The problem of no best world

Abstract

The “No Best World” (NBW) thesis posits that for every actualizable possible world, there exists a superior alternative, forming an infinite hierarchy of increasingly better worlds. This position challenges traditional theism, which defines God as an essentially unsurpassable being. If NBW is true, any world-actualizing action performed by a creator results in a state of affairs that could have been better, implying that the action itself—and by extension, the agent—is surpassable in rationality or moral goodness. This a priori argument suggests a logical inconsistency between the existence of an unsurpassable being and the absence of a best possible world. Theistic responses to this challenge typically involve rejecting the NBW thesis, redefining divine perfection, or contesting the principles linking the quality of a created world to the excellence of its creator. Critiques of these principles often appeal to creaturely free will or models of random selection from a set of “acceptable” worlds. However, many such defenses either assume the possibility of an unsurpassable being at the outset or fail to account for the infinite improvability inherent in the NBW framework. Consequently, the problem of no best world remains a significant theoretical difficulty for theistic metaphysics, as current attempts to decouple divine excellence from the axiological status of the actual world remain philosophically inconclusive. – AI-generated abstract.