Voltaire criticized religious persecution and defended belief in a supreme being. Both commitments are visible in his writings. His Philosophical Dictionary describes a creator associated with justice, while his Treatise on Tolerance uses a criminal case to show how religious prejudice can influence a court. Born François-Marie Arouet in Paris in 1694 and educated by Jesuits, he went on to examine religion through fiction, essays and public campaigns. University of Oxford Voltaire Foundation, biography · Voltaire, Théiste in the Dictionnaire philosophique · Voltaire, Traité sur la tolérance (1763)
What Voltaire meant by a theist
Voltaire is often described as a deist. In the dictionary entry Théiste, he presents someone convinced that a powerful and good supreme being created living things and judges human actions. This person believes God acts justly while acknowledging that the manner of divine action lies beyond human knowledge. That account leaves room for providence. It also links religion to justice and to helping others, commitments that can be discussed without first settling questions of ceremony or ecclesiastical authority. Voltaire, Théiste in the Dictionnaire philosophique
The Calas case and the cost of intolerance
Jean Calas was a Protestant merchant in Toulouse. After his son Marc-Antoine was found dead, an accusation arose that the family had killed him to prevent a conversion to Catholicism. Calas was condemned and executed in 1762. Voltaire helped campaign to reopen the case, publishing his Treatise on Tolerance in 1763. The judgment was overturned and Calas and his family were formally rehabilitated in 1765. The case gave Voltaire a concrete question to ask about public institutions. How could an accusation become persuasive when it fit what people already feared about a religious minority? University of Oxford Voltaire Foundation, biography · French Ministry of Justice, the Calas case · Voltaire, Traité sur la tolérance (1763)
In chapter 23, the treatise becomes a prayer addressed to the God of all beings. Voltaire asks that small differences in language, dress and observance cease to become occasions for hatred. The form of the chapter matters. He uses a shared relation to God as a reason for people of different convictions to spare one another from persecution. Voltaire, Traité sur la tolérance (1763)
What Candide satirizes
In Candide, an earthquake strikes Lisbon and authorities stage an auto-da-fé as if punishing people could prevent further earthquakes. The episode is fiction, set against a real disaster. It ridicules the confidence with which authorities assign a cause to catastrophe and prescribe a ceremony as its remedy. The philosopher Pangloss’s insistence on finding a reason for everything gives the satire another target. A theory that explains suffering away can dull attention to the people who are suffering. University of Oxford Voltaire Foundation, biography · Voltaire, Candide, chapters V–VI
A sentence often attributed to Voltaire
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” comes from Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s The Friends of Voltaire. Hall, writing as S. G. Tallentyre, used the line to describe his attitude toward the persecution of Helvétius over his book. Voltaire’s own writing on tolerance is available in the treatise and gives a fuller account of his reasoning. Voltaire, Traité sur la tolérance (1763) · Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire, chapter on Helvétius
Conclusion
Voltaire’s belief in a just creator informed an ethics of tolerance. His response to the Calas case showed what he thought was at stake when prejudice entered a court. Candide tested the confidence of people who claimed to explain suffering. Read together, these works show why his criticism of religious authority and his belief in God could occupy the same body of writing.
Published by Ralf. About our editorial process.
