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elisgardenswartz

Do We Live in the Best of All Possible Worlds?

Updated: Aug 22

Note: The definition of possible worlds I use in this essay is as follows: complete and distinct ways in which reality could exist, culminating in a full collection of every possible way in which reality could have unfolded, including every possible set of events, and every possible choice from every possible individual.


It has been posited by some that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Perhaps the most notable individual who has posited this is the polymath G.W Leibniz. This postulation, specifically as it was put forth by Leibniz, is a “theodicy,” which is an attempt at reconciling the idea that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, with the existence of evil in the world, both moral evil perpetrated by humans, as well as natural evil; one example of the former is murder, and one example of the latter is a natural disaster. In this essay, I will seek to critically analyze this theodicy and its means of counteracting the problem of evil, as well as the framework that it presumes, which posits that there exists a numerable, or perhaps even an innumerable, amount of possible worlds, of which one—the one which was the best of the bunch—was actualized.

There can be a multitude of critiques that can arise—and have in fact arisen—against the proposition that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Some are brash but rhetorically effective, and others are more refined, and seek to tackle certain technical aspects of the postulation, and certain premises and facets of the framework. The headlining brash critique of the proposition that we live in the best of all possible worlds is a critique which chastizes the belief as being absurd in light of the great and persistent evil—both moral and natural—that exists in our world. Before moving over into what I would designate to be more refined critiques of this belief, it is worth noting what is perhaps the most notable example of what I call a brash critique, one that is perhaps on the more refined side of brash critiques, that being: Voltaire’s Candide.

The novel Candide is a satirical story meant to criticize Leibniz’s optimistic postulation that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Candide features a young man who holds to Leibniz’s optimistic outlook that he is in the best of all possible worlds, but faces great amounts of tragedy. It is ultimately a captivating and persuasive critique, and amongst the other critiques that employ showcases of examples of tragedy—whether real or fictitious—which I call brash, it is perhaps the most comprehensive, and it is in this sense refined, insofar as it is on the more refined end of the brash category of critique. 

The reason that I define the aforementioned brash critiques as being brash, and allude to a distinct category of refined, is because the former are very rhetorical in nature, while the ladder, which I shall soon give an example of, seeks to analyze the postulation in greater depth in their critique. Now for these brash critiques, while they have great rhetorical value, they are far too reliant on this facet, and their success is predicated merely on invoking an emotional reaction that comes from reflecting on all the evil in the world. Furthermore, the conclusion that it draws is that some other possible worlds must be better because they have less evil and suffering than this world, but this is mere speculation; we ultimately cannot have this knowledge about the state of other possible worlds.

Now I shall address some refined critiques. The first of these is a critique that it should be possible for God to create an even greater possible world, and if not, then there is something impossible for him. Perhaps the critique could even be rephrased to make the claim that the belief that God actualized the best of all possible worlds itself is self-defeating in that it implies that God is limited only to what is “possible,” and is thus not all-powerful, which makes the theodicy fall apart since it has to sacrifice this attribute of God. Now, it is the case that there have been many theologians, like Thomas Aquinas for instance, who have posited that God is limited by this concept of possibility and is yet all-powerful. However, I will not assume this to be the case, for the sake of the argument, as it adds what I believe is a crinkle worth exploring—and also to a lesser extent because I do not necessarily agree with Aquinas, and the others who have posited this point, on this point.

I do believe that there is a possible solution to this. The process of the creation of the best possible world would be the picking out of whichever world is best from a set of choices. Thus, this understanding would not identify a constraint in the ability of God, but would rather identify a constraint in the possible worlds which would be picked from. Now it could then be claimed from this that God could add in a new possible world, one which is absent of evil, but yet features free will. In theory, this should be possible within the framework of Christianity, which I believe almost certainly to overwhelmingly be the most common framework that this theodicy is argued from, and will furthermore be the larger theistic framework that I am considering the framework of this theodicy within, as Christianity traditionally believes that heaven features free-will, and does not feature evil—or the possibility of evil—which therefore means that free-will and the absence of evil are not mutually exclusive.

Both free-will theodicies and soul-making theodicies are subject to a critique akin to that which I have outlined, as for the former it can be alleged that since there can exist free will without evil, we ought to just have that, and for the latter, it can be alleged that if we can have good without a journey fret with evil, we ought to just have that. These objections all essentially ask: why do we live on a flawed earth when we can just live in a flawless heaven—wherein free will yet exists, but the choice to participate in evil, or create evil, does not exist—from the start? In response to the aforementioned question that seeks to challenge the aforementioned theodicies, a response could be given positing that a journey toward good is good in and of itself, independent of the good that the journey is angled toward. Perhaps it could be analogized to a fun road trip with friends to a national park. The time in the car with friends is in and of itself good, independent of the destination. This, in fact, could be the key to making sense of the sheer amount of suffering in the world from the standpoint of believing we are in the best of all possible worlds, in that the great amounts of suffering in the world creates the possibility for a greater number of journeys from evil towards good, and journeys that are of a greater magnitude. As a matter of fact, Leibniz himself employs an idea akin to this in his theodicy, as he posits that evil is necessary for the derivation of greater goods.

This framework, especially given the prior point, if adopted as a response to the corresponding prior critique, may seem to suppose consequentialism, thus making it subject to the critiques of yet another position, except this time the position that it opens itself up to the critiques of is not another theodicy, but rather an ethical system. I will not further discuss the critiques of consequentialism themselves as that will stray me away from my main focus herein. However, I will note that consequentialism is subject to a multitude of hard-hitting criticisms. Apart from the potential issues with consequentialism in and of itself, there may also be concerns about possible incompatibilities with consequentialism and Christianity in some regards.

Moving back to the point about how evil is required to bring about the greater good, this might imply that there ought to exist the greatest possible evil in order to bring about the greatest possible good, which in turn would be greater than any other good, and would thus have to be a facet of the greatest of all possible worlds. But if we live in the greatest of all possible worlds, then is there not the greatest possible evil? In response to this, one could invoke that it is in fact hell, which we would posit to exist within the bounds of the Christian framework in which we are assuming, that is the greatest possible evil. This may further necessitate the postulation of a purgatorial universalist soteriological framework, whereby the greatest possible good (heaven) would come about out of this greatest possible evil (hell). 

Is all of this speculation as to how this is the greatest possible world simply futile since God’s rationale exceeds our comprehension? Leibniz thinks so. This could be the best defense of the argument against an internal critique. However, this argument may not be rhetorically effective, as it ultimately seems like a punt, or in other words, a sort of cop-out. However, its potential rhetorical ineffectiveness, or convenience, is no justification for this point to be discredited. Furthermore, this point seems to be well in line with Christianity, as we see this point—that God’s reasons for doing certain things are beyond our understanding, and thus cannot be comprehended by us, or rightfully criticized by any of us—reiterated throughout the bible.

Now, stepping away from the argument over whether or not we can reasonably posit that we live in the best of all possible worlds, it is worth noting the postulation of the existence of multiple possible worlds, of which one was actualized. It seems that this postulation may serve to balance providence and free will, which serves as a resolution to another dilemna within most theistic frameworks, like Christianity, that posit an all-powerful God with providence, as well as free will. The providence of God exists in his choice of what world to actualize, and therefore, all that will occur in the world. At the same time, the free will for humans exists in that there are multiple different possibilities that exist for any possible human at any time, which exist in potentia in each of the different worlds, which would in turn mean that humans have a multitude of choices in their actions. Or at least so it seems.

Given that in this framework, God chooses a world whereby the choices of every human are set in stone, I believe that this would effectively mean that God chooses the choices of all people, insofar as he actualized the world wherein they make certain choices, as opposed to other worlds wherein they do not make certain other possible choices. As a result, we may be left with the conclusion that within the framework of this theodicy, we cannot posit true free will. So, if it wasn’t for this dilemna, we would actually end up having a great systematic framework with a great—although in some respects flawed—account for the problem of evil, as well as an account for the coexistence of divine providence and free will. But, as I have shown here, in tying up this theodicy up in a bow—using the framework to account for harmony and coexistence between divine providence and free will—the theodicy is met with a significant challenge, that is, unless the position that humans do not have free will were to be adopted, which itself would create a multitude of significant problems, and would be inconsistent with virtually all sects of Christianity aside from those which hold to the teachings of John Calvin, as well as some various other sects and subsects of certain sects that hold to such views.

Ultimately, Leibniz may attempt to posit that we could still hold onto free will insofar as the choices made by humans in the world that were actualized still arise from the individuals themselves, but it is nevertheless the case, as I am showing herein, that it appears that the actualization—of the actualized world—by God, would bring about the actualization of every choice that every individual would make, and would therefore mean that God makes all of the decisions, as opposed to the humans themselves, which would thereby negate human free will. Even if it is the humans within the actualized world themselves who perform the actions, it would still be the case that God chooses what actions they will perform, which would thus result in this framework eliminating the possibility of free will.

While I did run into this problem by going further into analyzing the framework, beyond the bounds of what it was trying to prove regarding the problem of evil, by exploring the prospects of it being able to balance both divine providence and free will, it is the case that the ultimate conclusion of this further expenditure is a natural consequence of the framework itself, and regardless of whether or not we try to explore whether this framework could be used to solve this dilemma, it will nevertheless succumb to resulting in the conclusion that true free will does not exist.

The biggest challenges to the Leibnizian postulation that we live in the greatest of all possible worlds, as I see it, is firstly the rhetorical weakness of the argument, which was most famously exposed in Voltaire’s Candide, and secondly—and more fundamentally damningly—the challenge that the multiple possible worlds component of the argument poses to the existence of free will. However, I must reiterate that the first of these main issues which I identify herein does not—or at least should not—discredit the argument itself, and is only problematic in the application of the argument, as opposed to being inherently problematic within the argument itself, and that the second of these main issues that I identified would not pose any issue for people who do not believe in free will, and that there could potentially be certain arguments that vindicate the possibility of free will within the framework. Furthermore, it is also worth noting that there are many other potential problems with the best of all possible worlds framework, which I have considered in this essay, and given possible responses to, as well as many potential problems that I have not even considered within this essay.

In closing, I must note that in disagreeing with this theodicy, one should not immediately assume that God is thereby not all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. There are many other theodicies that exist out there, and disagreement with just one of them most definitely should not disqualify one from the belief that God possesses all three of these attributes, especially considering the multitude of other theodicies that exist, and can also be synthesized with one another to create stronger theodicies. Furthermore, disagreement should not necessarily imply that there is not any just reason as to why the world is how it is, which may be a facet that some other theodices—but most definitely not all—task themselves with defending in their defense of God simulatenously being all powerful, all knowing, and all good.

I myself affirm that God is all powerful, all knowing, and all good, however, I do not necessarily agree with this theodicy, at least not in every regard, particularly due to some of the issues I have brought up herein with the broader framework that is supposes.


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