ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an interpretation of G. W. Leibniz's views on freedom that takes into account this and other problematic texts. It argues that Necessary and Contingent Truths (NCT) does indeed contain a central and overlooked clement in Leibniz's thinking about freedom, according to which human freedom is grounded in a kind of imitation of God's nature. The chapter shows that this feature of Leibniz's theory, far from undermining compatibilism, requires it. It shows that nothing in NCT gives reason for denying that Leibniz was a compatibilist. For Leibniz, God is the being with all perfections, and free will is a perfection. NCT, a work viewed as libertarian in spirit by some and simply confused by others, is in fact neither, but instead introduces a rich conception of what constitutes divine and human freedom. In Leibniz's view, far from being essential to freedom, the power to suspend judgment is a great imperfection, rightly lack in God and the blessed.
