The Best Possible World: A Story of Philosophers, Good and Evil

In the spring of 1672, German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz arrived in Paris with one goal: to profit as much as possible from the city's intellectual and cultural riches. He particularly benefited from his friendship with the two greatest French philosophers of the time: Antoine Arnauld and Nicolas de Malebranche. Despite their widely differing views and personalities, the three philosophers shared a common, nagging concern: the problem of evil. Why do sin and pain exist in a world created by the wise and all-powerful God? Why do bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people? Who or what is God anyway?

The Best Possible World describes the conflict between radically different views of the world, but it is also a deeply personal story about the dramatic – and often turbulent – ​​relationship between three brilliant but highly idiosyncratic minds. In this sparkling and committed book, Steven Nadler brings to life a debate that has obsessed its participants, captivated great European intellectual thinkers, and continues to reverberate through our ideas about God, morality, and the world.