Robert M. Adams, in a brilliant, thought provoking essay, "Must God Create the Best?"[ 1], puts forth a theodicy for God's creating inferior people to those he could have created or, in general, a less perfect world than he could have created, in terms of his bestowing grace upon these created beings. Since grace is recognized as a virtue within traditional theism, God is morally excused for creating less perfect beings than he could have. Adams writes: For present purposes, grace may be defined as a disposition to love which is not dependent on the merit of the person loved.... A God who is gracious with respect to creating might well choose to create and love less excellent creatures than he could have chosen.... God’s graciousness in creation does not imply that the creatures he has chosen to create must be less excellent than the best possible. It implies, rather, that even if they are the best possible creatures, that is not the ground for his choosing them. And it implies that there is nothing in God's nature or character which would require him to act on the principle of choosing the best possible creatures to be the object of his creative powers.... The man who worships God does not normally praise him for his moral rectitude and good judgement in creating us. He thanks God for his existence as for an undeserved personal favour.[ 2] Exactly what extant evils are addressed by this theodicy of grace? Is it simply that humans are not as beautiful, athletic, or intelligent as they might have been or that there could have existed alternative species to the extant ones which would have exceeded them in respect to such non moral desiderata?[3] Understood in this restricted way, it might well succeed, and moreover provide a way out of the quandry of what God is supposed to do if, as seems likely, there is no uniquely best of all possible worlds; in such a case, he will actualize some world in which there is a favorable overall balance of good over evil. But one could take Adams's theodicy of grace to apply to moral evils as well...