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(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)
I
THE IMPROVABILITY THESIS and The Issue Of "Natural Evil. " The claim that this is the best possible world may seem to be absurd because so much appears to be amiss with the world. The idea that the world is improvable, however, is not without problems.
Since classical antiquity, theorists of an atheistic persuasion have deployed the argument that if this world indeed were the product of the productive agency of an intelligent creator, then it would be far better than it is. As they see it, the world's imperfection in encompassing such "natural evils" as cataclysmic disasters, epidemic diseases, accidental injuries, and the like, mark it as improvable, and thereby countervail against the prospect of an intelligent creator. (The world's moral imperfection rooted in the wicked misdeeds of its intelligent agents - that is, the "problem of mental evil" - poses separate and distinct issues.1) The imperfection of the natural world - its potential for improvement - is adduced as a decisive obstacle to divine creation. After all, if even we mere humans can envision ways to improve the world, how can it possibly be the product of divine creation? As a result the problem of how a perfect God can create an imperfect world looks to be a faith-defying paradox.
The idea that the actual world as we have it is the best possible goes back to Plato's Timaeus. Here we are told at (29A) that the cosmos is "the best thing that has come into being" because:
The divine being (theos) wished that everything should be good and nothing imperfect AS FAR AS POSSIBLE (kata dunamin) . . . since he judged that order (taxis) was better than disorder. For him who is the supremely good, it neither was nor is permissible to do anything other than what is the best [among the possibilities].2
Plato envisioned a world which, imperfections notwithstanding, is nevertheless for the best in being just as perfect as the conditions of a physically realized world will permit. Leibniz agreed with this position.
Voltaire was not alone, however, in thinking it absurd of Leibniz to deem this vale of tears to be the best of possible worlds. In just this vein, David...