ABSTRACT
Voltaire is an interesting example of the available complexities of interaction between Enlightenment scientific methodology and the critical reception of religion within a single philosopher's thought. The suggestion in Voltaire's solution to the problem of evil in philosophical theodicy, if he can be understood as offering such a thing, is that the only logical possibility of upholding God's existence in light of the problem of natural evil is to admit that God is an imperfect creator. Voltaire's French Enlightenment philosophy of religion stands in curious opposition to that of some of his noteworthy contemporaries, some of whom wield the problem of natural evil to argue instead for the nonexistence of God. Voltaire's response to the problem of evil is quite different from the rationalist Leibniz or the early Church Father theologian Lactantius. Voltaire turns natural evil into a political program for the greater humanitarian good, by relaxing the hold of religious bigotry on the freedom of religion.
