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Voltaire’s Problem of Evil: Candide, God and the Rejection of Optimism
Is this really the best of all possible worlds?
Voltaire and Candide
The 18th-century philosopher, François-Marie Arouet, who would later acquire the name, Voltaire, is often lauded as a patriarch of The Enlightenment. Born in 1694, Voltaire’s masterful command of satire was used to make people laugh, as well as to make them think.
The problem of evil, as well as the responses from the pious, had long troubled the French Enlightenment philosopher. This internal struggle is the central theme of Voltaire’s ‘Candide’ — Which was written in three particularly inspired days in 1759 and remains the most widely read work of the European enlightenment.
“If we judge of men by what they have done, Voltaire is incontestably the greatest writer of modern Europe” — A. Lamartine
The Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is perhaps one of the oldest and most debated topics in the philosophy of religion. At its core, it suggests that the depths of suffering we seem to be surrounded by should give us reason to pause and suggest that an all-loving and powerful god cannot exist.
