Voltaire’s fury is aimed not at nature — but at theologies and philosophies that try to dress up disaster as part of a divine master plan. He asks what any honest observer must: If God is good and all-powerful, how could He allow this?
He concluded that God, if He exists, is not a moral being, and certainly not a present help in time of trouble. Rather than await divine rescue, Voltaire suggested that our only hope is human effort, modest improvement, and pragmatic reason. “We must cultivate our garden,” he wrote in Candide, rejecting both heavenly idealism and fatalism. Just do what good you can, and don’t expect answers from above.
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