Motives for error

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Often appears with: the fear of death · sin, guilt, and repentance · religious persecution and toleration · inquisition · giulio cesare vanini · atheism trial

Usually: narrative (1) · crisis of belief (1) · indignation (1)

Theodicy primary

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Freiherr von · 1710-1711
book with much acrimony. But the accused won his case in a Synod. > V.D.H.) attacking the power of the Governor of Holland, which was at that time considered a danger to the Republic; for the memory of Prince William the Second's attempt upon the city of Amsterdam was still quite fresh.[351] (64/71)

Discussing Giulio Cesare Vanini, Leibniz recounts his staged “proof” of God using grass, his prosecution by the Inquisition, and argues that vanity and visible causes explain errors.

*Et levis est cespes qui probet esse Deum.* But since the Attorney General to the Parliament of Toulouse desired to cause annoyance to the First President (so it is said), to whom Vanini was granted considerable access, teaching his children philosophy, if indeed he was not altogether in the service of that magistrate, the inquisition was carried through rigorously. Vanini, seeing that there was no chance of pardon,…