Episode Details

When the world looks cruel, every defense of God becomes a theory of human nature.

Topics Discussed

• The problem of evil argument and the two main ways to resist it: reject premise 1 or reject premise 2.
• Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds” theodicy, including its psychological promise of consolation and its ethical demand for active striving.
• Voltaire’s mockery of Leibniz after the Lisbon earthquake, especially the charge that “the best of all possible worlds” sounds absurd in the face of real suffering.
• Other responses to the problem of evil: deism, the devil, free will, evil as a counterpart to good, the soul-making defense, and skepticism about whether we can prove that unnecessary suffering exists.
• The connection between theology and moral psychology in Hobbes, Leibniz, and Spinoza: whether people need religion, political authority, or freedom from superstition in order to live well.