The Best Possible World
On the philosophical issue of why an all-powerful God would allow evil and suffering to exist, Leibniz develops perhaps his most famous, possibly most accessible and certainly most controversial theme. His answer to this conundrum is that we live in the best of all possible worlds and if that is true, then God is acting in the best possible way to benefit us all. Thus, what is perceived as evil to the human mind becomes—if this is the best of all possible words—something beneficial to the superior and perfect mind of God.
The Principle of Sufficient Reason
Leibniz develops a line of philosophical logic that has come to be known as the principle of sufficient reason. Essentially this line of logic dictates one of the most fundamental unanswered questions of mankind: why, rather than merely, did the universe come into being? The essential construction of this philosophical mandate is that nothing in the universe can or has ever happened with a reason. Even more to the point: no fact can be real and no truth can exist unless there is a sufficient reason for it to be so. Keep in mind this principle merely formulates the existence of a reason, but it does not imply that this reason is yet known. Only that it can and may be known.
Connectivity
Leibniz is fond of asserting that “the present is big with the future.” This philosophical concept occurs across several of his essays and the fundamental meaning is applied even when the term itself is absent. Essentially, this is a theme speaking to the connectedness of everything. What occurs in the present will reveal connections to the future that may not be clear for an indeterminate length of time. And just as the effects of the present impact the future, so it is true that the state of the present is dependent upon connections to states of the past. This concept of connectivity is related not to just time; it is present in every aspect of the universe. Facts of the future are here in the present even if are they are not made manifest. A person in the present is connected to the state of that person in the future based on what is happening in the here and now. Down to the smallest atom, this is a truism of all matter and substance.
A Godly Philosophy
The entirety of the canon of Leibniz devoted to philosophical reasoning subsists on the inevitability that God exists. And God does not just exist, but his perfection is also vital to the logical reasoning of Leibniz. According to this philosophy, God created the universe so that all things in it exist in the greatest state of harmony possible. With this in mind, it is vital to remember that harmony is not possible if all things are in a perfect state, therefore God bestows perfection unequally and only to the level within the possible of each soul such that this harmony can remain in balance. Basically, it all comes down to one undeniable and necessary fact: Leibniz’s philosophy cannot exist without belief in God yet those who do not believe are equally accepted by God and are a demonstration of that balance of harmony.
