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Paul et Virginie, or the Enigma of Evil: The Double Theodicy of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
- Journal of the History of Ideas
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Volume 79, Number 4, October 2018
- pp. 593-612
- 10.1353/jhi.2018.0036
- Article
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Abstract:
This article aims to show how Bernardin de Saint-Pierre—whose philosophical and theological thought is generally overlooked by scholars—provides an original solution to the problem of the existence of evil. A comparative reading of the systematic discussion of Providence that animates The Studies of Nature, his major theoretical work, and Paul and Virginia, a true Romanesque application of the philosophical treatise, brings out a double theodicy. In fact, Saint-Pierre establishes a fruitful synergy between Rousseau's anthropodicy, which provides a social and historical justification of evil, and Leibniz's eschatology, aimed at its metaphysical and otherworldly justification.