The philosophical and natural conception of miracle in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Samuel Clarke

Abstract

Clarke’s primary interest in miracles centered around proving that their occurrence provides evidence for the truth of Christianity. He tried to show their possibility by appealing to a system that emphasizes the role of a libertarian divine will and direct divine intervention in the ordinary course of nature, denies activity to matter, and claims that basic forces that keep the world together are the effect of continual spiritual activity. As a result, properly speaking, natural laws govern the divine will not matter, to which they are therefore extrinsic. By contrast, Leibniz’s interest in miracles centered around their use against models of reality that made natural laws extrinsic to the nature of bodies. Such models, he thought, would lead to a diminished view of God and, by being associated with incorrect views on substance, could open the door to a materialist view of the mind.