Voltaire writes in Candide about the travels and experiences of a former servant named Candide and how his view of the world changes on his journey. One of Candide’s closest companions is Pangloss, a philosopher, and he believes all that happens in life is for the best. On conversing with a Familiar of the Inquisition, Pangloss brings up the point that the fall of man was necessary and good for this world. The fall of man and the curse entering the world is the for the best becomes it helps reveal the nature of God and provides humans with a deeper relationship with Him.
Pangloss brings up his philosophy that all is for the best shortly after he and Candide experience an earthquake in Lisbon, and he chalks up the occurrence to his philosophy since he believes the best outcome in life was for it to happen. The Familiar then assumes that the philosopher does “not believe in original sin; for if all is for the best there has been neither Fall nor punishment” (20). This statement means that if everything that happens is truly for the best, then a punishment would not be a punishment because it was best that it happen, and events that are actually good are not viewed in that light. Pangloss then says in response that “the Fall and curse of man necessarily entered into the system of the best of worlds” (20). While his philosophy is wrong overall, because it is saying that all the evil is actually the opposite, the fall and curse are actually for the best. Being able to walk side by side with God was amazing, there is no denying that. However, if the fall never happened, how would our knowledge and interactions with God be different? We would not have experienced His forgiveness. We might know that He is a forgiving God, but never actually seeing him forgive, we probably would not fully understand what that meant, especially since there was originally no knowledge of wrongdoing among humans, and forgiveness follows committing one. The same goes for qualities like grace and mercy. If we were not imperfect creatures, He would have no reason to withhold punishment or give us blessings despite not deserving them. Would we fully understand the depth of His love if we had never experienced separation? Most likely not, because He would not have reached out to us in our brokenness and showed that He still desires to have a relationship with us. The fall helped more fully reveal attributes of God that before would have been known but never experienced.
Why did God not just take away our ability to choose, thereby removing the issue of us falling in the first place? By sinning against God, Adam and Eve demonstrated that humans have the ability to make choices for themselves. However, removing this attribute would take away from being able to have a meaningful relationship with God because then we would become like mindless drones who follow God because we have to, not because we want to. He would rather have us follow Him willingly than mindlessly, because choosing Him means we desire a relationship. The Familiar addresses a similar topic, saying “you do not then believe in liberty?” to which Pangloss responds “liberty is consistent with absolute necessity, for it is necessary that we should be free” (20). If the fall happened because it was for the best, then does that not mean we actually do not have the right to choose? Adam and Eve still had the liberty to choose to eat the fruit. They did not have to do it because it was ordained for the best, and by doing so showed that liberty. This is where Pangloss’s response comes in, for it is necessary that humanity should be free in order for us to experience a more full relationship with God. The ability to make choices for ourselves is also a trait of humanity, and if God had not granted it to us, we would be less human and not have an actual connection with God. He did not take away liberty so pain and suffering could be avoided, but because He recognized the benefit that would come from it--that we could know Him on a deeper level. Therefore, liberty and necessity go hand in hand so that the relationship that God wished to have with His children could become a reality.
The fact that the curse of man is a necessary event tied to liberty is not a popular conclusion until it is understood. People like to think that there is an alternative, though there really is not. With our ability to choose we would have messed up eventually, though we like to think otherwise, and as already stated, removing our liberty is out of the question. As seen, once the benefits that have come out of it are clearly understood, it is easier to agree with because it shows the fact that human failure resulted in a deeper experience with God. After all, while Adam and Eve might have walked with God in the garden, if they had not sinned, we would not have experienced the greatest act of love, mercy, and grace possible, which is the sacrifice of Jesus. The fall is then viewed as an evil which resulted in blessing.
The fall and curse of man happening made for the best possible world because we are able to experience God’s nature differently and more fully than we would have otherwise. Certain attributes of God are more easily seen and experienced, such as grace, love, and forgiveness. Instead of taking away humans’ ability to choose to avoid having the fall, He let us have it because our liberty is a necessity so that we could better see him and be more complete versions of ourselves. Despite protests, God used the punishment of man to bring about a greater good.
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