We live in the best of all possible worlds regardless of what happens. Imperfections contribute to greater beneficial outcomes because events perceived negatively are essential conditions for realizing an optimal overall reality.
Book: Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil
Why do tragedies and imperfections exist at all if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good?
German philosopher Leibniz, the guy who happened to also invent calculus and binary arithmetic, faced this challenging question. He argued that the presence of suffering or imperfection could be required elements within an optimally balanced system. It's just like a chess player willing to sacrifice a piece to win the entire game.
Central to Leibniz's idea is the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which states that every event must have a valid explanation. In an infinite array of possible realities, only one arrangement can logically offer the greatest overall benefit, even if individual parts seem undesirable when viewed separately.
Critics like Voltaire in Candide mistakenly viewed Leibniz as saying every event is individually good. Instead, Leibniz emphasized holistic optimization. He emphasized that reality must be viewed as a complex network, and our frustration arises partly because human perspectives are limited, preventing us from seeing the full, intricate connections that justify seemingly imperfect details.
I found Leibniz's way of reconciling apparent contradictions in his belief interesting. At the end of the day, what we all need is meaning, and he tried to find the meaning by using the tools with which he's most familiar as a mathematician: forming a logical bridge between the existence of evil and the perfection of its creator.
I recalled this theory after finishing Permutation City, which also presents a different version of the Many-Worlds Theory. This also echoes what Viktor Frankl said about the Transitory Aspect of Life after surviving concentration camps.