Leibniz - Best of all Possible Worlds Argument (Explained and Debated) 

Evil means the absence of good. You can't have evil without good but you can have good without evil. In order to call something evil that necessarily means good exists. Morality is not reducible but still exists. This begs the question, why does morality exist? Morality exists because it is grounded in God making God the source of good. This means God is the Good as in God is the standard of good. The only causal explanation for why God caused the world is a personal causal explanation. The Bible claims God created the universe to share His love/goodness. Love means hoping for (making the decision to want someone's greatest good) and working for (showing your decision is true through your actions) someone's greatest good. God is our greatest good. This means God wants the maximum of people to freely choose to have eternal life with Him, receive His love, and love Him who is our greatest good. Love is not forced and requires the freedom of the will to choose to love or hate. God can't force us to love Him and want His Good. This means humans with freedom of the will eventually will choose to do evil. God gives us freedom of the will to choose to love Him or hate Him. You hate/reject God's love/goodness by doing evil(sin). Everyone has done moral evil by contradicting God. God is perfectly fair and must punish evil. If God punishes one evil He must punish all evil to be fair. When you choose to hate/reject God by doing evil you reap the consequences of the evil you selfishly choose that can affect you and others. God can temporarily permit evil knowing it will lead to the greatest good (the maximum of people to freely choose to have eternal life with Him, receive His love, and to love Him who is our greatest good) and He will punish all evil. Rejecting/hating God is rejecting/hating His love He wants to share with us, for example, having eternal life with Him, receiving His love, and loving Him. If we reject/hate God we reject and separate ourselves from God and separate ourselves from having eternal life with Him, receiving His love, and loving Him. The absence of God and eternal life with God is separation from God and eternal death called hell; this is the bad news. The Good News is we are only reconciled through God's grace being applied to us through God's gift of our faith in God the Son Jesus Christ's offer of the gift of forgiveness for sin and the gift of eternal life through His bodily death on a cross and bodily resurrection reconciling us with God the Father. The ability and opportunity to freely choose to put our faith in Jesus Christ is only possible because of God's grace making faith in Jesus Christ God's grace/gift and nothing of ourselves, and faith means relying on evidence to trust in something/someone confidently. Faith in Jesus Christ means relying on evidence to confidently trust in Jesus Christ as Lord (obeying Him) and Savior (only saved through Jesus Christ's death and resurrection). God has morally sufficient reasons to create our universe with freedom of the will to choose God or evil because love is not forced.

Ive thought about this one. I think a good indication that we are is that karma exists. Many times it’s hidden or mysterious, but if you live long enough you can find that what goes around comes around in a cosmic way. Sometimes even immediately lol

​@@abhisnehaehrgottzoya7163 Karma doesn't make sense without reincarnation. History is full of evil people who lived great lifes.

Thank you so much, lovely to read this and delighted you find these videos helpful.

@@PhilosophyVibe Absolutely agreed, you guys rock! Underrated channel for sure.

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Demise Drboer What have natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes to do with free will in humans ? What has death (2 humans die every second!) got to do with free will ?

@@bernardliu8526 People dying from hurricanes isn't an act of evil (evil comes from men). It's suffering, but suffering builds character, and character builds hope.

You missed the whole point atheist doesn’t care and requires alternative world argument! Theist makes claim that their god is morally good while being omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent and still there is natural disaster and other disastrous event happens which is not in control of human! Atheist just need to reject the claim that they are making! by “Problem of evil” argument. The argument is not we have better alternative solution for good world but the argument is God is not morally good! I think this is where you are getting confused!

Exactly. I just made a post that showed why his idea of a "better world" would in fact cause mankind to go extinct.

Thank you!

Yeah Carl Jung even suggested god was a quadrality where god has a fourth component: evil

Yeah tsunami happens because of human agency! Sure!

I would argue that it is the definition of omnipotent that is in question. Being able to do anything or being able to do anything that is possible.

Why create at all is what i always wondered

This is similar to the anti-natalist stance: if God is all those properties and the existence of the world implies the existence of all the evil that exists, then the "best possible world" in fact seems to be no world.

@@ettavictor4804 yes i agree. No point in creating

I don't see why it cannot be the case that there is a creator that isn't all good. In other words, I don't see why what people call 'God' cannot be considered good to some extent, but not perfect.

Paradise and simply because good pervails over evil.No soul bears more than it can handle.

An evil God hypothesis cannot be true. It can either only be a god that is both good and evil, or God that is purely good. A purely good God will allow for free will because Love is Free, but the opposite of this which is evil by nature does not regard free choice, but only suffering. To employ some type of free choice in any world implies some form of good. This means that the world we observe best reflects on either that suffering exists although it should not, implying the there is a Standard of goodness that exists and also implies that the way the world has fallen short of its purpose and therefore implies a Creator, or that it's purpose is precisely that there's a mixture of Good and evil, whether it be because this is the best possible world from a purely good God perhaps due to free will, or a mixture, but an evil God hypothesis cannot be the case.

​@@Bi0Dr01d Love don't always reward. For pain from failure of love to exist, there must exist free will. Maybe that's why the most Evil God gave free will. Again, if one can argue that for goodness to exist, free will must exist and hence suffering, an equally valid antisymmetric argument exists. That is, for badness to exist, people must choose to be bad from their own free will (and this is on top of natural evil, such as floods and fires) therefore, God gave us free will so that we can maximally suffer. A mixture of good and evil God is a third hypothesis that may be true, but I don't see any reason why evil god cannot exist.

​@@ghanshamchandel1854 it reflects on either pure good or partially good, but not pure evil, *even if love does not always benefit.* it does not make sense for an evil being to create scenarios that are good for humanity, nor does it make sense to grant humans freewill which is by its very nature good unless humanity would have some type of innate value in which they would bring some form of value in their existence to cause suffering, but if they have innate value, then causing something that has innate value to deliberately suffer is contradictory. It would make sense if the creation was worthless and that their only worth was that they do suffer, and they do not require free will for this, only the desire for good is needed without the ability to have good would be all that would be needed to create a maximally suffering world. However, it does make sense for a good God to make scenario as good, and also a God with a mixture to make some scenarios good in some scenarios bad, but it does not make sense for an evil god to make some scenarios so that evil would exist under this context, because the existence of love at all implies some form of freewill or free choice which is by its very nature and virtue, good, *even if it does not always benefit the person who loves another.* It is in principle good. Pointing to suffering only would imply that evil exists, not that God is purely evil. To even give humans free will at all means that humans would have a purpose and conforming into the image of God in which would imply that humans by their very nature have innate value in which causing deliberately for the world to suffer would be contradictory. It would make more sense for something that is worthless to suffer, but something that is created in God's image in which would have free will requires some form of value, and a value embedded within each person. Even if hypothetically there were an evil God, if this God were not to love other creatures , it being evil would love itself and be selfish . However, when you create a creature that is in your image in which the existence of that creature is to spread your own glory, then loving such a creature would be loving yourself as well because it is in your image and reflects your image. This would mean and evil God would still love its creation and not desire for that creation to suffer. The only other alternative is to create a creation not meant to be in God's image in which they would not have innate value and therefore would not reflect God's image by having free will that freely conforms into his image , and therefore the only thing that would be required for maximum suffering is for creation to be worthless and have a desire for pleasantness and goodness but never obtain it . This would maximize suffering . That would mean that this God would value himself and therefore it would follow that he would value a creation that reflects himself in which creating such a creation deliberately for them to suffer would be contradictory. However, it would not be contradictory if humans were not created to suffer but suffer as a result of their free will choice. Since even in a hypothetical scenario we would have a loving God that wishes our best because we were in his image, then even the supposed evil God is reflecting goodness in his nature in which we would conclude that it is not an evil God at all, it is a good God in spite of the fact that suffering exists. If God had the purpose of creating a world in which it was his will to create people who would freely choose to do evil, then God would have written his law on peoples hearts to do evil and therefore our own hearts would convict us when we do what is good and we would feel guilty when we do good deeds. We would not feel guilty when we do evil deeds. This shows that our design as human beings was meant and designed to be good even though at times we fall short and choose evil. This means the type of hypothetical world that you are appealing to does not exist. That is not the world we live in. It is at best a thought experiment. Therefore, to summarize, the answer to the problem of evil is that a good God exists even though there is a suffering world.

@@Bi0Dr01d There is a war going on rn, there are countless holocausts throughout history, psychopaths exists, and rapists and murders feel not guilty but pleasure after their crimes. There is nothing written on our hearts that says we ought to be good. We kill and torture billions of animals daily for our savory pleasure. Maybe God has written the laws on our hearts to be selfish and evil. It makes more sense that we are predominantly pain causing machines, and few sprinkles of goodness is only there so that we can more mourn upon sadness maximally. If everyone was entirely evil, there would not be enough suffering, the thought that this pain is unnecessary and unjust adds to the pain. That is why it makes complete sense for the most evil God to create some good. Hence, this world may be the most hostile world that anyone could ever imagine.

​@@Bi0Dr01d One potential reason for creating free will is the idea of people trying to do good and failing at it. And evil God would watch it as a comedy and laugh. Besides, our free will could be just an illusion... that is another option to consider.

I agree but for a different reason. Question : Wouldn't the world be slightly better if one less kid died of disease ? Nope: Because disease and things of that nature are a critical factor in how humanity as a whole gains resistance and/or immunity to diseases. Disease as well as a host of other things some people consider to be "evil" are actually good because if it were any other way mankind or the whole world would go extinct. They are sad but they are not "evil".

:)

lol this made me laugh 😂😭

source?

@@RekzaFS ON MONADOLOGY

You can't advocate for a fully evil or good God because reality has both, so omnibenevolent is just a flashy term for "He knows better". And he DOES know better, because your mind is just a product of creation and pretty much a small russian stacking doll inside the bigger stacking doll called god. Everything is concepts. For example you can picture a better world, but by picturing it, it already is "part" of the world and of creation, but you can't picture things like a perfect world that's still moving, because if it moves it would be imperfect. Hence true perfection must be found in a world that's imperfect and becoming perfect, like a puzzle that's being completed. Like a mathematical problem obtaining a solution. In my opinion - or rather as far as I can see - Leibniz pushed reason to one of its logical conclusions. The irony of philosophy is that you will never prove anything due to absurdism and the need for a leap of faith, but if you go on with reason (and I believe you should since it is, and therefore had to be), then you'll get answers and conclusions.

@@issou9253 You are begging the question by starting with the conclusion that god is all good and must know better, and so obviously when you start with these premises, you’re obviously going to still get to god is good. At the end of the day, you’re still just appealing to mysterious unknownable unknowns of which this line of reasoning can be used to justify literally any belief. My argument is based on inductive evidence and yours is nothing more than an empty ‘what if?’ At the end of the day, you seriously have to argue that we should expect the same amount of good and suffering in a world made by a tri omni god in comparison to an indifferent universe. And that seems like a massive giant leap of unfalsifiable faith to me. Likewise, you an argue that an evil god also knows ‘what’s best’ in terms of what brings about the most evil. So again, a theodicy so weak that it can be applied to justify the exact opposite conclusion. I can picture a world without cancer and it’s a lot better than this world. It doesn’t seem impossible either, nor does the world need to be absolutely perfect in every way, but there definitely seems like there’s much more suffering than necessary. Especially if you believe in heaven, I’m sure you don’t believe people get cancer again up there, so it seems like this ‘concept’ is much more than doable, especially for an all powerful god. Again, you could argue that an evil god’s goal is to turn this world into the worst possible world. Plus, it still seems pretty absurd that god would need to sacrifice literally billions just for the ‘good’ of the world eventually becoming perfect, which doesn’t even seem like a possibility given how much is out of our control. Things like cancer don’t seem necessary is this process. It’s okay to have some hardships, like how a parent might teach their child, but there’s always an extent and injecting that child with diseases that cause them great suffering before they die to teach their other siblings seems a little drastic for a loving parent. I’m not trying to prove something absolutely, but show through evidence the more likely conclusion that fits with what we observe in reality. This is what reason actually suggests, that if there is a creator, he’s probably not good, nor does he care for us, given the amount of suffering that is observed in our world.

@@Stuffingsalad I see the nuance in your argument. That the end result, rather than be "positive" as Leibniz's " possible world" definition would imply, would simply mean "ideal", even when such ideal is by all means horrible by observation, and much improvable using reason. I agree, but I also have an objection that I'll put in the (!!!)-marked paragraph. First of all, for the part where God would not care about us, I believe this is wrong. By simple virtue of existing, you embody concepts that have been put into a mystical order, both of which have no reason to be. Existence itself is, if you chose to follow your mind's reason, proof of things having to be this way. This order can be observed at any instant, at every second, so why would I deny it? I find myself dazzled to observe existence that shouldn't be possible by any laws of physics. Certainly, "God" loves his story consistency a lot and does not appear inclined to make any miracle for a very long while, but he still is the one who decided you had a place in this world, and if THAT'S not caring about me, I wouldn't be here in the first place. (!!!) This is why I believe the key aspect to this world's direction is our own self. We have been given specific characteristics including existence, sensations, power over reality, and most importantly reason. We are a moving bunch of concepts and vectors that have been put into order to fill a specific role. If any of them wasn't needed, would it still be here? No. God may be weird, but he is still the embodiment of order. What is, HAS to be; and what must not be, isn't. Conveniently, all live creatures in this universe share those same characteristics I described earlier. Thus, all of the universe alike is currently converging in the same direction, aware of uncomfortable pain, logically rejecting it, and capable of getting rid of it; with the same intricate goal of making the world more comfortable. And while it is possible that God someday grants us physical heaven as a perfect world, it is also entirely possible that he tells us "Screw this, you'll all die before you can terraform reality!". This, was on an universal scale. On a personal, existential, scale, however, I believe "Bingo!". You have been chosen. You have been deemed "worthwhile" according to God himself. So naturally, you'd find it wholeheartedly foolish to believe you have no potential if you know by divine nature that it is wrong. You could say "My vectors are pointing towards making the world more comfortable, as in to get rid of the pain I was made to sense, and I have the guarantee that they matter." They are not pointing towards evil, destruction, suffering, but rather towards this faraway heaven. And yes, this would create imbalance. Hence this makes me believe that in order to reach perfect balance, we (or our replica on the other side of God) are also simultaneously experiencing what quantum scientists call a CPT symmetric universe, a reverse world going in the other temporal direction, where I believe absolute evil would be the conclusion instead.

@@issou9253 I don’t mean to be rude, but a lot of this seems a lot like woo to me. Existence entails embodying concepts that are put in a mystical order? I don’t think existence itself means things necessarily have to be this way. Perhaps naturally with determinism you could have an argument, but in the context of an all powerful being, I don’t think that flies. When I said ‘god doesn’t care’, it was in reference to a deistic type god who may not even be responsible for you existence, or care in the respects of how you live, or if you live. (!!!) I don’t think much has actually been added to your argument. You’ve just reasserted that there must be some sort of purpose otherwise it wouldn’t be there, even if ‘god is weird’. Once again, it’s an appeal to mystery which doesn’t change the inductive evidence that it at least very much doesn’t seem that way. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. I don’t think we’re capable of getting rid of all suffering (uncomfortable pain), a large portion of it is out of our control. And it seems a little strange for god to create earth with the intent of eventually turning it into heaven, whilst also already having created that perfect heaven that people go to after anyway. In terms of the quantum mechanics bit at the end, are you suggesting that all possible worlds end up getting actualised in a sort of multiverse type fashion? If you’ve seen the movie coherence, that would be an accurate representation of what I think you’re talking about? In that case I’d still argue that a good god would not create that kind of universe knowing that so much suffering is going to occur, although it wouldn’t rule out a deistic type god, which the argument from evil doesn’t really touch anyway.

@@Stuffingsalad (apologies if you see this twice, mention didn't work the first time I posted this) For heaven on Earth, I think it's just a metaphor. I mean the whole point of heaven is that it's eternal perfection, it wouldn't be so perfect if we don't have all the universe in front of us. I see it more like the ultimate state of the universe that's an immovable, "solved" equation of eternal painlessness with no more to do. But whether or not it will exist depends on whether or not the universe continues expanding forever or not. This creates a branching development where reality can either be reset or be completed. In the latter case branching once again as either it stays immovable heaven forever, either it duplicates to allow motion and free will to continue existing. (I do find the idea of an infinite amount of heavens pretty cool, but your guess is as good as mine) As for the big question, I tried over and over to find an answer to this, but the only one I can say is: An omnibenevolent God is also necessarily omniutilitarian. (made that term up since it's self-explanatory, but there's definitely better terms that I don't know) To quote Immanuel Kant, “Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality”. It's only the stage of the puppet show, and in it you will not find the source cause of the universe. It's a deception, but also an important part of perception. God made every creature in the universe necessarily strive towards the same ideal, so should the universe's expension stop while time continues to flow, the universe would successfully be turned into heaven. Kant's quote is important because it shows we're not exactly living in time, more like in concepts. If you use Laplace's demon (like that one example of successfully achieving heaven because every variable is known), you already know how it will happen. The point is, because time is bs, you're already living in the future. In that sense, if pain and suffering exist, they become components of goodness and happiness. Good is simply the future of evil, and perhaps is it necessary that we witness its transformation. I can't judge for God, nor even for you. But suppose God sees things this way, I'd say in the case of omniutilitarianism, evil is compatible with omnibenevolence. I do not mean to appeal to mystery, apologies if it seems like so. That being said, I do not exactly hate the presence of mystery at all. In fact, if I got out of an existential crisis two years ago it was because Soren Kierkegaard's absurdism made me realize mystery and the everyday unprovability of God is the one best reason to be happy to be alive. It keeps the magic going on while being compatible with the reason's tendency to deterministic conclusions. Currently, I'm a determinist, but I also do feel pretty alive. Thinking of oneself as a cog or branch of God is great... but if it weren't for absurdism, I'd probably feel somewhat bitter to be only able to observe limited reality rather than have the whole truth of creation in front of me. I didn't see Coherence yet, but you caught my interest, so thanks. As for the quantum part, I just believe this is how reality balances itself. It feels more natural if things are in balance, but honestly that's really more of a counterargument (against multisidedness that'd otherwise have to be true for balance reasons) than a true argument for omnibenevolence. (or omnimalevolence) And lastly, thank you. Without you I probably couldn't have worded some of the metaphysical concepts above and may have forgotten them at some point.

I think your example of good is incorrect. Your example of the cup being good is only one definition of good... "having the qualities required for a particular role". The type of good we are talking about is one of the other definitions of good... "that which is morally right; righteousness". Those are extremely subjective concepts and are far from universal. For example, you said, "A murderer would be evil". However, if someone R's your daughter and you go out and delete him, some will believe it is murder and evil, while others will believe it is justice and good.

no i think you have left out the part where the current world has sin. To me it seems like this theory says it is the best possible world while balancing our free will (such as sin). There is no sin in heaven

What if you were born in pre-Columbian America and lived all your life and died there without the slightest awareness of a world east of the Atlantic? No chance of "redemption" for you. Besides why would a God who knew the end from the beginning consciously make the devil, who would introduce evil to the world (in case you want to say God didn't initially make evil)?

@@ettavictor4804 great questions. The answer is that every person is accountable for the knowledge they have. All people have some knowledge of God and of right and wrong (Romans 1 & 2). Each is required to live according to the light that they have. The beautiful thing about the gospel is that God is, through it, giving people who fail to do this a chance to repent. He doesn’t want any to perish, but all to be saved. As far as the devil, he is a created being that chose evil like those angels that fell with him. He just happens to be their leader. Angels and people have free will. God, considering the end from the beginning, thought it wise to create creatures with free will despite the fact that some will disobey. Like this argument goes, it’s the best possible world, all things considered. Just because we, with such limited knowledge and understanding, don’t know all the detailed whys, doesn’t take away from this fact.

@@HalChaffee It's good we're both arguing with reference to the God of the Bible. You know as well as I do that belief in Jesus as Lord and Saviour is the only way to Heaven according to the Bible. When you say everyone has a knowledge of God, that is ultimately pointless if it's nothing more than that, seeing as that is not identical to salvation. Secondly, with reference to the devil, it's a biblical fact that the fall of man is the origin of evil on the earth. The devil is assigned the blame for tricking Eve. That's what my question is about. God knew this would happen from literally time immemorial seeing as He is omniscient. Why create the Devil who would create sin? If there was no original sin (the Adamic nature) no amount of exercising free will would lead to it. After all Adam and Eve didn't sin before their encounter with Satan. Thanks.

@@ettavictor4804 much can be known about God without a Bible. In fact, much of history had no Bible. But what the Bible teaches (and what we all know intuitively) is that justice requires that men be held accountable for only what they know. Yes, salvation is through Jesus and there is no forgiveness apart from His work, but this sacrifice declares God to be righteous in forgiving sin. This means that God can forgive anyone He wants, even someone without knowledge of Jesus’ name. In other words, people can be, and have been, saved by Jesus before they know His name. As far as the devil is concerned, certainly God knew what would happen. And in his wisdom He allows him to work. But, once again, this is all with an end in mind, one that is the best possible end.

@@HalChaffee Sorry my friend, but a final question: If you are a Christian then I assume you believe in the new Heaven and new Earth promised in the book of Revelation. The new Earth is a place where God promises to "wipe all tears from their eyes". This is a world Christians dream of living in which must mean that it is capable of existing, and since it will supercede our present world must mean that our current world is not the "best possible world". Edit: This must mean that God either consciously or not didn't or couldn't make this present world the"best possible world". How do you reconcile this?

He excelled in math (binary code, differential and integral calculus, calculating machine). I think he was one of the smartest people ever, although his best-of-all-possible-worlds argument is strange. He wanted to keep a good relationship with his Catholic duke Johann Friedrich. This relationship might have been destroyed if he had promoted pantheism. It was illegal to deny God's existence.

Islam is seen as one of the most suppressing religions, removing the possibility of freedom of thought (bad for human science and development), freedom of movement and action (for women, becoming more isolated and controlled, for people in general because they become more controlled), and freedom of speech (that even saying something against the state, or creating a drawing of Muhammed will lead to violence). Islam is an outdated, false religion. People should be saved from Islam.