Is God ok? In the shadow of the collective catastrophe, the great minds argued to toss

In the classical Western divine, God is said to be good and powerful. How do we link natural disasters – global epidemics, earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, forest fires, etc. – with a God who does not want natural disasters, because he is perfectly good, and because he is so capable, he can stop it if he wishes?

This was a question posed after the devastating Lisbon earthquake of Voltaire (1694-1778), one of the great philosophers of the European Enlightenment. He led to one of his most famous works: Candide or l ‘Optimisme (1759).

On 1 November 1755, at 9:30 am, Lisbon in Portugal was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake, followed by more tremors, fires, a tsunami, and civil unrest. It was All Saints Day and a large number of people were killed when the churches collapsed on them. Statistics of natural disasters, as now, are known rubber bands. But between 20,000 and 40,000 people died out of a population of about 200,000.

Then, as now, people asked whether there was a divine plan for the devastation that shook their Christian beliefs and monuments.

Read more:
Are you God? Whether we pray more strongly or tolerate anger depends on the doctrine of Providence

Beyond the appearance of evil

In writing Candide, Voltaire had the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) in his vision and especially his articles on the goodness of God in Theodse (1710). For Leibniz, despite both natural and moral evils, this was still the best in all possible worlds. It was the best that God could do. This is because it contains the largest variety of objects and the simplest laws of nature.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Photo by Bernhard Christoph Frank.
Wikimedia Commons

Leibniz declared that the natural and moral evils were part of the universal common good. He declared that if “the smallest evil that comes in the world is lost, then this world will not be anymore. Which, with nothing and all the allocations found, was found best by the Creator who chose it.”

While Leibniz admitted that it is possible to imagine worlds without sin and without misery, “These same worlds will be inferior to ours in goodness.” In other words, God was the perfect gardener despite the cosmic herbs.

Before God created this world, according to Leibniz, compare all possible worlds in order to choose the best world. Thus, God created a world that was more compatible with some pain, acidity, and darkness rather than being all pleasure, sweetness, and light.

Leibniz wasn’t stupid. He saw that evil “appearances” in the world severely undermined God’s goodness and justice. However, he refused to allow the evils of the world to decisively count against God. This will be to deeply confuse the surface of the world.

He believed that the defender of God must proceed from the belief that the world, despite its evident evil, was ultimately good by virtue of its foundation in the goodness of God who created it after all.

Candid comedy

Did Leibniz’s optimism in the eighteenth century and his firm belief in divine good fail to take evil seriously? Voltaire believed this. Indeed, Voltaire upset the dangerous nature of evil on his head. Believing that natural and moral evil is so dangerous that it can only be tackled with cynicism.

Portrait of Atelier Nicholas de Largeley, known as French philosopher Voltaire, by Nicolas de Largelier.
Wikimedia Commons

In Candide, Leibniz was chosen as Dr. Panglos, a trainer in “Theological Metaphysics – The Science of the Universe” at the court of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronke.

Pangloss was a committed believer in this world as the best of everything possible, despite his natural evils and moral evils especially committed by those belonging to religions (Christians, Jews, and Muslims). Whatever happens in the world, Pangloss, like Leibniz, was able to rationalize him as being compatible with being ultimately for the better.

Voltaire found this concept from the best possible worlds problematic, given the quantity and quality of evil in it.

This system of all good represents the author of nature only as a powerful and malicious king, who does not care, as long as he implements his plan, costing their lives four or five hundred thousand men, and that others pull out of their days in want and tears. Yet far from the idea that the best possible worlds are solace, it drives despair from the philosophers who embrace them. The problem of good and evil remains an inexplicable mess for those who seek goodwill.

Read more:
Thoughts and prayers: miracles, Christianity and a prayer of rain

moving forward

What is Voltaire’s solution? Surprisingly, he was not despair. Instead, it was a gentle resignation, philosophical sera, sera. This means the quiet cultivation of our gardens, as God originally intended for us in the first Garden of Eden. We would have been like Adam and Eve.

Therefore, there was a avoidance of gentle philosophical speculation about how God’s ways of justifying man (such a piece of writing). Instead, he called on Voltaire to do a little good in the hope that we’d get a little better.

This is a solution that may not satisfy the faithful with the goodness of God. But it will resonate with those who, in isolation at home, quietly plow the soil, work on a vegetable patch, or mow our lawns with contentment. Simple but somewhat satisfying!

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