The actual World is the best possible World, God could not have created anything better.

The best possible World is sometimes characterized as containing the most harmony, that is, as much variety and as much order as possible, containing the most essence and possibility.

The actual World is the best possible World and thus the most suitable object of God’s choice.

Given God’s wisdom, it is certain that God will not make a sub‐optimal choice; that is, God will not create a World other than the best. In another sense, God is capable of creating anything possible.

If God were to create the second best World (or any other), then something would be wrong.

Either he would not have enough power to create the best World, or enough knowledge to know which World is best, or he would not have enough goodness to want to create it.

All of these suggestions are ridiculous, because God’s nature is perfect. As such, he will create the best possible World.

Our World, with all of its wars, diseases, and natural disasters, hardly seems like the best one possible.

It is easy to list all the things that we think would make the World better: less cholera, fewer earthquakes, fewer belligerent people, and so on.

This, however, assumes that the best possible World would be the one with the least amount of bad or evil things. This is not the correct view.

Instead, the best possible World would be the one that contains the greatest variety of things produced by the simplest ways, and that contains as much happiness as is possible.

The World includes not only all the events that have happened and are happening now, but those that are yet to happen, including those in the afterlife.