Everything Does (Not) Happen for a Reason

            Most of us have heard the common expression “everything happens for a reason.” Usually, people say this statement in an attempt to make another person feel better when he is going through a hardship, such as the loss of a loved one or discovering that he has been diagnosed with cancer. In Voltaire’s Candide, the philosopher Pangloss has a similar sentiment, saying that “everything is necessarily for the best end” (Voltaire 2). In instances where the characters face adversity, such as Candide’s expulsion from the castle (Voltaire 3) and the drowning of Candide’s friend the Anabaptist Jacques, (Voltaire 12), Pangloss takes an optimistic stance and tells him that these events could not have occurred any other way. Pangloss’s argument that every circumstance happens for the best end is incorrect and inconsistent with reality because he does not account for physical and moral evil, and his argument is contradicted by the tragedies in the characters’ lives.

Pangloss does not believe that there is evil in the world, and he promotes the idea that everything is made for an end, and therefore, everything points to the best end. In an attempt to show that everything is used for the best purpose, he explains that there is no effect without a cause, using the absurd example that “noses were made to wear spectacles” (Voltaire 2). Later in the story when Pangloss explains that everything in nature is good and for the best end, he encounters resistance from Jacques the Anabaptist. Jacques disagrees with Pangloss because he thinks that man has corrupted nature as “they have become wolves…and made bayonets and canons to destroy one another” (Voltaire 11). According to Pangloss, Jaques simply does not understand the purpose an evil event is supposed to serve and the good this act will bring. He makes the generalization that “private misfortunes make up the general good,” and the “more private misfortunes there are, the more all is well” (Voltaire 11). Though Pangloss’s reasoning is true in some circumstances, he makes a mistake when he assumes that all scenarios are “arranged for the best” (Voltaire 7). The following example aligns with Pangloss’s philosophy: a child is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and undergoes a variety of experimental treatments. Eventually, the child recovers and is cancer-free, and the experimental treatment that he was given is used to help other cancer patients. The child’s private misfortune—his battle with cancer—makes up the general good because the research from his treatment helps others. In contrast, there are some private misfortunes that do not contribute to the common good. Some cancer patients suffer for months and eventually die from their disease. Because their cancer treatment does not produce results that could help others, they do not contribute to the general good. Their death is not for the best end like Pangloss suggests. 

Similarly, the characters in Candide endure tragedies, which is evidence that contradicts Pangloss’s philosophy, but he continues to maintain his optimistic standpoint. When Candide and Pangloss travel to Lisbon, an earthquake destroys the city, causing “roofs [to] tumble down upon the foundation…and thirty thousand inhabitants…[to be] crushed beneath the ruins” (Voltaire 12). Encountering citizens who have lost everything from the earthquake, Pangloss assures them that this natural disaster was necessary. If a volcano erupted in Lisbon, it “could not be anywhere else” because “it is impossible that things should not be where they are. For all is well” (Voltaire 13). Though they might not understand why the earthquake destroyed the city and killed thousands of people, Pangloss says that it was somehow necessary in order to achieve an unknown result, a result that is for the best. His philosophy seems absurd in light of the characters’ misfortune. Even Pangloss’s own experiences do not line up with his beliefs. When Pangloss contracts syphilis from Paquette, a maid at the castle, he loses an eye and an ear from the disease, yet he draws the conclusion that his disease is “indispensable” and “a necessary ingredient” in the best of worlds (Voltaire 10). If Columbus had not brought syphilis from America to Europe, Pangloss explains, then they would not have the luxuries of  “either chocolate or cochineal” (Voltaire 10). He tries to justify his misfortune by showing how syphilis is connected to good things from America. Not only does Pangloss ignore the bad that exists in the world, but he twists evil to make it appear good. Because he justifies the physical and moral sin in the world, he is able to excuse his affair with Paquette. He does not want to deal with his own sin, so he takes himself out of reality and denies evil’s existence by arguing that there is only good. Later, when Candide asks Pangloss if he still upholds his viewpoint after he has been beaten, sold into slavery, and unsucessfully hanged, Pangloss replies that he is “still of his first opinion” (Voltaire 90). He repeatedly ignores evidence that disputes his teachings because “it is not fitting for [him] to recant” since he is a philosopher (Voltaire 90). 

At the end of Candide,Pangloss does not even believe his own philosophy, a philosophy that he has held on to despite the misfortunes in his life and Candide’s. The basis for Pangloss’s philosophy stems out of the belief that evil does not exist, and his arguments are repeatedly shown as unrealistic and illogical. He tries to justify the horrific events that unfold in the story by assigning an optimistic reason to them. Because he is too prideful to admit he is wrong, he continues to “maintain that everything [is] wonderful” (Voltaire 93). Pangloss’s philosophy can be seen as a perversion of Romans 8:28 which says that “God works for the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8.28). Instead of reading this verse as everything occurs out of absolute necessity and for the best end, like Pangloss believes, Christians understand that there is evil in the world, and we live in imperfect circumstances. However, we know that God has the ability to take unfortunate circumstances and use them for good.