# Imperfect Universe Objection Defeater ## Intro *"If God is perfect, He would make a perfect universe. Something perfect cannot be made better. But this universe could obviously be better. So God does not exist."* It is a tidy argument, and it often arrives with a hard follow-up: *"Wouldn't the world be better with one less case of child abuse? Then it is not perfect, and a perfect God would have made it perfect."* The argument hides a rule it never proves: that a perfect maker must produce a creation that cannot be improved in any way. Nobody accepts that rule anywhere else. A master builder can design a small chapel without being a worse builder than one who designs a cathedral. A loving parent brings a child into the world knowing the child will be weak, will struggle and will grow. The child's room for growth does not make the parent imperfect. ![Oil portrait of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in a long dark curled wig and white cravat](/codex/assets/leibniz-francke-portrait.jpg) _Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, portrait by Christoph Bernhard Francke, c. 1695, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig. Image: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons._ There is a second problem. The argument assumes there is such a thing as a best possible universe. But imagine a world with a million happy people, then one with a million and one, then a million and two. If adding one more flourishing life makes a world better, the list never ends. There is no top rung on that ladder, so "make the best one" may be an order that cannot be carried out by anyone, not even God. Leibniz believed in a best of all possible worlds. Most Christians, including Thomas Aquinas centuries before him, never held that view. And Christianity never said this universe was finished. The Bible says creation is groaning and waiting to be set free, and that God will make all things new. A Christian is not embarrassed that the world could be better. The Christian story is the story of God making it better. ## Cheatsheet **The 30-second reply:** > You are assuming that because God is perfect, everything He makes has to be impossible to improve. Where did you prove that? A perfect being can make something finite without becoming imperfect, the same way a great parent has a child who still has to grow. You are also assuming there is a best possible universe and that God is obligated to make it. Neither one has been shown. So even if I grant that this world could be better, you have not shown that God does not exist. And by the way, the Bible agrees the world is not yet what it will be. That is why it promises a new creation. **The fast facts:** 1. **The argument is valid but carries a hidden premise.** "A perfect being must create an unimprovable universe" does all the work and is never defended. 2. **Nothing God makes can equal God.** Anything created is finite, so it is improvable in some respect by definition. Augustine said created things are good but changeable, because they are not God. 3. **Aquinas asked this exact question.** *Summa Theologiae* I, q. 25, a. 6: can God make things better than He has made them? His answer: yes, because no creation exhausts divine power. Classical Christianity never claimed this is the best possible world. 4. **The best-possible-world view is Leibniz's, not the Bible's.** The objection attacks a philosophical position Christians are free to reject. 5. **There may be no best world.** If worlds can always be improved by adding more good, "make the best" names nothing. Robert Adams, "Must God Create the Best?" (1972), is the classic statement. 6. **Better in one respect is not better overall.** One fewer evil is better in that respect, but whole alternative histories are not shown to be better on balance, especially with free creatures in them (Plantinga). 7. **Scripture says "very good," not "perfect."** [Genesis 1:31](/codex/genesis-1-31/), and [Romans 8:20-22](/codex/romans-8-20-22/) has creation groaning in hope of renewal. **The 3 strongest counter-moves:** - *"Can you show that a perfect being is logically required to create the best possible universe, rather than a universe that serves its purpose?"* If yes, ask for the proof without restating premise 1. If no, the argument has lost its foundation. - *"Is there a best possible universe? Describe the maximum, the world beyond which no better world could exist."* Adding one more happy person always beats it. The demand dissolves. - *"If God prevented this one case and another remained, would you still say God does not exist?"* If yes, the real premise is "God must prevent every evil," which is a different and much bigger argument that has to be defended on its own. **Reciprocal concessions (grant the small point, then collect a bigger one):** - *Grant:* a world with one fewer case of child abuse would be better in that respect. *Now collect:* then you are making a judgment of objective moral value, and you owe an account of where an objective "better" comes from in a universe with no God. - *Grant:* this universe could be improved. *Now collect:* so could every possible creation, which means your premise rules out any creator making anything at all. A rule that forbids every possible act is not a standard of goodness; it is a trap built into the definition. - *Grant:* Leibniz may be wrong that this is the best world. *Now collect:* then the argument is against Leibniz, not against Christianity, which never required his view. **The closing line:** > You have shown that the universe could be better. The Bible said so first. What you have not shown is that a perfect God had to make a universe that could not be better, and until you do, the argument does not reach its conclusion. ## In full The argument from imperfection runs: (1) if a perfect God exists, He would create a perfect universe; (2) a perfect thing cannot be improved; (3) the universe can be improved; (4) therefore no perfect God exists. The form is modus tollens and is valid. The defect is premise 1, which smuggles in a substantive axiological thesis, that a maximally good agent who creates must actualize an unsurpassable world. That thesis faces three independent difficulties: the creator/creature asymmetry (no finite effect can bear the perfections of an infinite cause, so "unimprovable creation" may be incoherent), the no-best-world problem (if goodness admits an infinite ascending series of possible worlds, there is no maximum to actualize, as Adams, Plantinga and the Howard-Snyders argue against Rowe), and the feasibility problem (worlds containing free creatures are weakly actualized, so not every conceivable world is available to God, per Plantinga). The "one fewer case of child abuse" rebuttal converts the argument into the evidential or logical problem of evil, which is a distinct argument with its own extensive literature. The classical tradition, from Augustine's *De natura boni* through Aquinas's *Summa Theologiae* I, q. 25, a. 6, denies that the present creation is the greatest God could make, so the objection's target is Leibnizian optimism, not historic Christian theism. ## Argument structure | | Premise | Notes | |---|---|---| | **P1** | The objection needs a bridge premise: a perfect being who creates must create an unimprovable universe | The whole argument rests here, and it is asserted, not argued | | **P2** | Divine perfection does not transfer to creation; any created thing is finite and so improvable in some respect | Augustine, Aquinas; the creator/creature distinction | | **P3** | There may be no best possible world, so "create the best" can name nothing | Adams 1972; the infinite ascending series | | **P4** | Better in one respect does not entail better overall, especially in worlds with free creatures | Plantinga on feasible worlds; answers the child-abuse rebuttal | | **P5** | Christianity teaches that the present creation is unfinished and will be renewed, so an improvable universe is what it predicts | Genesis 1:31; Romans 8:20-22; Revelation 21:5 | | **C** | The argument from imperfection does not show that God does not exist; at most it refutes Leibnizian optimism | | ## Master objections to the whole argument **MO1: "You are dodging. A good God would at least make the world as good as He could."** - With no best world, "as good as He could" has no ceiling, so the demand reduces to "better than whatever He made," which no creator can ever satisfy. A standard that every possible act fails is not a moral standard. It is a definition built to guarantee the conclusion. **MO2: "Rowe answered this. If there is always a better world, then whatever God makes, He could have done better, so He is not unsurpassably good. The no-best-world reply proves God's nonexistence."** - This is the strongest form of the objection and deserves a full answer; it is taken at Premise 3 below. In short: Rowe's principle, that an agent who could have made a better world is surpassable, assumes a creator's goodness is measured by the rank of the world he picks. Adams and the Howard-Snyders argue it is not. God's goodness is measured by His character and by whether He wrongs anyone, and no creature in this world is wronged by God's not having made a different world full of different creatures. **MO3: "This is just the problem of evil in philosophical dress."** - Partly, yes, and the honest reply says so. Once the objector reaches for child abuse, the argument has become the problem of evil, and the relevant answers are the free will defense and the evidential discussion. See [Problem of Evil, Free Will Defense](/codex/problem-of-evil-free-will-defense/) and [Evidential Problem of Evil Defeater](/codex/evidential-problem-of-evil-defeater/). What this page establishes is narrower and still decisive against the argument as stated: improvability alone does not contradict the existence of a perfect God. ## Premise 1, The objection needs an unproven bridge premise ### Affirmative case 1. **Validity is not soundness.** The syllogism is valid modus tollens. A valid argument with an unsupported premise proves nothing; the conclusion is only as secure as the weakest premise. 2. **Premise 1 is a substantive thesis, not a definition.** "Perfect" in "perfect God" describes God's own nature. Premise 1 adds a claim about what such a being must *do*. That is a further claim in ethics and value theory, and it needs its own argument. 3. **The bridge is false in every ordinary case.** Excellent agents routinely produce good but improvable work on purpose, because the work is fitted to a purpose. A composer writes a lullaby, not a symphony, and is not a worse composer for it. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"God is all-powerful, so unlike a human composer He has no limits forcing Him to settle."* 2. *"'Perfect' just means 'makes perfect things.' That is what the word means."* ### Rebuttals 1. **The composer is not limited either; he is choosing.** The analogy turns on purpose, not on limitation. Omnipotence widens the options, which makes the "must pick the maximum" premise harder to defend, because the options may have no maximum (Premise 3). **Failure mode:** treating power as an obligation to maximize. 2. **That is a stipulation, and it begs the question.** If "perfect" is defined to include "creates an unimprovable world," the objector has written the conclusion into the definition. No classical theist uses the word that way; Anselm's "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" describes God, not His effects. **Failure mode:** winning by definition. ## Premise 2, Divine perfection does not transfer to creation ### Affirmative case 1. **A creature cannot be God.** Whatever God makes is finite, dependent and changeable. A finite thing can always be conceived with more of some good, so "unimprovable creation" may be a contradiction in terms. 2. **Augustine.** In *De natura boni* (On the Nature of the Good), Augustine argues that every nature God made is good, yet because created natures are not the supreme good, their good can be increased or diminished. Goodness and improvability coexist in every creature. 3. **Aquinas.** *Summa Theologiae* I, q. 25, a. 6 asks whether God can make better what He makes. Aquinas answers that God can make other things better than these, and could make another and better universe, because no created effect exhausts divine power. The tradition's most careful theologian denied the objection's premise in so many words. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"If God could have made a better universe, why didn't He? That still needs an explanation."* 2. *"Aquinas also said the present universe, given its order, could not be better. You are quoting him selectively."* ### Rebuttals 1. **That is a request for God's reasons, not a proof that He lacks them.** The argument claimed a contradiction between "perfect God" and "improvable world." Once that contradiction fails, "why this world?" becomes an open question about divine purpose, and Christianity has a lot to say about it (Premise 5). **Failure mode:** treating an unanswered question as a refutation. 2. **No selective quotation is needed.** Aquinas's point is that, given the parts God chose, their ordering is fitting; he still holds that God could have made other and better things. Both halves deny premise 1: the world is good and fittingly ordered, and it is not the maximum God could make. ## Premise 3, There may be no best possible world ### Affirmative case 1. **The infinite ascending series.** For any world with *n* flourishing lives, a world with *n* + 1 equally flourishing lives is, on many theories of value, better. Then there is no best world, just as there is no largest number. 2. **Adams, "Must God Create the Best?" (1972).** Robert Merrihew Adams argues that a perfectly good God is not obligated to create the best world, and that He wrongs no one by creating a less than best world in which every creature is better off existing than not. God's choice to create is grace, not debt. 3. **Leibniz is the outlier.** Leibniz's *Theodicy* (1710) argued this is the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire mocked the view in *Candide*. The objection succeeds only against Leibniz's optimism, which no creed requires. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Rowe, Can God Be Free? (2004): if there is no best world, then for any world God makes there is a better one He could have made, and a being who made the better one would be better than God. So no unsurpassably good creator is possible."* 2. *"Value might have a ceiling after all. Maybe some world is unsurpassable."* ### Rebuttals 1. **Rowe's principle measures goodness by output rank, and that is the disputed step.** Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder ("How an Unsurpassable Being Can Create a Surpassable World", *Faith and Philosophy*, 1994) argue that an agent who selects from among good worlds above a threshold is not thereby less good than a rival agent, because in an infinite series every possible choice is surpassable, so surpassability cannot be the mark of a defect. If Rowe were right, no possible being could create anything without being imperfect, which makes perfection and creation incompatible by stipulation, not by discovery. **Failure mode:** turning a feature of the option space into a flaw of the chooser. 2. **Then the objector owes us a description of it.** If a best world exists, the objector must specify it and show this world falls short of it on balance, not merely in one respect. That is Premise 4's burden, and it has never been met. **Failure mode:** assuming a maximum exists in order to accuse God of missing it. ### Live-cite kit - **Scripture:** [Genesis 1:31](/codex/genesis-1-31/), "it was very good" - **Scholarly:** Robert Merrihew Adams, "Must God Create the Best?", *Philosophical Review* (1972) - **Aphorism:** "There is no largest number, and there may be no best world. You cannot fault God for missing a target that is not there." ## Premise 4, Better in one respect is not better overall ### Affirmative case 1. **The child-abuse rebuttal moves through three claims.** (a) A world with one fewer case of abuse is better in that respect. (b) Therefore this world is not the best overall. (c) Therefore a perfect God could not have made it. Claim (a) is true. The gap between (a) and (b), and again between (b) and (c), is where the argument needs work it has not done. 2. **Removing one evil changes the whole history.** God could prevent a particular act. But preventing it alters every later free choice and which persons come to exist. Showing that God could prevent one act does not show that every alternative history is better on balance. 3. **Free creatures limit which worlds are available.** Plantinga's free will defense (*God, Freedom, and Evil*, 1974) argues that God cannot strongly actualize a world in which free creatures always freely do right. Not every conceivable world is feasible for God to create, so "God could have made that world" is not automatic. See [Free Will Defense](/codex/free-will-defense/). ### Anticipated objections 1. *"This is cold. You are doing math with abused children."* 2. *"Fine, but the sheer amount of suffering is still evidence against God."* ### Rebuttals 1. **The concession comes first, and it is sincere.** Child abuse is evil, God does not need it, and a Christian should say so plainly and grieve it. The logical point is about the objector's inference, not about the victim's pain. The Christian answer to the victim is not a syllogism but a crucified God who judges abusers and heals the abused. **Failure mode:** answering a philosophical inference with sentiment, from either side. 2. **That is the evidential problem of evil, a different and more modest argument.** It concludes "God is less probable," not "God cannot exist," and it has its own replies: our limited vantage point on reasons God may have, the goods that require a world of real choices, and the Christian hope of a final setting right. See [Evidential Problem of Evil Defeater](/codex/evidential-problem-of-evil-defeater/). **Failure mode:** sliding from a deductive claim to a probabilistic one while keeping the deductive conclusion. ## Premise 5, Christianity predicts an improvable, unfinished creation ### Affirmative case 1. **"Very good," not "perfect."** [Genesis 1:31](/codex/genesis-1-31/) calls creation *tov me'od*, very good. The Hebrew *tov* is ordinary goodness and fitness for purpose (see [H2896 - tov](/codex/h2896-tov/)). It is not a metaphysical claim that the world cannot be improved. 2. **Creation is groaning.** [Romans 8:20-22](/codex/romans-8-20-22/) says creation "was subjected to vanity" and "groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," in hope of deliverance. The New Testament says, in so many words, that the present world is not what it will be. 3. **God promises to improve it.** [Revelation 21:5](/codex/revelation-21-5/): "Behold, I make all things new." The new heavens and new earth are the Christian answer to the world's imperfection. See [New Heavens and New Earth](/codex/new-heavens-and-new-earth/). ### Anticipated objections 1. *"So God made something that needed fixing. That still sounds like a flaw."* 2. *"Isn't 'it will be fixed later' just an unfalsifiable promissory note?"* ### Rebuttals 1. **Growth is not a flaw.** A seed is not a defective tree. A creation built to develop, with creatures who grow into love freely, is a different kind of good from a static, finished object, and arguably a greater one. **Failure mode:** assuming a finished state is better than a story. 2. **The point here is consistency, not proof.** The objection claimed Christianity cannot explain an improvable world. Christianity teaches exactly such a world, and anchors the hope of renewal in a historical event, the resurrection of Jesus. Whether that hope is true is a separate question, argued elsewhere in the codex. **Failure mode:** shifting the subject when the original charge fails. ## Conclusion The argument from imperfection proves something true and something it did not intend. It proves the universe could be better, which Scripture affirms. It does not prove that a perfect God had to make an unimprovable world, because that premise is unsupported, may be incoherent, and was never part of historic Christian teaching. ## Tactical opening / closing - **Opening:** "Before I answer, let me make sure I have your argument right. You are saying a perfect God has to make a universe that cannot be improved. Can you tell me where that rule comes from?" - **Closing:** "You have shown the world could be better. I agree, and so does the Bible. What you have not shown is that God had to make it unimprovable. That is the step your argument needs, and it is the step it skips." ## Connection to Scripture - **[Genesis 1:31](/codex/genesis-1-31/)**, creation is "very good," a goodness of fitness and order, not of unsurpassability. - **[Romans 8:20-22](/codex/romans-8-20-22/)**, creation subjected to vanity in hope, groaning until now. - **[Revelation 21:5](/codex/revelation-21-5/)**, "Behold, I make all things new," the promised improvement. - **[Isaiah 65:17](/codex/isaiah-65-17/)**, the new heavens and new earth in the prophets. ## Patristic / scholarly note - **Augustine**, *De natura boni* 1: all natures are good as made by God, yet mutable and capable of more or less good, because they are not the unchangeable good. - **Thomas Aquinas**, *Summa Theologiae* I, q. 25, a. 6: God can make things better than He has made them; the present universe is fittingly ordered, but God could make another and better one. - **Gottfried Leibniz**, *Theodicy* (1710): the best-of-all-possible-worlds thesis, the position the objection actually targets. See [Leibniz](/codex/leibniz/). - **Robert Merrihew Adams**, "Must God Create the Best?", *Philosophical Review* 81 (1972): no obligation to create the best; creation as grace. - **Alvin Plantinga**, *God, Freedom, and Evil* (1974): feasible worlds and the free will defense. See [Alvin Plantinga](/codex/alvin-plantinga/). - **William Rowe**, *Can God Be Free?* (2004): the strongest case that the no-best-world reply backfires. - **Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder**, "How an Unsurpassable Being Can Create a Surpassable World", *Faith and Philosophy* 11 (1994): the reply to Rowe's principle. ## Live-cite kit **Scripture:** - [Genesis 1:31](/codex/genesis-1-31/) ("it was very good") - [Romans 8:22](/codex/romans-8-22/) ("the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now") - [Revelation 21:5](/codex/revelation-21-5/) ("Behold, I make all things new") **Scholarly:** - Aquinas, *Summa Theologiae* I, q. 25, a. 6, God can make better things than He has made - Adams, "Must God Create the Best?" (1972) - Plantinga, *God, Freedom, and Evil* (1974) **Aphorism:** - "A perfect painter can paint a small canvas." - "There is no largest number, and there may be no best world." - "You have proved the world could be better. The Bible proved it first, and promised to do something about it." ## Tactical notes - **Order of deployment.** Lead with the bridge-premise question (Premise 1). It is the fastest to land and it reframes the burden. Use the no-best-world ladder (Premise 3) if the objector insists God must maximize. Save Premise 5 for the close, because it turns the objection into an opening for the gospel. - **When child abuse comes up, slow down.** Concede plainly, grieve honestly, then name the logical gap. Never make the victim a debating point. Polemical on the position, tender on the person. - **Force-commit move.** "Does your argument require God to prevent every evil, yes or no?" A yes means the objector now has to defend the logical problem of evil, which the free will defense answers. A no means the argument from imperfection has no premise left. - **What NOT to defend.** Do not defend Leibniz's thesis that this is the best of all possible worlds. You do not need it, most Christian thinkers have rejected it, and defending it hands the objector the child-abuse counterexample. ## Scholarship Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record. - Robert Merrihew Adams, "Must God Create the Best?" *The Philosophical Review* 81 (1972). [doi:10.2307/2184329](https://doi.org/10.2307/2184329) - Daniel Howard-Snyder and Frances Howard-Snyder, "How an Unsurpassable Being Can Create a Surpassable World," *Faith and Philosophy* 11 (1994). [doi:10.5840/faithphil199411222](https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil199411222) [open access](https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1480&context=faithandphilosophy) - Alvin Plantinga, *God, freedom, and evil* (1974). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1875212W) - William L Rowe, *Can God Be Free?* (Oxford University Press, 2004). [doi:10.1093/oso/9780198250456.001.0001](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198250456.001.0001) ## See also - [Problem of Evil](/codex/problem-of-evil/), the parent cluster - [Evidential Problem of Evil Defeater](/codex/evidential-problem-of-evil-defeater/), where the child-abuse rebuttal leads - [Problem of Evil, Free Will Defense](/codex/problem-of-evil-free-will-defense/), Plantinga's feasible-worlds reply - [All-Do-Good World POE Defeater](/codex/all-do-good-world-poe-defeater/), the "why not make heaven first" sibling - [Evil as Privation of Good](/codex/evil-as-privation-of-good/), Augustine's account of what evil is - [Theodicy](/codex/theodicy/), the wider question of God's reasons - [Leibniz](/codex/leibniz/), the source of the best-possible-world view the objection targets - [Thomas Aquinas](/codex/thomas-aquinas/), who denied the objection's premise in the *Summa* - [New Heavens and New Earth](/codex/new-heavens-and-new-earth/), the creation's promised renewal - [Atheist Moral Realism Defeater](/codex/atheist-moral-realism-defeater/), for the "objectively better" question - [Arguments](/codex/arguments/), master index
## Common questions this page answers **Q: If God is perfect, why isn't the universe perfect?** Because a perfect maker is not required to make an unimprovable creation. Anything God makes is finite, so it can always be improved in some respect. Classical Christian thinkers from Augustine to Aquinas taught that creation is good but not the greatest thing God could make. **Q: Is this the best of all possible worlds?** That was Leibniz's view, and Christians are not bound to it. Thomas Aquinas held that God could make a better universe than this one, and many philosophers argue there is no best possible world at all, because any world could be improved by adding more good. **Q: Wouldn't the world be better with one less case of child abuse?** Yes, in that respect, and Christians should say so plainly. But "better in one respect" does not show that a whole alternative history would be better overall, and it does not prove that God must prevent every evil. That further claim is the problem of evil, which has its own answers. **Q: Does an imperfect universe prove God doesn't exist?** No. The argument only works if a perfect God must create an unimprovable universe, and that premise has never been proven. It may not even be coherent, since there may be no best possible universe to create. **Q: What does the Bible say about the world being imperfect?** It says creation was made "very good" ([Genesis 1:31](/codex/genesis-1-31/)), that it now groans under futility ([Romans 8:20-22](/codex/romans-8-20-22/)), and that God will make all things new ([Revelation 21:5](/codex/revelation-21-5/)). The Bible expects an improvable world and promises its renewal.