then makes another miracle that corrects the world so that it will once again return to its deterministic course. In effect, miracles of Wolffian God can make nothing new happen, because their results are erased by the second miracle of restitution.

Lange is especially opposed to Wolff's notion of what God is like. Wolff defines God as an entity that can think of all infinitely multiple possible worlds. God is then meant to choose one of these possible worlds for actualization – thus, he does not truly create the world, Lange says, meaning perhaps that God does not design the world from scratch, but accepts the world from a ready-made brochure of possible worlds. Even this choice is less of an achievement than it seems, because God is essentially a passively cognizing entity without any spontaneous volitions. God is like a computer that has been programmed to choose the best possible world – God as perfectly good cannot really choose any other option. Hence, the supposed choice becomes a mere justification of the goodness of the actual world – creation is as deterministic as the world created.

An atheist would then have no difficulties in accepting Wolffian philosophy, Lange concludes, for the assumption of God is mere play of words. Indeed, Lange thinks, Wolff even defends atheists by saying that atheism is compatible with morality. We shall see next time in more detail what Lange has to say about Wolffian ethics.

Christian Wolff: Reasonable thoughts on God, world, and human soul, furthermore, of all things in general - The ultimate thing

When one for the first time hears Leibnizian principle of sufficient reason, it seems quite obvious and self-evident: of course, everything happens for a reason. But as Samuel Clarke was quick to notice, the innocent appearing principle could be used for smuggling substantial presuppositions behind our backs. For instance, Leibniz himself used the principle to justify the more uncertain principle of the identity of indiscernibles: God could not have created two exactly similar things, because God would have no ground for choosing the situations of the two things.

Wolff begins the chapter on natural theology by a similar abuse of the principle of sufficient reason. Theology itself is probably a familiar term to everyone, but what makes it natural? The answer is that natural theology is supposedly based on mere human reason, while the other type of theology – that is, revealed – is based on supposed divine revelation.

Wolff thus supposes that a sufficient reason is only such that requires no reason beyond itself. In effect, Wolff has not been demanding just an explanation, but a full explanation of everything, ending with a final term that is self-explanatory. And as we might remember from previous texts, Wolffian ground/reason is not just any explanation, but a causal agent actualising things. The principle of the sufficient reason is hence suddenly turned into a commitment for the existence of a final instigator of causal things. That is, to a commitment that while normal possible things require some external force to overcome the opposite possibility of their non-existence, there is a thing that has enough force in itself for self-actualisation.

It takes no theologian to guess that this self-actualising thing, which cannot fail to exist, is meant to be the traditional God: a transcendent being beyond both the physical world and the realm of human souls. One might still wonder why Wolff accepts only a single self-actualising thing. After all, the causal chains in the world might have more than one beginning, that is, there might well be more than one God.

Although Wolff does not directly answer this problem, he does try to argue against the identification of humans and God on the basis of the possible multiplicity of human souls. Wolff notes that when one accepts the existence of the world, it is easy to see that the human soul as dependent on the world cannot be God. Idealists, who deny the existence of the world, and even what Wolff calls egoists and what we would call solipsists, that is, philosophers admitting only their own existence, admit at least that there are many possible human souls. Yet, just this plurality of souls makes it impossible that the humans would be Gods. Plurality of possible Gods is apparently against the necessity of the supposed God: if a thing might be otherwise and still a God, it would require a further ground why the thing then is like it actually is, thus, it surely couldn't be self-actualising and self-explaining.

When it comes to God's characteristics, Wolff follows tradition: God is, for instance, capable of intuiting all things immediately, thus, requires no symbolic knowledge; he is wise, that is, capable of planning the relationships between the things in the most perfect manner possible; he also lives in the highest possible bliss, because he sees the perfection of the world. But what interests us most is the relationship between the God and the world.

Until now, the status of the possibilities or essences in Wolffian philosophy has been rather unclear: on the one hand, essences are said to be eternal and thus existing, on the other hand, they are not actualised. Wolff suggests that it is the understanding of God that sustains all the various possibilities: they exist in a sense, because God is continuously thinking all of them.

Although God thinks all the possibilities and especially all possible worlds, this does not still make them actual. Instead, actuality is received through a force, which is external, if the actualised thing is not God, and ultimately, through God’s will.

Interestingly, this characterisation is connected to Wolff’s notion of philosophy as a science of possibilities. Although the understanding of humans is not as pure as God’s – that is, it is confused or sensous – we can at least partially follow what is going on in God’s understanding, because the content of his understanding is necessary: that is, there can be no other possibilities. Then again, what is actual depends on God’s choice and the motives behind it. Thus, we can know generally that God has chosen the best possible world, but we cannot with certainty say that a particular chain of events would belong to the best possible world – in other words, there cannot be any true science of actualities.

*******************************************************************************

Because I have finally reached the end of Wolff’s German Magnum Opus, this is a great opportunity to evaluate the whole book. The historical worth of Wolff’s German metaphysics is unquestionable. Although there had been philosophical books written in German, Wolff’s book was still the most systematic treatment of all the major topics of traditional metaphysics, and as we shall most likely see in the distant future, its influence can still be felt in Kant’s writings. That said, we might still question the originality of his work in a wider perspective of the Europian philosophy in 18th century: I shall say a little bit about this topic in the next post.

Does German metaphysics then hold any interest for a modern philosopher? As we have witnessed, the book is full of gaps in argumentation, unwarranted presuppositions and plain sophisms. Still, one must appreciate at least the architectural design of the book, where in the ontology the classification into three main types of things – complex or material things and especially the world, simle, but finite things and especially souls, and the infinite thing or God – is introduced and where the final chapter ties all the knots by showing how both the material world and the souls are dependent on the God.

Wolff's German metaphysics has finally ended. I have been rather longwinded on the topic, but I have felt this has been necessary, because of the historical importance of the book. Next time, I shall make a short detour on an earlier philosopher: we shall meet the supposed predecessor of Wolff.