Voltaire Question 5: Alex, Michael, Elijah

What is Voltaire's view of theodicy?

Voltaire's opinion of the creation of evil is that man, by himself, created it. The origin world, pure and perfect after G-d's creation of it, was deemed unfit by man. Mankind tried to perfect an already perfect world, causing disputes, which led to chaos and the spread of evil ways.

Synthesizing The Question Above With:
1) Was Voltaire an optimist or pessimist?
2) How does Voltaire use Utopias in Candide?

Voltaire uses the idea of theodicy in Candide. Theodicy is the origin of evil in the world. By focusing on evils of the world, one could think that Voltaire was a pessimist. This is because Voltaire puts Candide in almost every situation and/or society possible and yet all of the ones that people rule in are corrupt or evil. This is an example of Failing Utopias. The only true utopia in Candide is El Dorado but that society is almost impossible to create now that we have taken our societies this far away from that idea. This also shows how Voltaire is a pessimist because he knows that the only way to have a perfect society is by having El Dorado come to life but he knows this to be impossible so he is basically portraying to us that it is not possible to get rid of evil. Tying these ideas together we conclude that our opinion of Voltaire is he thinks evil was created by man, and is pessimistic about ever creating a Utopia.