On Leibniz’s Cosmological Argument

In this essay, I will respond to the fourth stimulus offered by the Final Assignment of Dr.

Ludington’s Intellectual History course. I will produce a reconstruction of Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz's cosmological argument for the existence of God and evaluate relevant objections

offered by David Hume as they appear before submitting my own conclusion regarding Leibniz's

theory. With the introduction of the essay's scope and topic complete, we can now proceed to

Leibniz's theory.

In reconstructing Leibniz's cosmological argument, this essay will first present a broad

overview of his premises and conclusion before examining each premise to determine the

argument's strength. By my estimation, Leibniz assembles the following three premises in his

cosmological argument: everything that exists has a sufficient reason for its existence; if the

universe has a sufficient reason for existing, that reason is God; the universe exists as the sum of

all material things. From these premises, he concludes that God must exist. This argument

doesn't appear to have flaws in its logic as far as validity is concerned. However, its soundness is

by no means self-evident. While the third premise seems uncontroversial, the first and second

may raise eyebrows. Therefore, this essay's next step will be to illustrate both premises in detail.

Regarding the first premise, I'd like to introduce a central principle of Leibniz's

philosophy. That is the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), according to which "there is nothing

without a reason; or... there is no truth for which a reason does not subsist."1 By this, Leibniz

means that every item, truth, or event must have a sufficient explanation justifying its existence.

In other words, for every event 'E' which exists, there must be a sufficient reason why 'E' is true

and not false. Without the PSR, Leibniz believes, we cannot answer the question of why
1
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “§32,” in Monadology (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 216
anything exists rather than not existing and thus cannot justify that thing's existence at all. As

such, it becomes clear that the first premise is a manifestation of the PSR.

Here, Scottish philosopher David Hume raises an objection regarding the existence of so-

called brute facts. Brute facts are, in theory, truths that have no justification for their existence,

but which simply exist without sufficient reason. Hume argues through the character Philo in

section VIII of his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that the universe is just such a truth,

writing that its ontological structure could conceivably resemble "an animal or a vegetable more

than it does a watch or a knitting-loom."2 By this comparison, he means that an uncaused,

eternally existing universe is no less reasonable than one which is divinely designed. He justifies

his argument on what he considers a lack of evidence demonstrating any rule by which we can

order the universe's creation, writing —again through Philo— that "we have no data to establish

any system of cosmogony."3 Through this reasoning, Hume asserts that the view that any entity,

including the universe, simply exists without justification is no less reasonable than Leibniz's

first premise.

While he was not a contemporary of Hume, I believe Leibniz would be thoroughly

unconvinced by this objection. In his view, to say that anything, the universe included, exists

absent a justification is to exempt that thing from a fundamental rule according to which all

entities with which we are familiar operate. To that effect, he writes that "we can find no true or

existent fact, no true assertion, without there being a sufficient reason why it is thus and not

otherwise."4 Such a stance starkly contradicts Hume's claim that we lack justification for the

claim that the universe requires a cause. Rather, it makes it supremely illogical to afford this

2
David Hume, “VIII,” in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Dodo Press, 2009), pp. 30.
3
Hume, “VIII,” in Dialogues, pp. 31.
4
Leibniz, “§32,” in Monadology, pp. 217.
special exemption to the universe without any positive reason to do so. With this being the case,

readers can safely reject the above objection and accept Leibniz's premise that all things have a

sufficient reason for existing. As such, they ought to conclude that the universe does not buck the

PSR and, therefore, must have a sufficient reason justifying its existence.

Before moving on to our second premise, I believe it necessary to establish another tenet

of Leibniz's philosophy. In section thirty-three of his Monadology, Leibniz differentiates

between two sorts of entities.5 The first sort of entities, called truths of reason, possess a

sufficient reason for existence within their own nature or, for my Aristotelean readers, their

essence. These truths exist necessarily because to say otherwise would be to argue for an

inconceivability. For example, to claim that two and two make five is to say that four makes five

and thus involves a contradiction. Therefore, the arithmetic proof that two and two make four is

necessarily true. Regarding God, Leibniz finds that because God is a being that possesses all

perfections,6 he must necessarily be characterized by existence on the grounds that something

which exists is more perfect than something which does not. Thus, to say that God does not exist

is equivalent to saying that a maximally perfect thing possesses an imperfection, incurring

another contradiction. Items of the second sort, called truths of fact, contain a sufficient reason

for existence in their associated chains of efficient causes. Truths of fact include all material

entities, which can explain their existence through a preexisting series of causes. My existence,

for example, is justified by that of my parents and theirs by my grandparents. These entities,

therefore, exist on a contingent basis to others. Truths of reason and of fact having been

explained, we can proceed to Leibniz's second premise, which claims that the sufficient reason

for the universe's existence is God.

5
Leibniz, “§33,” in Monadology, pp. 218-219.
6
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Leroy E. Loemker, Philosophical Papers and Letters, vol. 2 (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic, 1989).
 To prove our second premise, Leibniz must demonstrate that the universe requires a

necessarily existing entity as its originator, and that God is the only entity that can satisfy this

requirement. To accomplish this, he begins by reaffirming our third premise by observing a

"series of things comprehended in the universe"7 that exist contingently on one another.

Attending this series, Leibniz observes that without a truth of reason, every instance of the

universe exists only as a derivation of its predecessor in time. This series cannot possibly answer

the question of why it exists instead of not existing and, therefore, cannot meet the burden of the

PSR. As such, he concludes that for the universe to exist, it must be proceeded by something

"which exists in metaphysical necessity"8 outside of spacetime. From here, things become

relatively simple for Leibniz as his list of necessarily existing entities is short. Among them are

God and abstract objects. He believes abstract objects lack any causal power while God, as

previously discussed, possesses all maximal perfections. As such, he concludes that God is the

only being who can provide sufficient reason for the universe's existence. With God as the

underlying cause of the universe, we can determine that it exists as it does because God's perfect

will has determined it to be the best option out of all possible worlds. This being the case,

Leibnitz concludes that God necessarily exists as the ultimate originator of the universe, thereby

providing it with sufficient reason and completing his cosmological argument.

Returning to David Hume, he offers a few more objections regarding the cosmological

argument, two of which I will consider here. The first appears in part IX of Dialogues

Concerning Natural Religion and takes issue with the high bar Leibniz sets to call something

sufficiently explained. Hume argues that "the uniting of the [entity's] parts into a whole [for

7
Leibniz, “§36,” in Monadology, pp. 224.
8
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Roger Ariew, and Daniel Garber, On the Ultimate Origination of Things,” in Discourse
on Metaphysics (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1991), pp. 86-87.
sufficient reason]... is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind."9 By this, he means that

the observation that a set of parts exists adequately explains the set's existence. In the case of the

universe, Hume believes that we do not need to justify its presence with an ultimate progenitor

but merely through observation at different moments in spacetime. The mere accounting of the

universe's existence at different periods is a sufficient reason to explain its whole set of instances.

No necessarily existing being is required.

While this objection is certainly more shrewd than the first in that it at least makes an

effort to work within the framework of the PSR, I am still not terribly convinced that it would

sway Leibniz. I expect that he might reply in a manner similar to the following. Suppose that one

explains the existence of every instance of an item merely by referring to another instance of the

very same item's existence. In that case, we have a reason for each contingent entity's existence

but are still left without an explanation for the whole set of instances. This reference does not tell

us why there are contingent entities, but only that there are contingent entities. Thus, it cannot

sufficiently justify the group's presence in opposition to its possible non-presence, and the

objection fails.

The third and final objection this essay will discuss before moving to my own conclusion

regarding the Cosmological Argument concerns Hume's account of causation. In section IV of

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he argues that there is no reason to believe a

priori that all effects necessarily have a cause. He justifies this claim on the grounds that we can

conceive of the occurrence of uncaused events and that conceivability entails possibility

inasmuch as it does not entail a contradiction. To this point, Hume argues that we cannot reliably

claim that the cause-effect relationship is a universal rule on the grounds of past experience

9
Hume, “IX,” in Dialogues, pp. 32.
because there is no contradiction in arguing that the future will not resemble our past

experiences.10 Should this objection be accepted, Leibniz cannot justify his distinction between

contingent and necessary entities because he cannot rely upon contingent entities' dependence on

other entities. Further, Hume would potentially force Leibniz to abandon his account of

sufficient reason altogether, as he would be rendered unable to sufficiently justify the existence

of any entity without a reliable cause-effect pattern based on their reason for existing.

While this objection certainly endangers Leibniz's theory if sound, I am confident it is

not. There are two ways Leibniz might rebut Hume's objection. First, I believe Leibniz could

criticize Hume's account of conceivability's relationship with possibility. It seems that, for

example, someone who has been raised their entire life to believe that it is arithmetically sound

to claim that three times six makes twenty-four conceives of such a claim being true. However,

this by no means makes it possible that three times six will make twenty-four because it

necessarily makes eighteen. Furthermore, one may conceive that because the sides on a die can

be distinguished from one another, the sides could be separated from the die. However, this is

metaphysically impossible because distinguishability does not infer separability. If true, the die

would cease to be a die. In the same way, Hume conflates the rules of ontological possibility

with the rules of epistemic conception.

The second way for Leibniz to reply to Hume's objection is to argue that his rejection of

the principle of causation and PSR is, practically speaking, absurd. There is no intelligible way

by which anyone can make any claim regarding any entity's relation to another if this objection is

accepted. While this may not be the most robust reply, I don't think Leibniz would be

enthusiastic about dignifying an absurdity with a well-designed response. It seems profoundly

David Hume and Lorne Falkenstein, “IX,” in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Peterborough, Ont:
10

Broadview Press, 2011), pp. 28-29.

contrived and nonsensical for Hume to claim that principles that, by his own admission,11

correspond universally to the experience and intuition of mankind ought to be rejected simply

because we can reject them without contradiction. This being the case, I think that Leibniz can

very confidently reject this third objection. Next, I'll round out this essay with a review of my

conclusion regarding the cosmological argument.

In reviewing Leibniz's cosmological argument, I am struck by the notion that it presumes

the ontological argument's correctness. As the cosmological argument proceeds from an entity's

existence toward that of God, I am not convinced that it justifies the attribution of certain traits to

God on its own. As a necessary being, God lacks any possibility of nonexistence in the same way

as abstract objects like arithmetic proofs. However, these arithmetic proofs only exist necessarily

by merit of their definition and possess no causal agency whatsoever. This being the case,

Leibniz has a problem distinguishing God from other necessary entities. It seems that he tries to

resolve this by quietly wheeling in the ontological argument to attribute God's perfection to him.

Leibniz can only identify God as cosmologically necessary by merit of his ontology’s maximal

perfection. Yet, his maximal perfection is only a product of his cosmological necessity. Even in

establishing Leibniz's dichotomy between necessary and contingent beings to justify my second

premise, I was forced to invoke the ontological argument to justify God's existence as a

necessary being by merit of his maximal qualities. It seems that Leibniz was forced to do the

same.

Some may argue that the cosmological argument can provide God with his necessity on

its own. Even if this is the case, I cannot see how Leibniz can attribute the unique agency and

maximal traits that he says God possesses to him without assuming the ontological argument's

11
Hume, “IX,” in An Enquiry, pp. 29.
veracity. There is no reason to presume that God is distinct from other necessarily existing

objects other than his maximal perfection, but the cosmological argument cannot demonstrate

this trait. As such, I cannot pretend that Leibniz’s argument is flawless. Rather, it makes a

fallacious presumption, and therefore becomes unsound. In conclusion, while I think that it clears

the objections offered by the religiously skeptical Hume, I cannot certify Leibniz's cosmological

argument as sound because its second premise assumes the veracity of the ontological argument.
 Bibliography

Hume, David, and Lorne Falkenstein. “IV.” Essay. In An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding, 28–29. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press, 2011.
Hume, David. “VIII.” Essay. In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 30–31. Dodo Press,
2009.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, and Leroy E. Loemker. Philosophical Papers and Letters. 2. Vol. 2.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1989.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Roger Ariew, and Daniel Garber. Discourse on Metaphysics and
Other Essays: Discourse on Metaphysics, on the Ultimate Origination of Things, Preface
to the New Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1991.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. “§32.” Essay. In Monadology; 217–217. London: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1971.