The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy

Jay Newman is a professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph. He
is the author of Biblical Religion and Family Values: A Problem in the
Philosophy of Culture and Competition in Religious Life, Religion vs.
Television: Competitors in Cultural Contex

The problem of how to reconcile divine attributes with the existence of
evil in the world is one of the abiding riddles of the philosophy of
religion and has often loomed large in the history of metaphysics. Some
of the most vital reflections on the problem took place between 1500 and
1750, and several of these continue to be widely discussed by historians
of philosophy. The papers in this volume were given at a 1999 conference
at the University of Toronto. There are three papers on Leibniz—to
whom we owe the term “theodicy”—two on Spinoza, and others on
Suarez, Descartes, Malebranche, and Bayle. These papers are of a
uniformly high calibre and are written by academic scholars who know
their subject well and are able to explicate recondite ideas in an
edifying and stimulating manner. Three of the papers are by academics
associated with Canadian universities (Graeme Hunter on Spinoza, D.
Anthony Lariviиre and Thomas M. Lennon on Bayle, and coeditor Kremer on
Leibniz). The other contributors are coeditor Latzer, Alfred J.
Freddoso, Steven M. Nadler, Denis Moreau, Donald Rutherford, and Robert
C. Sleigh Jr.

The volume contains a perfunctory six-page introduction by the editors.
A more substantial introduction would have helped here, especially in
clarifying the historical and theological context of the ideas. The
absence of an index and a general bibliography is also regrettable. If a
university press is going to publish a set of conference papers on a
theme of this kind, it should see to it that the job is done as
thoroughly as possible. Perhaps also the volume would have been more
useful if the editors had included the observations of the junior
scholars who provided commentaries at the conference.

Appreciation of even the less intricate papers in this collection
requires considerable knowledge of philosophy and the history of ideas,
so the book is not likely to be useful to a general reader seeking
consolation in hard times and urgently needing a concise answer to the
question of why God so often moves in such a mysterious way.