History without redemption: the oposition to Bossuet and the genesis of Voltaire’s philosophy of history

Abstract

The present work intends to shed light on some elements of Voltaire's conception on history (and on the historian). It does not intend to follow a chronological order of the formation of a philosophy of history in Voltaire's, but only to present an aspect of that genesis, that is, the criticism on the theology of history, which grounds that point of view. There is no doubt on the fact that error constitutes man. The very same with superstition, fanaticism, hate, crime, war, and every effect of error. However, through the fighting against error truth has been cultivated. The fight against error is man's mobile and the same war can be seen in history: the history of the progress of the spirit. Man is not eternally condemned to ignorance, so that there is no sense in a redemption history, that would be the result of man's incapacity of overcoming error. A history without redemption, that is one of the most important ambitions of Voltaire's thought. With it comes the desire of eliminating the miraculous and the mysterious that covers the understanding of history, the belief in the fantastic and in the burden of an original fault.