Summary of text [comment] page 40
Section 6 of chapter 1 is titled, “ Analogy of Sin and Physical Evil”.
There is not only moral evil but physical evil.
The “moral” belongs to the human realm. The “physical” belongs to the subhuman realm. The “moral” coheres to “history”. The “physical” coheres to “evolution”.
This raises some questions: Is physical evil analogous to moral evil? Is “evolution” analogous to “history”?
Let us start here: “Evil” is “the lack of some good”. This applies to both types of evil.
What about limits? Each creature is limited to particular goods. Are these limitations a “metaphysical evil”? (Leibnitz suggested this.)
No and yes.
No, such a limitation is not the lack of some good.
Yes, if evil is considered “a thing in itself”, rather than a privation of a good. This “thing in itself” is a feature that the creature could theoretically have, but does not. Limitations, then, are privations of “goods that a creature might have had”.
[I am not sure whether such limitations should be called “metaphysical evils” (as Leibnitz called them). I am sure that such limitations contextualize actuality.
Thus, it seems that the term “metaphysical evil” encompasses a categorical transition: normal context3(actuality2(1)), just as the term “physical evil” encompasses the categorical transition actuality2(possibility1).]