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In “De Rerum Originatione Radicali,” Leibniz tells us that he takes the question “Why there is something rather than nothing?” to be asking why there is a world of finite contingent things. Leibniz answers the question of why the world exists with a cosmological argument for the existence of God. In Chapter 2, I formulate his argument and discuss his assumptions in this argument. My purpose in doing so is to examine critically the metaphysical principles and underpinnings of Leibniz’s argument. Some of the problems that arise when we examine the argument take us deep into Leibniz’s philosophical system. First, in order to understand why Leibniz believes that no part of the world can explain the existence of the whole world, I examine Leibniz’s account of explanation and his account of causation. I argue that Leibniz’s use of final causation in his cosmological argument is question-begging. Leibniz believes that final causation holds in the world because rational creatures have purposes and ends. This is a perfectly acceptable account of explanation for certain occurrences within the world. However, in an argument where one is seeking the cause, whatever it may be, of the existence of the entire world, to say that it must be a final cause is simply to assume that the world was created by a rational mind. This stacks the deck in God’s favor by excluding any non-substance or part of the world from being the cause of the world.
Another major issue involved with Leibniz’s cosmological argument is the problem of necessity and contingency. I discuss Leibniz’s views on how it is that the world could be contingent. I begin with Leibniz’s denial that the eternal truths are created. Leibniz maintains, against Descartes, that since the eternal truths cannot have been other than they are, God does not freely create them. If the world were necessary, like the eternal truths, God could not have freely created it. If the world obtains of necessity, then no reason will be able to be given for its existence. Given Leibniz’s views on God’s nature and the requirement that an omnibenevolent being do only the best, it seems that we might infer that God was necessitated to create the world. This would undermine Leibniz’s reason for giving a cosmological argument in the first place. So, in order to avoid the conclusion that the world obtains of necessity, Leibniz must show how it is possible that the world is contingent. I criticize Nicholas Rescher’s attempt to secure the contingency of the world for Leibniz. I end the chapter with some textual evidence that Leibniz nevertheless held that the world obtains of necessity.
However, in Chapter 3 I give my own account of how it is that Leibniz can ward off the accusation of Necessitarianism. The problem arises from the necessity of God’s goodness and the necessity of a perfectly good being’s choosing to create the best possible world. These claims would seem to lead us to the conclusion that the best possible world, and every truth contained therein, exists of necessity. Yet Leibniz denies the necessity of the world. How is this possible? I argue that Leibniz’s view is that it is not necessary for a perfectly good being to choose to create the best possible world. According to Leibniz, God freely chooses to create the best. I offer an account of God’s freedom and the Principle of Perfection that renders God’s choice of this world free, and therefore contingent.
Also in Chapter 3, I discuss the relation of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Principle of Perfection. I argue that the Principle of Perfection is not an instance of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, as some have claimed. I also discuss the role of these two principles, and of final and efficient causation, in how we gain knowledge of the world. Finally, I discuss the structure of the world. Here I argue against the view that God’s concern in creating the metaphysically best world is to create the world with the greatest number of essences possible. I also discuss the relation between compossibility, expression, and harmony in the world, and how these elements are supposed to combine to create a metaphysically and morally optimal world.
Chapters 4 and 5 concern Locke’s answers to the questions “Why does the world exist?” and “Why is the world the way that it is?” In Chapter 4, I begin with Locke’s much maligned cosmological argument. Locke’s argument has been accused of being not only unsound, but of being invalid. I offer a reconstruction of Locke’s argument based on a careful reading of the text that renders the argument valid. I then proceed to discuss Locke’s use of the principle Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit and his use of the causal principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence and gets all its being and power from that same cause. I argue that Locke’s attenuated acceptance of Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit is justified, but that his causal principle cannot be known with the intuitive certainty that is required for his cosmological argument. I also discuss Locke’s account of the unity of God, and Leibniz’s criticisms of it. In the end, I conclude that although we may render Locke’s argument valid, it is unsound because of the aforementioned problems with the causal principle, for which no remedy can be found in Locke’s system.
Chapter 5 begins with an explication of Locke’s epistemology. I discuss the well-known problem of our knowledge of the external world and raise further problems for Locke’s causal principle based on Locke’s account of causation in general. I also discuss Locke’s views on the contingency of the world. In doing so, I examine his account of God’s omnipotence, God’s freedom, and the eternal truths. I compare Locke’s views on the eternal truths with the views of Descartes and Leibniz. I conclude that although, according to Locke, God’s will is absolutely free, and in some sense God does create the necessary truths, his view is not equivalent to Descartes’ view. Locke does not hold that the so-called eternal truths are entities above and beyond their instances in the world. God does, in one sense, create the eternal truths when he chooses to create the world as it is. But he does not decree eternal truths separately from decreeing the existence of the world. In this section, I also discuss Locke’s use of conceivability as a guide to possibility. Locke freely uses conceivability claims throughout the Essay. This gives us reason to believe that since we can conceive of the world as being different, we can know that it is possible that it be so. The problem with Locke’s use of conceivability comes when he asserts, as he does at times, that what is inconceivable is impossible. Locke explicitly states in several places in the Essay that inconceivability does not entail impossibility. However, he uses inconceivability claims as a means for ruling out the possibility that incogitative matter might be the cause of the world in his cosmological argument. I argue that his appeal to inconceivability here is not justified given his views about the limitations of our knowledge and God’s omnipotence.
Finally, In Chapter 5, I discuss Locke’s views on the structure of the world. Locke, somewhat surprisingly, offers an account of the plentitude of the world. According to Locke, we have good reason to believe that the world contains creatures from the least perfect kind all the way up, by gradual steps, to the most perfectly perfect being. Locke also asserts that it is by way of this belief that we can understand that there are indefinitely many more intelligent creatures than ourselves in the world. Locke’s view of our place in the world seems to be a rather dismal one. We are very limited in our capacities to know the world, and God has made us this way. We have no hope of a full understanding of the world. Worse yet, it seems that the limitations of our knowledge have failed to guarantee the ground of the supposed “great concernment” of our lives – morality. Given that Locke’s argument for the existence of God has failed to prove God’s existence based on intuitively known certain premises, we cannot be certain that God exists to supply us with a moral law.