“Leibniz always asserted the contingency of created substances. That they do not necessarily follow from the concept of the divine substance—as the properties of a triangle follow from its concept— and thus cannot be mere modes of God, is why Leibniz is not a Spinozist or a pantheist. God is transcendent to the world insofar as he is without any limitations—he is infinite with respect to his power, his reason, and his will—hence the created monad is always limited in these respects, “for God could not give the creature everything with-out making of it a God” (Theodicy, §31). On the other hand, monads emanate from God, in that he is their originating causal substance, and they exist in his mind as complete concepts that additionally have been instantiated by his will into actual substances.
In this sense, Leibniz conceives of God as being immanent in every created monad, for each is derived of his substance, reflects his omniscient comprehension of all things in terms of its place in the preestablished harmony, and reflects his will with regard to its very creation: “For one clearly sees that all other substances depend on God, . . . that God is all in all, and that he is intimately united with all creatures” (Discourse on Metaphysics, §32). This immanent aspect of the God–world relationship has led to pantheistic interpretations of Leibniz. However, since he also conceives God to be transcendent to the world, his position is essentially theistic.”