Confessio Philosophi

A philosopher speaking for the young Leibniz clears God of authoring sin, at the price of nearly saying nothing could have been otherwise.

by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz72 passages held

Latin, the original language

First published: 1915(published posthumously)
Original language: Latin

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Overview

In 1672 Leibniz, then twenty-five, went to Paris on a secret political mission for Baron Johann Christian von Boineburg, minister to the Elector of Mainz, and stayed until 1676. Within months he had written a Latin dialogue in which a philosopher, speaking for him, faces a theologian's hardest question: if God is the ultimate reason for everything, is he not also the reason for sin, and so for damnation? The theologian presses the point through Judas, whose despair before his suicide must have a cause like everything else. The philosopher answers that sin follows not from God's will but from his understanding — from the eternal nature of things, as mathematical truths do. Like a dissonance in music, it belongs to a harmony God knows and delights in as a whole, without ever willing the discord for itself. The reply clears God as author of sin only by pulling hard toward the view that nothing could have been otherwise, and scholars still disagree about how far the young Leibniz accepted that. In Paris he showed the dialogue to Antoine Arnauld, the Jansenist theologian; decades later he recalled that Arnauld had not seemed hostile to it. In Hanover around 1677–78 the Danish scientist and Catholic theologian Nicolas Steno wrote objections in the margins of a copy, and Leibniz revised the ending so that sins, though they follow from God's existence, are not necessary in themselves. The central move, sin permitted because it belongs to the best plan for the universe, returned thirty-seven years after the dialogue in the Theodicy. The dialogue itself was first printed in Kazan in 1915.

Key concepts

What is the Confessio philosophi, and who speaks in it?

A Latin dialogue the twenty-five-year-old Leibniz wrote within months of reaching Paris in 1672, in which a philosopher speaking for him answers a theologian. The theologian’s question is the hardest one for any defence of God: if God is the ultimate reason for everything, is he not also the reason for sin, and so for damnation? It is Leibniz’s first developed theodicy.

What does it mean that sin follows from ‘the nature of things’?

That sin follows from the eternal natures of things as God’s understanding knows them, the way mathematical truths do, and not from any decree of God’s will. God no more decides that sin shall exist than he decides what a mathematical truth shall be. This is how the philosopher makes God the reason for everything without making him the author of sin.

What is the musical dissonance image in the dialogue?

Leibniz’s picture of how sin can belong to a world God loves. A dissonance is not wanted for its own sake, yet it belongs to the harmony of the whole piece. In the same way God knows and delights in the harmony of the universe as a whole, without ever willing the discord it contains.

Why does the theologian keep returning to Judas?

Because his case is the hardest for the philosopher’s position. Judas’s despair before his suicide must, like everything else, have a cause, and if the chain of reasons runs back to God, God seems to be the reason for his sin and for his damnation. The theologian uses him to press the question as far as it will go.

Who was Steno, and what did his objections change?

Nicolas Steno, the Danish scientist and Catholic theologian, wrote objections in the margins of a copy of the dialogue in Hanover around 1677–78. Leibniz answered by revising the ending, so that sins, though they follow from God’s existence, are not necessary in themselves. The original reply had pulled hard toward the view that nothing could have been otherwise.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Is God the Author of Sin?

If God is the ultimate reason for everything, is he not also the reason for sin, and so for damnation? A theologian presses the question, and a philosopher speaking for the young Leibniz tries to answer it without making God a sinner.

Sin, the philosopher replies, follows not from God’s will but from his understanding: from the eternal nature of things, the way mathematical truths do. God did not decide that there should be sin; it belongs to a harmony he knows and delights in as a whole, like a dissonance in music that he never wills for its own sake. The move separates what God permits from what he chooses. Its central thought, sin permitted because it belongs to the best plan for the universe, returned thirty-seven years later in the Theodicy.

divine justice
theodicy
problem of evil
harmony
divine will
sin
evil
divine providence
divine mercy
sufficient reason

Enter a dialogue

Judas, and Whether Anything Could Be Otherwise

If Judas’s despair had a cause like everything else, can he still be blamed for it? The dialogue’s answer pulls hard toward the view that nothing could have happened otherwise.

The theologian chooses Judas because his case is the hardest: a man whose despair before his suicide must, like every event, have its reason. To clear God of authoring that sin, the philosopher grounds it in the eternal nature of things, and the price is a world that starts to look necessary through and through. Scholars still disagree about how far the twenty-five-year-old Leibniz accepted that. When Nicolas Steno wrote objections in the margins of a copy around 1677–78, Leibniz revised the ending: sins follow from God’s existence, but are not necessary in themselves.

free will
necessity
moral responsibility
damnation
contingency
fatalism
causation
possibility
repentance
principle of sufficient reason

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 72
distinct concepts: 142
by passages held, corpus-wide: #575

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “divine justice” and “free will”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 21 pairings. 74 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
divine justice	free will	5
free will	moral responsibility	5
damnation	divine justice	4
divine justice	moral responsibility	4
divine will	problem of evil	4
necessity	problem of evil	4
divine will	necessity	3
damnation	free will	2
damnation	moral responsibility	2
damnation	problem of evil	2
divine justice	theodicy	2
divine will	moral responsibility	2
divine will	theodicy	2
free will	theodicy	2
moral responsibility	theodicy	2
damnation	theodicy	1
divine justice	problem of evil	1
free will	necessity	1
free will	problem of evil	1
moral responsibility	problem of evil	1
necessity	theodicy	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1684 Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas (Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis)
A journal article of 1684, written into the Arnauld–Malebranche quarrel over ideas; its grades of knowledge return in the Discourse on Metaphysics and the New Essays.
LA
1691 Whether the Essence of a Body Consists in Extension (Lettre sur la question si l'essence du corps consiste dans l'étendue)
Against the Cartesian view that body is nothing but extension: a letter to the Paris Journal des Sçavans in 1691, followed by a second in 1693.
FR
1695 New System of Nature (Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances)
Leibniz's first public statement of his system, printed in Paris in 1695; his replies to Foucher and Bayle kept it in the journals until 1698.
FR
1698 On Nature Itself (De ipsa natura)
An answer to Johann Christoph Sturm in the Acta Eruditorum of 1698, defending forces inside created things and tying the dynamics to the metaphysics of substance.
LA
1710 Theodicy (Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal)
Published anonymously at Amsterdam in 1710, it was the book by which the eighteenth century knew Leibniz, and the one Voltaire answered with Candide.
FR
1717 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Recueil des lettres entre Leibniz et Clarke)
Ten papers exchanged through the Princess of Wales in 1715–16, cut off by Leibniz's death and published by Clarke in 1717.
FR
1718 Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason (Principes de la nature et de la grâce fondés en raison)
A companion summary from the same Vienna months as the Monadology, long mistaken for it and printed before it, in 1718.
FR
1720 Monadology (Monadologie)
Written in French in 1714, it was known for over a century only in German and Latin translation.
FR
1765 New Essays on Human Understanding (Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain)
The book-length reply to Locke, written as a dialogue in 1703–04, withheld after Locke's death and first printed in 1765.
FR
1840 Discourse Touching the Method of Certitude and the Art of Discovery (Discours touchant la méthode de la certitude et l'art d'inventer)
A plea for royal patronage of the sciences, addressed to an unnamed king, apparently Louis XIV, setting out the method of certainty and art of discovery Leibniz pursued for decades.
FR
1840 On the Ultimate Origination of Things (De rerum originatione radicali)
A short Latin essay of 1697 on why there is a world at all, left in manuscript until 1840.
LA
1840 Reflections on the Doctrine of a Single Universal Spirit (Considérations sur la doctrine d'un Esprit Universel Unique)
A French essay written in 1702 at the Prussian queen's palace outside Berlin, and left unprinted until 1840.
FR
1846 Discourse on Metaphysics (Discours de métaphysique)
The opening statement of Leibniz's mature metaphysics, written early in 1686 and left unprinted until 1846.
FR
1846 The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence (Correspondance de Leibniz et d'Arnauld)
The exchange of 1686 to 1690 between Leibniz and Arnauld over the Discourse on Metaphysics, every letter carried by the Landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfels.
FR
1854 Refutation of Spinoza (Animadversiones ad Joh. Georg. Wachteri librum de recondita Hebraeorum philosophia)
Private Latin notes on Wachter's book about Spinoza and the Kabbalah, given their title by the French scholar who published them in 1854.
FR
1890 Tentamen Anagogicum: An Anagogical Essay in the Investigation of Causes (Essai anagogique dans la recherche des causes)
A French essay of about 1696, from the years of Leibniz's dynamics, defending final causes against the mechanical philosophers.
FR
1903 New Openings (Nouvelles Ouvertures)
Written in French in 1686, by the Academy edition's dating, and left in manuscript until Couturat printed it in 1903.
FR
1903 Preface to the General Science (Préface de la Science générale)
Probably from 1677, an unfinished preface to the universal language of reasoning, unprinted until 1903.
FR
1915 Confessio Philosophi (Confessio philosophi) you are here LA

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