Voltaire and the Enlightenment Essay

Throughout the Enlightenment, philosophes have made discoveries as well as have ideas that have revolutionized society as we know it today. The Enlightenment took place during the 17th and 18th century in Europe. During this period, philospohes, or philosophers, would discuss different questions and brought new, intellecutal ideas that brought out the Age of Reason. There is many different points of view of what the philosophes main idea was during the enlightenment. The main idea of the philosophes was greater individual freedom. This idea was a key part of their thinking in three areas: government, religion and women's rights.

The “Age of Reason”, during Europe was a time in history where people started to confide in eachother and themselves when it came to reason and logic; and it was a period when creative ability came to light and it was encouraged. This paper will examine Voltaire 's Candide and the way Voltaire mocks religion and how this outlines Enlightenment thought.

Voltaire once stated, “ God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.” The three thinkers I picked to write about the Enlightenment was René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Voltaire. René Descartes was important to the Enlightenment because he used math and logic to question religions and peoples belief in faith. Baruch Spinoza was important to the Enlightenment because he questioned religion. Voltaire was important to the Enlightenment because he was the one specialized in satire during the Enlightenment. The reason I chose Descartes, Spinoza, and Voltaire because during the Enlightenment they had a big impact religiously during the Enlightenment.

Voltaire the philosopher and writer is famous for several well-known pieces of satire about the French. ‘Philosophical letters’ written by Voltaire in 1721 that made the point that England was a better country all while attacking the church, monarchy, aristocracy, and current French society at the time. Voltaire’s work was not well appreciated by the church and nobility that he mocked and even made him go on the run. The book ‘Candide’ was written in 1759 as an attack on the representation of French society.

During the eighteenth century, Enlightenment philosophers had put their thoughts and ideas into the minds of society. They were able to profoundly influence their opinions to members of their governments and religion. This allowed them to question their daily life and rebel against the actions of both their politics and religious officials. The philosophy of religious tolerance was the most fascinating because it had made me realize that the critical Christian religious ideas were considered unusual to some members of their faith which led them to challenge their leaders. First of all, a fascinating philosophy to me was that of Voltaire who argued that the Catholic church was corrupt because of their practices amongst its members.

While in Paris, Voltaire resumed writing numerous plays, many of which dictated against the injustices in the world. However before long, Voltaire fled the country again due to an essay he composed in England containing studies of great English philosophers and their ideas, called the English Letters. The book was condemned as "scandalously contrary to religion, morals and society," then burned publicly in Paris.4 Voltaire’s rebellious ideas were constantly threatened and attacked, his only response was more essays and letters more threatening and rebellious, digging himself into a deeper hole of trouble.

Within the hundred or so pages of Voltaire’s Candide resides proof of all four values of the Enlightenment: hope, progress, natural law, and reason. Being a man of the enlightenment, it makes sense for Voltaire’s novel to include these values. Using ironic humor and satire, Voltaire managed to say what he needed to say without being directly responsible for having said it. As Candide reads like an adventure story, there is a lot of dialogue between characters. Through these conversations and stories, Voltaire’s Candide shows support for the enlightenment principle of reason (critical, rational thought) with regards to organized religion but shows very little support for the enlightenment principle of progress (change for the better) with regards to female tropes and sexism.

He addresses different groups relating each point to something they can understand and relate to. In “Chapter XXII. Prayer to God,” he expresses his distrust to earthly rulers and only looks up to “the God of all beings, of all worlds” (Primary Source 259). Once again Voltaire illustrates his deep desires of a world without corrupt monarchs and acceptance of all religions. Being faithful to one’s church is not enough for Voltaire, people must take it into their own hands to accept one another as brothers and sisters from the same

Voltaire, and many other Enlightenment thinkers, rejected the dogmas of orthodox Christianity in favor of Deism and humanism. Voltaire 's commitment to Deism and his attacks on Christianity are readily prevalent in Candide, shining through especially well in the contrast between the inhabitants of Eldorado and the inhabitants in the largely Christian countries of Europe and the New World and

Do some research on Voltaire and his beliefs as well as the era in which he wrote, which was the Age of Enlightenment. Be sure to cite your sources of information.

The old man answered that they would be frantic on the off chance that they did. The religion that the general population of El Dorado had was much less difficult than any of the European religions. Voltaire talked about this religion to show how the pastorate were superfluous, and here and there even hurtful, and how a straightforward religion may benefit Europeans better. Voltaire does not go against the Church because he was nefarious and wanted to indulge in sin, but because he felt that without undermining the power of the Church he would have gotten nowhere. we should also take into account the significance that the Church had on the people during this time period.

When Petrarch divided history into three periods – the classical zenith, the age of cultural rot and decay, and the age in which there would be a revival of classical values and art – he did so with the conviction that he was living in the “middle age.” This division was wholly secular, and yet Protestant leaders of the Reformation began and encouraged the study of the Middle Ages. They sought to prove that the Catholic church of the 16th century was doctrinally deviant from the church of apostolic times and pointed to the Middle Ages as the beginning of that deviance. Voltaire studied the Middle Ages in the eighteenth century to scorn its thinkers for their lack of reason – a result, in his view, of their emphasis on religion. These perceptions

Voltaire once said “God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well” (“Voltaire Quotes”). Taking his own advice and using it in life, Voltaire wrote countless numbers of books, poems, pamphlets and plays that criticized and analyzed the surroundings of his time living. The philosophe took his personal life experiences and fixated them into many writings such as Candide, The Age of Louis XIV and Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations. Voltaire’s work was influenced by the economic and political environment in France, his exile to England, and by one of his lovers the “divine Emile”.

The legacy of François Marie Arouet, or Voltaire is not only a vast collection of writings, but also a world that has been radically and directly affected by these works and the activities of their author. While Voltaire did not create many of the ideas he professed, his success at disseminating these is unparalleled. He summed up with the most panache of anyone of his day the central issues of the Enlightenment, and rallied with the greatest fervour to see his beliefs tangibly realised.

An enlightened thinker once said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Voltaire was one of the most praised philosophers of his time as he impacted the views many people had on religion, freedom of speech, and literature. His most famous works include the Candide, Poem on Lisbon Disaster, Zadig, and Micromegas, “These along with twenty other philosophical tales made Voltaire the master of one of the French Enlightenment's most fecund and innovative literary forms,” (Riley 1). Voltaire changed the way people thought about the Catholic Church through his plays, poems, and works mocking the injustices and flaws of society and religion itself in his time.