Abstract

SILVA, Camilo. The abyss of all abysses: «God does not love all men». The problem of God’s justice as divine love in the young Leibniz. Franciscanum [online]. 2023, vol.65, n.180, pp.2-2.  Epub Feb 12, 2024. ISSN 0120-1468.  https://doi.org/10.21500/01201468.6139.

This enquiry aims to reveal and find an answer to some problems concerning the definition of justice the young Leibniz grasps, and which is based on the concept of love. In his effort to handle a definition of justice that makes possible the development of his project of a universal jurisprudence, Leibniz considers the concept of love as the main element of justice. However, in front of this investigation of a purely speculative character, there is the experience, which reveals some undeniable injustices present in the world. Thus, taking for granted the existence of evil and injustices, it seems that all-powerful God does not love all men -as it supposed nevertheless to be the case in conformity with religion. If Leibniz does not state explicitly this consequence which follows from the contrast between his definition of justice and the experience, it is, however, the subheading from which he tries to resolve the problem in his first theodicy: the Confessio Philosophi. Before the problem of predestination, it is the heretical consequence that God does not love all men which pushes Leibniz’s reflexion in the Confessio, and which manages his solution to this problem.

Keywords : Evil; God; Happiness; Justice; Love.

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