Abstract

Leibniz claimed that God would actualize the best possible world. This claim has been challenged on several grounds: David Blumenfeld argues that there might not be a best possible world; Alvin Plantinga argues that God might be unable to actualize the best possible world, that it might be that every free creature God could create would freely go wrong at least once; Robert Adams argues that God need not actualize the best possible world, claiming that the only obvious grounds for supposing God must actualize the best are that God would be wronging someone or exhibiting a character defect if he actualized a less excellent world; Thomas Flint argues that God must not be limited to a single option in his creative choice for God's actions to have moral significance. I argue that if Plantinga is right, this simply shifts the question to "Must God actualize the best world he can?"; Adams' argument that God would not be wronging anyone if he actualized a less excellent world is convincing, but his argument that God would not be exhibiting a character defect if he actualized a world less excellent than the best relies on a misapplication of the doctrine of grace; the freedom that Flint ascribes to God is not morally significant. I defend the view of God as creating the best possible world. While rejecting a Lewis-type account of possible worlds, I argue that the almost universal assumption that God will create only one cosmos is false. I argue God would actualize the possible world containing every cosmos with a favorable balance of good over evil, and that, while this conclusion may seem startling, it is actually the view orthodoxy would have reached if it had accepted the consequences of its own principles! I argue we would be justified in concluding this is not part of the best possible world only if we could successfully argue this cosmos contains an unfavorable balance of good over evil