We live in the best of all possible worlds
Gottfried LeibnizRead
According to their [Newton and his followers] doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making, so imperfect, according to these gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as clockmaker mends his work.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques the view that God must intervene in creation to keep it functioning, contrasting it with the idea of a perfect, self-sustaining universe.
Gottfried Leibniz critiques the notion held by Newton and some of his followers that God needs to continually intervene in the mechanics of the universe, akin to a clockmaker winding a watch. He suggests that if God had truly created a perfect universe, such intervention would be unnecessary, implying that a truly divine creation would operate autonomously without frequent repairs or adjustments.
Themes
GodPhilosophyCreationUniverseIntervention
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about the nature of divine intervention during a philosophy seminar.
More from Gottfried Leibniz
All quotes →I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author.
Gottfried LeibnizRead
It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.
Gottfried LeibnizRead
..This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God.
Gottfried LeibnizRead
...a distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man's imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection.
Gottfried LeibnizRead
These principles have given me a way of explaining naturally the union or rather the mutual agreement [conformité] of the soul and the organic body. The soul follows its own laws, and the body likewise follows its own laws; and they agree with each other in virtue of the pre-established harmony between all substances, since they are all representations of one and the same universe.
Gottfried LeibnizRead
Similar quotes
God does not know whether a skin is black or white, He sees only souls.
Katherine Anne PorterRead
The Tao teaches us not to intervene and interfere. The things we love we have to learn to leave alone. And the people we love we have to learn to let them be.
Wayne DyerRead
We're not thought of in terms of color because we are entertainers. We are there to entertain you not because we are black, white, pink, or green or gay or straight or because we are Catholic or Protestant.
Eartha KittRead
To admit one's own presuppositions and to point out the presuppositions of others is therefore to maintain that all reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning. The starting-point, the method, and the conclusion are always involved in one another.
Cornelius Van TilRead
And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
In our society, the ideal self is bold, gregarious, and comfortable in the spotlight. We like to think that we value individuality, but mostly we admire the type of individual who's comfortable 'putting himself out there.'
Susan CainRead