two notes on two options

C.S. Lewis helpfully diserns the vanity of making certain distinctions between two options (in two different cases): what could have been versus what is and one evil versus a "lesser" evil.

Have the words, 'Could have been' any sense at all when applied to God? You can say that one particular finite thing 'could have been' different from what it is, because it would have been different if something else had been different, and the something else would have been different if some third thing had been different, and so on. (The letters on this page would have been red if the printer had used red ink, and he would have used red ink if he had been instructed to, and so on.) But when you are talking about God - i.e. about the rock bottom, irreducible Fact on which all other facts depend - it is nonsensical to ask if it could have been otherwise. It is what it is, and there is an end of the matter (pg. 183-184).

And [the devil] always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors (pg. 186).