137LEVINAS, EMMANUELthe best possible world. Leibniz argued
for this on the grounds that God is
perfect, rational, and omnipotent. Leibniz
defended a version of the cosmological
argument, the principle of sufficient rea-
son, and promoted European religious
tolerance as well as European respect for
Chinese culture and philosophy. Leibniz
defended the belief in innate ideas against
Locke’s empiricism. His works include
Dissertatio de Arte Combinatoria (1666),
Discourse on Metaphysics (1685), General
Inquiries (1686), The New System (1695),
New Essays on Human Understanding
(1703–1705, but not published until
1765), Theodicy (1710), and Monadology
(c. 1713).
LESSING, GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM
(1729–1781). German playwright and
thinker who contended that a large “ditch”
separates contemporary persons from the
original revelation of God in Christ. Some
Christian philosophers in reply argued
that while “the age of miracles” found in
the New Testament has passed, Christ
remains a contemporary (a living pres-
ence today). Lessing’s works include The
Education of the Human Race (1777–
1780) and Nathan the Wise (1779).
LESSING’S DITCH. Taken from a phrase
in Lessing’s essay on The Proof of the
Spirit and of Power, this argument states
that in a time beyond the workings of
miracles as described in the New Testa-
ment, it has become increasingly difficult
to build a faith on the historical claims of
miraculous actions which cannot be
proven to be historical truths. As a conse-
quence, Lessing argues, there appears an
“ugly, broad, ditch” between contempo-
rary personal experiences of faith and the
historical experience of God in Jesus
Christ.LEVINAS, EMMANUEL (1906–1995).
Often working outside of the academic
limelight, Levinas was influential first
in introducing Husserl’s phenomenology
to France, and then in arguing that as
subjects we are morally responsible to
the needs of others before we are know-
ing or acting subjects. He calls this
insight “ethics as first philosophy.” God,
the Infinite, is inconceivable and is
present to us only as an ethical command.
A Lithuanian Jew, Levinas spent World
War II in a French prisoner of war camp
and published a number of Talmudic
interpretations in addition to his philo-
sophical work. His writings include The
Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Philosophy
(1930), Existence and Existents (1947),
Time and the Other (1947), Totality and
Infinity (1961), Otherwise than Being or
Beyond Essence (1974), Difficult Freedom:
Essays on Judaism (1976), Beyond the
Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures
(1982), and Of God Who Comes to Mind
(1982).