  As forceful and persuasive as Adams's arguments may be, I don't think they yield the conclusion that God's perfect goodness leaves God free to create less than the best world that he can create. What Adams's arguments show, at best, is that God's moral perfection imposes no moral obligation on God to create the best world he can. His arguments establish, at best, that God need not be doing anything morally wrong in creating some world other than the best world. But this isn't quite the same thing as showing that God's perfect goodness does not render it necessary that he create the best world he can. For, even conceding the points Adams makes, there still may be an inconsistency in a morally perfect being creating some world other than the best world he can create. The point here is this. One being may be morally better than another even though it is not better by virtue of the performance of some obligation that the other failed to perform. It may be morally better by virtue of performing some supererogatory act — a good act beyond the call of duty — that the other being could have but did not perform. Analogously, a being who creates a better world than another being may be morally better, even though the being who creates the inferior world does not thereby do anything wrong. Following Philip Quinn, I'm inclined to think that if an all-powerful, all-knowing being creates some world other than the best world it can create, then it is possible there should exist a being morally better than it is. Quinn remarks: “An omnipotent moral agent can actualize any actualizable world. If he actualizes one than which there is a morally better, he does not do the best he can, morally speaking, and so it is possible that there is an agent morally better than he is, namely an omnipotent moral agent who actualizes one of those morally better worlds” (Quinn, 213). (We should note that my version of Quinn's principle is presented in terms of the overall goodness of a world, not just its moral goodness. Thus, my version of the principle states that if an omniscient being creates a world when there is a better world it could create, then it would be possible for there to be a being morally better than it. I do not, as Quinn does, focus solely on the moral status of a world. For some good states of affairs include nonmoral goods such as happiness, as well as moral goods such as the exercise of virtue. It could be, however, that the difference is merely terminological, for Quinn may hold that the moral status of a world depends on both the moral and nonmoral good the world contains.) For it would be possible for there to be an omnipotent being who creates the best world that the first being could create but did not. Shouldn't we then conclude that if an essentially all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good being creates any world at all, it must create the best world it can? For although a being may do no wrong in creating less than the best it can create, a being whose nature is to be perfectly good is not such that it is possible for there to be a being morally better than it. If, however, a being were to create a world when there is a better world it could create, then it would be possible for there to be a being morally better than it.