Not "must have" in the sense that the universe absolutely had to do what it did, or that it's an anthropomorphic being making a choice based on foreknowledge. Rather, a deduction about the past is being made. It is only "must have" in the sense that, if conditions in the universe didn't fall out as liveable, nothing would be alive therein.
The essence of evolution is that living organisms are continuously and highly variable (as opposed to rocks), thus I would suspect that life was more apt to adapt to the conditions of the universe rather than vice verse.