Leibniz’s Law & God’s Creative Identity

Question #20: Given Leibniz’s Law and the Catholic acceptance of God’s simplicity, how does one reconcile God’s identity with His creative act while ensuring that creation remains a free, contingent gift (DS 3025)?

Leibniz’s Law–or the “indiscernibility of identicals”–states that if two things are truly identical, then all properties of one must be properties of the other. Applied to God’s simplicity, Catholic theology affirms that God’s act of willing and His essence are one and the same. The apparent problem then arises: If God’s act of creation is identical with God’s essence, and God necessarily exists, does creation itself thereby become necessary, contradicting the Catholic doctrine (DS 3025) that the world is a free, contingent gift?

1. Distinguishing God’s Internal Act from Its External Effect

The Church teaches that God’s essence is absolutely necessary–He cannot not exist–whereas creation is freely and contingently willed. The key distinction is between God’s act considered internally (in God) and the effect (the created world). When Catholic theology says “God’s creative act is one with His essence,” it refers to the eternal, unchanging reality of God Himself. That eternal willing does not force creation to be necessary; it indicates only that there is no separate “part” in God called “willing to create.” God’s will is wholly united to who He is–simple and without composition.

2. No Co-Identity of Creature and Creator

Although God’s act in se (in Himself) is identical with His essence, the effect that act produces in creation is not thereby merged with God’s identity. Creation remains a distinct, finite order, fully dependent on but not emanating necessarily from God. Thus, we do not conclude that “the universe is God” or that it exists necessarily. Instead, the Catholic tradition insists on a real distinction between the Creator and the creation. God’s timeless, simple act can include genuinely free, contingent choices–this is the heart of divine libertas (freedom).

3. Eternal Freedom and No Internal Constraint

The Church maintains that nothing forces God to create; no potential or deficiency in God drives Him to bring about a universe. Rather, He wills creation “out of nothing” (ex nihilo) and “freely” (DS 3025). Since God is not compelled by any internal or external necessity, the existence of the universe remains a gratuitous expression of God’s all-sufficient love, not a logically inevitable emanation.

4. Reconciling with Leibniz’s Law

Leibniz’s Law applies strictly to God’s nature: if “God’s will” and “God’s essence” are identical, then whatever is true of the divine essence (simplicity, necessity) is true of God’s will in se. However, that does not extend to the contingent effects of God’s will. Catholic thought distinguishes God’s act considered in itself (which indeed shares all properties of the divine essence) from the content or object of that act (creation), which is freely chosen and remains contingent.

Hence, Catholic theology preserves both God’s necessary existence and the free, contingent character of creation by carefully differentiating the divine will’s identity with God from the fact that what is willed (the universe) proceeds solely from God’s uncoerced goodness.

(see #18, #19)