ABSTRACT
After a more general discussion of the attempts by what he calls “hard” and “soft theology” and the “war on science” to explain, sometimes justify, or even excuse human suffering, Harry Keyishian in “How Truth Matters” critiques, along with Voltaire, the attempt by Rousseau and the Deist Joseph de Maistre to explain the Lisbon earthquake of 1735, in which some 30,000 to 5,000 people lost their lives, as God’s punishment for their sins, or the result of “poor city planning,” or a semi-tragic event where their deaths allowed some “to escape some amorphous greater suffering.” Voltaire exposed the absurdity of such attempts to deny the heart-wrenching facts of the event and, while expressing sympathy for the victims, found his Deist faith neither reified nor shaken by the event.
