God's Permissive Will

 Man is himself the source of his evils: just as he is, he was in the divine idea. God, prompted by essential reasons of wisdom, decreed that he should pass into existence just as he is. - Leibniz

Leibniz’s claim is that he can uphold the idea that God permits agents to act in a very strong sense, a sense that most Calvinists would prima facie find objectionable, yet without violating God's ultimacy. 

Leibniz's Model:  It is not the will of God that determines the sequence of things. It is the nature of things themselves which produces their sequence, prior to all of God’s decisions; God chooses only to actualize that sequence, the possibility of which he finds ready-made. 

God is, on this model, not an inventor of the nature of things, or of creaturely essences.  He’s a discoverer.  Further, Leibniz believes that creaturely essences determine the actions that the relevant creature will take.  Despite the determinism present in this model, it seems to cohere well with the idea that God permits our actions rather than determining them himself.  For God does not will the essences as he finds them in the realm of possibility, instead finding them ready-made.   God merely wills the existence of the whole of the series, not the determinations to evil themselves, which are solely determined by the possible creaturely essences prior to God’s decision to create them.  
So it looks like Leibniz can preserve the idea of strong permission. How does he manage to uphold the ultimacy concerns of Calvinism?  By locating the possible creaturely essences within God.  We can call this the Internal Principle of Leibniz’s Model.  

Internal Principle:  Possible creaturely essences, though prior to God’s will, are nevertheless based within God.

Given the Internal Principle, it turns out that God possesses his knowledge of creatures ad intra and in a non-discursive way.  God’s aseity is preserved.  

But how can these possible creaturely essences be internal to God? What does this even mean?  As far as I know, Leibniz offers just a hint at how exactly this is supposed to work, in the form of his occasional comments of the possible creaturely essences as residing in the divine understanding.  This suggestion, however, could prove problematic if the divine understanding is referencing concepts that are not internal to God.  This is the sort of criticism pressed by many.  Leibniz’s next move is to say that the divine understanding is only referencing concepts that fall within the divine nature itself.  In his own words: "This so-called fatum, which binds even the divinity, is nothing but God's own nature, his own understanding." I also have my own tweak to this account, in which the possible creaturely essences are reflections on what God could possibly create given his omnipotence.  They are thus based on one of God’s own necessary properties, his omnipotence, but in a such a way that their existence occurs prior to his creative will. If such a suggestion as this is coherent, the Internal Principle’s coherence can be maintained.

Still, it may be that some theists will object to this construal of how God possesses knowledge of creaturely essences.  But we can show that every theist is at least committed to this kind of knowledge, the kind in which God does not determine the truth value and which is thus prior to his will.  If we use discover in this sense, then it’s obvious that God discovers quite a few things.  He discovers he’s God.  He discovers the moral law as determined by his nature.  He discovers mathematics (perhaps? Mathematics being a part of or about God’s nature?). God did not determine via his will any of these truths.  They are instead determined by God’s very nature.  Leibniz is merely claiming that there’s another set of truths that fit into this kind of divine knowledge: our creaturely essences which determine our choices.

I think this Leibnizian insight is important, and I think it's one that can be absorbed into the Calvinist system. True, Calvinism may lose one leg of its motivation due to the ultimacy concerns being adequately met by Leibniz, but it still remains the case that Calvinism is the only plausible interpretation of the Scriptures. Leibniz's model is strictly consistent with such an interpretation.

In order to show that Calvinists should strongly consider adopting Leibniz, my next post will be an argument against the standard form of Calvinism that struggles to make room for robust permission, and thus violates God's holiness by implicating him in evil.