Leibniz argued God had no choice but to create the best of all possible worlds
In his 1710 Theodicy, Leibniz reasoned that a perfectly good, all-powerful God would necessarily have selected the best possible world to create out of infinite alternatives — meaning even this world's suffering must be logically necessary. Voltaire mocked the idea mercilessly in Candide, but the argument remains a serious touchstone in debates about the problem of evil.