ABSTRACT
Suppose the previous line of argument for atheism is incorrect, and that the theist is right to say that God need not create either a perfect or the best possible world.
This still leaves the theist with a major problem. For the kind of falling short of the optimum which the world displays is quite different from the kind of falling short which the maximising assumption can explain away. The difference can be captured in the two following claims:
(a) The world is not the best possible because although it is filled entirely with admirable, fulfilled and flourishing people, it could have contained even more such people.
