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Source: Werke volume VII Gotthold Ephraim Lessing pp 175-176 Date: 1708 Translated from the Latin View this translation in PDF format (12k) Back to home page Search texts by category: METAPHYSICS MIND, BODY AND SOUL FREE WILL AND NECESSITY SCIENCE POLITICS, LAW AND ETHICS THEOLOGY |
LEIBNIZ: PREFACE TO ERNST SONER'S BOOK ON HELLBackground: In 1708 Leibniz planned to reprint Ernst Soner's book Demonstratio Theologica et Philosophica, quod aeterna impiorum supplicia non arguant Dei justitiam, sed injustitiam [A Theological and Philosophical Demonstration that the Eternal Punishments of the Impious do not Prove the Justice of God but His Injustice] (1603). The following piece was written by Leibniz to serve as a preface to the reprinted version of Soner's book, though ultimately the book wasn't reprinted. Leibniz's preface is quoted in full in an essay by Lessing entitled 'Leibniz von den Ewigen Strafen,' [Leibniz on eternal punishment] (1773), published in volume 7 of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Werke (Munich, Carl Hanser Verlag, 1976), pp175-6. [p175] This demonstration by Ernst Soner, once a very distinguished philosopher in Altdorf, which he called a theological etc. demonstration of the injustice of eternal punishments, is praised by some as irrefutable. And it is all the more harmful because few have seen it, for people are generally accustomed to put a high value on that which they do not know. I therefore think that it is often useful to publish such things, as just reading them is sufficient to refute and overthrow this opinion which has been received among people for a long time. It certainly cannot be denied that Soner wrote in a subtle and ingenious way, but his demonstration still suffers from a major omission which is worthwhile pointing out lest an incautious reader should be deceived by the speciousness of his argument, the essence of which comes down to this: sins are finite, there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite, therefore punishments must also be finite. Moreover, he attempts to show that sins are finite by rejecting the senses in which they can be understood as infinite, which he enumerates in these words: 'If the sins of the impious are infinite or are able to be considered as such, then they obtain this infinite degree either from themselves or from the one who commits them, or from the one against whom they are committed, or from some of these reasons or from all of them simultaneously. But they cannot be infinite, or be considered as such, in any of these senses. And yet apart from these, there is no other sense in which they can actually be or be said to be infinite. Therefore they are not infinite at all.' What the theologians usually say in response to this argument, which they attack on the basis of the proportion between sins and punishments, may be read with profit in their own works. At this point, however, I would prefer to expose another flaw in Soner's argument, namely his incomplete list of the senses in which something can be called infinite. For sins can be called infinite not only with regard to the object against which they are committed, namely God, [p176] or with regard to the kind of sin or its degree of intensity, and the other senses mentioned by the author, but also with regard to their number. So even if we should concede that no sin is infinite in itself, it can still be said that the sins of the damned are infinite in number, because they persist in sin throughout all eternity. Therefore if sins are eternal, it is just that the punishments should be eternal too. Of course evil men damn themselves, as the wise rightly say, since they are forever impenitent and turn away from God. Given this, God cannot be deemed severe, as if his punishment was disproportionate to the sin. © Lloyd Strickland 2007 |