Leibniz: Creation and Conservation and Concurrence

In this paper, I argue – contrary to current consensus – that the hoary theological doctrine of divine concurrence poses no deep threat to Leibniz’s views on theodicy and creaturely activity even as they have been traditionally understood. The paper itself falls into four main sections. The first revisits Leibniz’s views on creation, paying special attention to his twin aims of showing that God is neither morally nor physically responsible for the initial imperfections of the world, as well as to the thesis that through creation God brings into existence genuine secondary causal agents. The second turns to Leibniz’s understanding of the doctrine of divine conservation, focusing on the compatibility between God’s immediate per se conservation of creatures and the possibility of change within the order of nature. The third takes up Leibniz’s views on concurrentism directly, with special care being given to the question of how God and creatures might be thought to act together in bringing about creaturely effects, and how God’s role in bringing about those effects within the order of nature is to be reconciled with the demands of Leibnizian theodicy. Finally, the fourth section looks at worries arising from the bridging principle that conservation is a continued, or continuous, creation. What emerges from the discussion is, I hope, a clearer picture of Leibniz’s views on the nature of monadic causation, his understanding of the relationship between divine and creaturely activity, and his position with respect to later medieval and early modern debates over secondary causation.