Read any Leibniz lately?

Gottfried Leibniz wrote the book "Theodicy" exactly three hundred years ago this year. In it he tried to prove the goodness and justice of God amidst what is a world (cosmos?) full of evil.

He claimed that this world was the best world that God could have made so don't complain. What do you think of that claim?

This is based on an article on the Op/Ed section of the WSJ for April 9. Yes I often go back and read old WSJs that I did not get to the day they came to the house.

The writer, Samuel Newlands starts by quoting Pat Robertson as stating that the earthquake in Haiti was God's judgment for a 200 year old secret pact with the devil. Preachers attributed the hurricane destruction in New Orleans the same way.

He states this is not abnormal. What is new is how many people today rush to dismiss such proclamations. Gottfried Leibniz was one of the first to make the claim that God does not punish people for their sins like that.

Leibniz claimed that natural evils like earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes are not intended to be punishments. Leibniz reasoned that a world with simple natural laws and no natural disasters was not as perfect as the present world.

Leibniz attempted to harmonize natural and theological explanations, reason and faith. It is an effort still ongoing.

Many may know Gottfried Leibniz, as I do, mostly for his scientific achievements. He is credited, along with Isaac Newton with the development of calculus. It is interested that both of these wrote much on theology, attempting to understand God. Both of these men thought their best work was in the area of theology but today their science is most known and admired.

Newlands suggests that a corollary of Leibniz's ideas is that God's plans and purposes are not as human centered as we like to think. These natural disasters are really not a way for God to be involved in the workings of his world. They are simply natural and relatively random though perhaps predictable.

Going away from this article I do think that God's love is shown in his willingness to correct his people. To agree with Leibniz shows a less involved God than the bible tells us He is. Leibniz is right to ask the question and struggle with the answer. But he has come to the wrong conclusion.

I have trouble making specific pronouncements about individual disasters. I think it is up the people affected to hear from God about what he is saying. The problem is so many people refuse to listen to God. If he is correcting you it means he loves you and still has hope for you. Correction and punishment is no fun but it does have a silver lining.