The prophet Isaiah as depicted in Christian doctrine, implied thatGod is ultimately responsible for everything including evil as stated inIsa.45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and createevil: I the Lord do all these things". In the Bible, the story of Jobillustrates that according to specific Christian beliefs, all have sinnedand fallen short of the perfection of God (Romans 3:23), and because we arenot perfect and commit sin, the punishment is mortality. Many religious andphilosophical traditions agree that evil behavior itself is a transgressionthat results from the imperfect human condition. The doctrine of originalsin, as articulated by Saint Augustine's interpretation of Saint Paul,provides that the fall caused a fundamental change in human nature, so thatall descendants of Adam are born in sin, "For all have sinned and fall shortof the glory of God" and can only be redeemed by divine grace. Sacrifice wasthe only means by which humanity could be redeemed after the Fall andbecause "God so loved the world that he sent his only son (Jesus Christ whowas without sin and died on the cross as the ultimate redemption for the sinof humankind) that whoever believes in him should not perish, but haveeverlasting life".Evil has also been an important aspect to the existence of free willand human agency. Others argue that evil itself is ultimately based in anignorance of truth (i.e. human value, sanctity, divinity). A variety ofEnlightenment thinkers have alleged the opposite, by suggesting that evil islearned as a consequence of tyrannical social structures. To examine evil one must differentiate between the differingconcepts. Moral evil results from a perpetrator, one who consciouslyinflicts the evil. It is the result of any morally negative event caused bythe intentional action or inaction of an agent, for example a person(Goldberg, 1989). An example of a moral evil might be a malicious murder, orany other evil event for which someone can be held responsible or sinful. Inbasic terms it is evil caused by humans either doing something they oughtnot to do, or not something they ought to do. This concept can be contrastedwith Natural evil in which a bad event occurs without the intervention of anagent, where natural evil only has victims and is predominantly taken to bethe effect of natural processes. The "evil" that is identified is evil onlyfrom the perspective of those affected and who perceive it as an affliction.An example of this natural evil was the shocking earthquake that occurredNovember 1, 1755 in Portugal. An estimated figure of 30,000 to 40,000 peoplewere killed, 15,000 of them in the city of Lisbon. This catastrophe was anenigma for the theologians and those who subscribed to the philosophy ofoptimism. Theologians, depending upon the concept of Original Sin andpresent-day wickedness, attributed the earthquake to God's wrath visitedupon sinful people (The Protestant clergy argued that the quake had occurredbecause most of the people of Lisbon were Roman Catholics). Alleged hereticswere forcibly baptized, and an auto-da-fé was instituted with the aim ofpreventing more earthquakes. Voltaire was a predominant figure among thephilosophers who searched for other answers (Wootton, 2000). Voltaire was a deist, believing that God must exist to create ourcomplex world and control morals, but he did not believe in the Godportrayed in the Bible (Wootton, 2000). Voltaire did not see how a good Godcould create a world full of innocent suffering (however Kant would laterargue that God, along with many other subjects of classical metaphysics,exceeded the limits of human knowledge).The Lisbon earthquake led to a retraction of the scope of moralevil. Though some clergymen reacted to the Lisbon earthquake by seeking areason and justification in human sins for this natural catastrophe, mostintellectuals refused to do so and philosophers separated and distinguishedbetween natural and moral evils. Jean Jacques Rousseau played a central rolein this shift, by showing that natural evils have no inherent significanceand limited moral evil to the scope of human behavior.Voltaire famously argued that a God which would allow such a naturalevil to occur could not be called benevolent. He denounced the optimistssuch as Leibniz who contemplated the universe through the lens of theodicyand believed their reconciliation of the problem of evil was simply naive.The character of Pangloss in Candide was intended to parody such affections.This leads to one of the great areas of debate in the philosophy ofreligion, the problem of evil (Wootton, 2000). Jean Jacques Rousseau retorted to Voltaire's criticism of theoptimists by pointing out that the value judgment required in order todeclare the Lisbon Earthquake a natural evil ignored the fact that the humanendeavor of the construction and organization of the city of Lisbon was alsoto blame for the horrors recounted as they had contributed to the level ofsuffering. “You must acknowledge,” Rousseau declared, “that it was notnature that piled up their twenty thousand houses of six or seven floorseach; and that if the inhabitants of this great city had been spread outmore evenly, the destruction would have been a lot less, and perhapsinsignificant. How many poor creatures died in this disaster because onewanted to go back for his clothes, another for his papers, a third for hismoney?” (Wootton, 2000). Evil, was the result of human corruption, but notof malicious will. Rousseau does not imply that anyone intended to murderthe residents of Lisbon, and that “while the evil of the Lisbon disaster wasman-made, it was not made by evil men” (Wootton, 2000).Rousseau explains that the sources of evil are not from the sourceof God because “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author ofnature” but “everything” includes man, the natural goodness of man is theunifying premise of Rousseau’s work. Rousseau emphatically rejects thedoctrine of original sin. Rousseau insists that men are good by nature andthat evil is man-made. How can men be responsible for evil when they arenaturally good? This is Rousseau’s “anthropodicy” problem which laterreplaces the theodicy problem in Rousseau’s work. His reply to this issue isa complex story of human corruption. Evil arises through the interactionbetween unintentional changes in man’s natural circumstances, the historicaldevelopment of the species, and individual human psychology. We become “evilas we come to inhabit the artificial world of human society” (Melzer, 1990).Voltaire did not believe, as Leibniz and Pope did, that evil is partof the divine plan, a necessary element of an ordered world that contributesto the goodness of the whole. Similarly, belief in original sin isinseparable from the idea of the permanence of evil in the world. Any systemof beliefs that locates the source of evil in the human passions or in humannature also supports skepticism about moral progress. The belief that evilcan be eradicated entails the idea that the source of evil is something thatis subject to change. One possibility, then, for those who see evil ascontingent and eliminable, is to conceive of evil as the product of systemicforces. This is the position that derived from Rousseau. It is similar tothe reverse of the recognized Kantian view that, with a capableinstitutional edifice, a nation of serpents can be well-guided. InRousseau’s world, even a nation of supporters will be poorly governed, giventhe institutional systems of inequality and oppression that have developedhistorically. Men born exemplary will not long remain so in corruptedsocieties (Melzer, 1990). His view has had, and continues to have a powerfulimpact on modern thinking about the character of evil and particularly aboutmoral responsibility. Rousseau opens up the possibility that there issometimes evil in the world without evil people; without individual agentswho are responsible for it. His view is echoed in the acceptance with whichwe speak of “oppression,” or “exploitation” rather than speaking of “evil”(Melzer, 1990). The former are conceived as widespread, often aloof forces,whereas the language of “evil” immediately associate individual“evil-doers.” If the problem is identified as one of “injustice” or“exploitation,” we are not necessarily called upon to hate or to punishparticular individuals as perpetrators. One can indulge righteous angeragainst the system without the bad conscience that might accompany hatredand vengeance towards real people (Perhaps the atrocities committed inDarfur or Rwanda and the lack of media coverage could be characterized inthis fashion?). Or, in a positive notion, one can work to correct evils,while holding out a hand to those who otherwise might be dismissed asenemies, when evils are understood to be systemic (Melzer, 1990). Voltaire's pessimism appears to become more pronounced, even beforethe earthquake Voltaire had rejected general optimism. His conviction hadbeen influenced by his age, continued illness, the death of Mme. du Châteletand his rejection by Louis XV that had led to his exile in Switzerland. Thegreat earthquake provided incontestable evidence that the “all is well”doctrine was blather. All reflective people, he believed, would no longerlook for a safe life in this world under the guidance of a benign andimplicated deity who would reward the exemplary. Voltaire was confident thatluck played a major part in life, and that people were basically weak,helpless, and ignorant of their destiny. The optimists may hope for ahappier state, but that was the logical limit of their optimism. On November24, 1755, he wrote that it now would be hard to see how the laws of motionlead to such awful catastrophes in the "best of all possible worlds." Healso commented how mere chance often determined the fate of the individual,and wondered what the clergy and official of the inquisition would say, iftheir palace still stood in Lisbon (Wootton, 2000).Voltaire emphatically renounced Alexander Pope and endorsed a muchmore skeptical view. He denoted that the belief in optimism set up afatalistic system that destroyed a whole category of widely accepted ideassuch as that relating to free will. If indeed this is the best of allpossible worlds, Voltaire argued then there was no such thing as OriginalSin, because human nature could not be corrupt and it then follows thathumanity would have no need for a Redeemer. This conception is similar tothe end of Chapter 5 in Candide, where Pangloss engages in a verse with "afamiliar of the Inquisition". Voltaire also asserted that if all tragediescontribute to the general good, humankind has no need for future happinessand therefore should not search for the causes of moral and physical evil.More important still, if such is the case, “man is as unimportant in theeyes of God as are the very animals that seek to devour him, and this iscounter to the complete negation of the dignity of man” (Goldberg 1989). ToVoltaire, man was not part of a chain, assigned a place in the hierarchicalscheme of things: at least he had hope in the future. Voltaire also opposedthe idea of a logical chain of events; the earthquake provided sufficientevidence for him to reject the concept of universal order which was anuninterrupted succession and a necessity. Voltaire concluded that optimism,so far from being a source of comfort, was an ideology of despair (Goldberg,1989). Voltaire could not comprehend why an omnipotent God could notachieve His/Her purpose in another way? Perhaps the earthquake could haveoccurred in an unpopulated area. In his poem, Voltaire rejected the doctrineof necessity, as it provided no comfort for him. He noted that all livingthings seem to be doomed to live in a cruel world, one filled with pain. Howthen could he believe in providentialism? Or say that all is well?Voltaire's alarming conclusion is that man knows nothing, that nature has nomessage for us. Man is a weak, groping creature whose body will decay andwhose fate is to experience one grief after another: Rousseau criticized Voltaire in a letter sent on August 18, 1756arguing he was applying science to spiritual questions, and argued asoptimists did that evil is necessary to the existence of the universe, andthat particular evils form the general good. Rousseau implied that Voltairemust either renounce the concept of Providence or conclude that it isbeneficial (Goldberg, 1989). Neither of the two philosophers was under the illusion that theylived in the ‘best of all possible worlds. Both confronted one of the mostdebated problems of eighteenth-century culture, the problem of ‘theodicy’,which raised the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil andhuman wickedness in the world with the existence of an omnipotent andbeneficent Providence. In Voltaire’s Poem on the Lisbon Earthquake, the author takes issuewith the optimism of Liebnitz and Pope. “All may be well; that hope can mansustain,/All now is well, tis an illusion vain”. In order to preserve thishope, which underlies every conceivable program of reform, without impugningthe prerogatives of omnipotent Providence, Voltaire is constrained,nonetheless, to declare the origin of evil to be inexplicable. It is with this conclusion that Rousseau reveals hisdissatisfaction. If one regards the origin of evil as inexplicable, it meansshouldering Providence with tasks that are ours alone, if we would act toalter existing reality rather than rest content with the hope that one dayeverything will come right of its own accord.According to Rousseau, none of the motivating emotions associatedwith amour-propre (envy, ambition, jealousy, and so forth) are natural inhuman beings in the sense that they are not part of what human beings areoriginally, if for no other reason than that Rousseau depicts man asoriginally living in isolation, and these are necessarily social passions.Yet, amour-propre seems to arise inescapably once human beings are broughttogether (Melzer, 1990). The evidential problem from evil (even if God exists, how could heallow so much evil?), I would choose to answer that we may not be in a goodposition to assess what the limits of the consequences of Adam’s sin shouldbe. Voltaire believed that instead of looking for a perfect society, one inwhich there was no evil and one in which he did not believe existed,citizens should spend their time and energy trying to perfect the society inwhich they had been placed, for each person must tend their own garden.