The Influence Of Alexander Pope's Essay On Man

From the 18th century, a period of reason and marvelous prose, emerged one of the world’s greatest essays which formed many peoples’ theology of the time and even earned admiration from those who disagreed with it, Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man. His work helped popularize a new optimistic philosophy and many people drew towards it because it projected a positive message, that God made the world follow his plan. Pope firmly believed that man must come to understand God through reason, a common belief of his time, in his work he tries to “vindicate the ways of God to man,” (L. 16). Voltaire, Pope’s antithesis, although admiring Pope, preached a polarized message, he profoundly believed that we inhabit a colossal mess of a planet and must fix it ourselves, without God. Even though we live in the world Voltaire describes, a world of disorder and violence, and his points seem very valid, Pope’s message must hold true. Although Voltaire’s argument also attracted masses, after reading Pope’s poem one will see that his views adhered much closer to Christian beliefs, due to his religious background, and therefore his statements land better with a Christian audience and align with my own theology. Despite disagreements between religions about different gods, roughly …show more content…
Vast masses believe that some god exists, and most religions place their trust in an all-powerful god who can control creation, so billions of people support the basic ideals behind Pope’s argument. Our world also could never continue to exist without a higher power to maintain some degree of stability; we would destroy ourselves and fall into a world where Voltaire’s message becomes true. In the end, we live in a flawed world, but God must have a plan that we follow because without him we could not continue to