Theodicy:
Voltaire was satirizing not the Enlightenment hope for progress but its opposite, the religiouos rationalization for suffering called theodicy, according to which God had no choice but to allow epidemics and massacres because a world without them is metaphysically impossible. [ “Progressophobia: Why Things Are Better Than You Think They Are,” Steven Pinker, Skeptical Inquirer (May / June 2018, print only)]
