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Sämtliche schriften und briefe series VI volume 4
Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed)
pp 2451-2455


Date: April - October 1686 (?)

Translated from the Latin


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LEIBNIZ: ON THE LAST THINGS


     
Background: The following text is the final part of a lengthy work often referred to as System of Theology or An examination of the Christian religion, but which Leibniz himself left untitled.


[A VI 4, p2451]

     It remains for us now to discuss the subject of the last things, or the future life. The worst opinion that certain people hold (especially among the Antitrinitarians), is that the human soul is actually mortal by its nature, that it subsists only through grace, and that after man's death souls themselves fall asleep, devoid of all perception or thought, eventually to be reawakened on the day of judgement. But true philosophy, together with revelation, teaches the contrary. For our soul is a certain substance, and no substance can utterly perish except by the miracle of annihilation, and as the soul has no parts, it will not even be possible for it to be dissolved into several substances. Therefore the soul is naturally immortal. Moreover, the soul always actually thinks; for it should be considered as certain that there is no substance in the nature of things which, even for one moment, is entirely inactive and devoid of action and passion. Now every action and passion of a soul involves thought. The fact that a separated soul retains the memory and consciousness of the events of its former life, such that it is capable of reward and punishment, is in accordance with the particular ordination of God, and pertains to the plans of supreme providence. However with regard to the place, the nature, and the function of souls that are separated from bodies, very little can be asserted beyond what God has revealed to us through Holy Scripture or his church.
     Whenever a soul which departs from the body is in a state of mortal sin, and thus ill-disposed towards God, it falls into the abyss of ruin by its own will (just as a weight, once unsupported, is not held back or intercepted by an external cause), and, estranged from God, it causes its own damnation, just as we briefly mentioned above. Indeed, some pious men think that the hatred of the damned towards God is so great that they refuse to appeal to his grace, and therefore either bring eternal misfortune upon themselves, or prolong it. [A VI 4, p2452] And for that reason we should be less surprised at the severity of the just judge; nor is it necessary to turn to the clemency of Origen, who ultimately grants divine mercy to every creature in accordance with his own interpretation of the mystery in the works of St. Paul where it is said that all Israel will be saved.1 It should be acknowledged that other holy men were not entirely averse to this opinion either, especially Gregory of Nyssa.2 Jerome himself, even when he is forced, as it were, to contradict it, speaks more reservedly, and at least inclines to the view that the work of the impious, though only that of impious Christians, will be tried and purged by fire, the sentence of the judge being combined with clemency, as though no Christian, at least, could eternally perish.3 But in the most distinguished men these views should either be pardoned, or interpreted in a better way.
     On the other hand, it is clear from Holy Scripture that eternal happiness, which chiefly consists in the enjoyment of the divine beauty, awaits all those who die in friendship with God.4 I know that certain heterodox thinkers have called into question the beatific vision of God, but without cause; for even at the present time God is the light of the soul and the only immediate external object of our understanding, but at present we see all things as if in a looking glass, with the ray of thought as it were reflected or refracted by corporeal qualities, on account of which our thoughts are confused. At a future time, however, when our acquaintance will be distinct, we shall drink from the fountain of things and see God face to face.5 For since God is the ultimate ground of things, we shall see God at the time when our knowledge will be a priori, through the cause of causes, inasmuch as our demonstrations will require neither hypotheses nor experiments, and we shall be able to give the reasons for reasons all the way down to the primitive truths. Many consider it a difficult question whether souls attain eternal beatitude or even eternal misery before the day of judgement. It is clear that Pope John XXII inclined towards a different view,6 [A VI 4, p2453] to say nothing of more ancient writers. And in truth, if this were admitted, then the judgement, whose form is described by Christ himself,7 would seem to be superfluous, nor would those who are to be damned be able to state anything in their own defence if the whole matter were long since concluded, with no hope of change. However the story itself shows that Christ expressed his mind on the matter in human terms, and on the last day, when bodies will be returned to souls, the conscience of each will speak on behalf of the accuser and the judge, as well as the guilty. To settle this controversy and many others like it, however, I acknowledge that we should add to the passages of scripture that which is more in keeping with the tradition of the church.
     I do not dare condemn the doctrine of a children's limbo, that is, a place where souls suffer only a pain of loss but not a pain of sense, since this is defended everywhere in the church by men of the highest learning and piety, and seems consistent enough with divine justice. Nor, indeed, can I approve those who know nothing but extremes, and think that is the same with God also.
     The resurrection of the body is thought to be among the most difficult articles of the Christian faith, and some have imagined cases which they believe are not susceptible to explanation. They suppose that a cannibal has fed on human flesh for his entire life, and then ask the question: what remains for the daw when the flock of birds will come to reclaim their feathers;8 that is, when each person's flesh will return to its original owner? It should be understood, however, that it is not the case that each and every thing which was ever united to a body belongs to the essence of that body; for it is certain that our body is constantly changing and receiving and losing particles, and if all those which were once ours were to be restored to us, [A VI 4, p2454] we would be a thousand times larger than we are, and much more. And so it should be said that in each and every body there is a sort of flower of substance, the nature of which may be illustrated from the principles of chemists, and which is preserved in the course of numerous changes and always subsists exactly as it was for each person at his birth. And it is neither increased by nourishment nor diminished by transpiration, although it is contracted in infants, and in adults is expanded by the greater mass of assumed and variable matter. But even if it were conceded that it is dissipated also, yet as its power lies not in its bulk but in its efficacy and its seminal virtue, as it were, it will be possible for it to be restored to each person without detriment to the others. And so a cannibal will retain only his own flower of substance, just as those whom he has devoured will retain theirs also, without any confusion of the particular things which God has assigned to each person, which are diffused through the entire mass of the body and are distinct from what is added to them and kept in constant flux. In truth, it might be possible to solve the problem even without such an hypothesis, if we understand that the cannibal who has lived solely on human flesh can retain as his own something of each of his victims with no detriment to them;9 for we have said enough against the view that all the things which at any time belonged to each person's body are restored to it.
     But putting these things aside, let us come to the most vexing question of purgatory, or temporal punishment after this life. Now Protestants think that the souls of the departed immediately attain either eternal happiness or eternal damnation. Consequently, they reject prayers for the dead as superfluous, or reduce them to useless vows of they kind that are made with regard to things done and dusted, which are made out of human custom rather than any usefulness. On the other hand, it is a most ancient opinion of the church that we should pray for the dead, and that the dead are assisted by prayers; and that although those who have withdrawn from this life may be received by God in grace through Christ and, by a remission of eternal punishment, may be made heirs of eternal life,10 they still suffer some paternal punishment or purgation for their sins, especially if they have not sufficiently washed away this stain in this life. [A VI 4, p2455] And some have applied to this matter Christ's words about 'paying the last farthing'11 and that 'all flesh shall be salted with fire';12 others the passage of Paul, regarding those 'who have built upon the foundation, wood, hay, stubble,'13 and 'shall be saved, as though by fire';14 others, the passage on 'baptism for the dead.'15 The holy Fathers, it is true, vary with regard to the manner of purgation, for some believed that souls are detained for a considerable time (which some have extended all the way to the day of judgement, and some even further) in a certain place, where they are purged over time. Others established that the mode of punishment consists in corporeal fire, some say in the fire of tribulation, a view to which St. Augustine inclined at one time, and one which is even held today by some Greeks. Some, however, thought the purifying fire is the same as the fire of hell, while others thought that the two are distinct. There have even been those who situate purgatory specifically at the time of the resurrection, when all, even the Saints, will have to pass through fire, although the only ones who will be burned, or suffer loss, are those whose work is so badly fashioned that it can be burned. Be that as it may, almost all have agreed on a paternal chastisement or purgation after this life, whatever it consists in, to which souls - enlightened by their departure from the body and aware for the first time of the imperfection of their past life, and touched with extreme sorrow for the foulness of sin - willingly submit themselves, not wanting to attain the height of beatitude in any other way. For many distinguished men have observed that this affliction of a soul which reviews its own actions is a voluntary purgatory, and among others there is a famous passage by Louis of Granada which brought great consolation to Philip II in his last illness,16




NOTES:

1. Romans 11.26. Origen's interpretation of this passage can be found in his Commentarii in Epistolam ad Romanos, VIII.12. See also Origen, De principiis, I.6.1-3.
2. Cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica magna 26.
3. St. Jerome, Commentarii in Isaiam, XVI.24.70.
4. Leibniz is possibly alluding here to 1 John 3.2.
5. Leibniz's comments here about humans in the present state seeing things as through a glass, and that in the future they will be face to face with God, echo Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians 13.12.
6. Although Pope John XXII did publicly teach the doctrine that the souls of the blessed do not experience the beatific vision until the day of judgement, which is the view Leibniz seems to attribute to him here, he ultimately revoked his opinion in his bull 'Ne super his' (issued 3 December 1334).
7. See Matthew 12.36-7, and John 5.24-9.
8. An allusion to Horace, Epistolae 1.3.19f.
9. In the margin here, Leibniz wrote and then deleted 'without mentioning.'
10. An allusion to Titus 3.7.
11. Matthew 5.26.
12. Mark 9.49.
13. 1 Corinthians 3.12.
14. 1 Corinthians 3.15.
15. Romans 6.3; 1 Corinthians 15.29; Colossians 2.12.
16. The text ends at this point, and is clearly unfinished. The anecdote about Louis of Granada (1505-1588) may be a reference to his De felici excessu Philippi II. Hispaniarum Regis, Libri tres (Freiburg, 1609).


© Lloyd Strickland 2007