Return to David's theory of theodicy;Plantinga & Raup (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, 11:40 (17 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw:. If you now agree that your omniscient and omnipotent God wished to create a vast variety of forms extant and extinct, then quite clearly his one and only motive could not have been to create just the 0.1% which led to our current bush of life. [David's red]

DAVID: Yes, evolution is much messier than direct creation, BUT God chose to evolve us! The red quote is your usual twist. Your usual distain for human exceptionalism defines your response.

I have always acknowledged our exceptional powers. This is your usual straw man attempt to divert attention from the fact that according to you, your God chose to evolve (= design) and then cull the vast variety of extinct life forms that had no connection with us and our food, and you have no idea why. But even you agree that he must have had a purpose for doing so, in which case the purpose cannot have been limited to producing us and our food.

Double standards

DAVID: I follow theistic thinking as presented by several sources. I have never found the sort of God you describe in any of it.

dhw: I pointed out to you that the sort of God I was describing was to be found in process and deist theologies. You replied:

DAVID: Process and deist theologies are not mainstream, and not worth using. My view of God is mine, and just as valid as as any other.

This statement entails double standards, because your own view is equally non-mainstream. If you had given us a different reason for rejecting process and deist theologies, you would not have been using double standards.

DAVID: You continue your tortured philosophy of double standards. In theology no standards are established. I can pick and choose whatever I wish for my own reasons as I cobble together a theology of my own. Yes, I have reasons for my choice. Yes, you can call them standards. They allow me to pick and choose as I wish. You choose agnosticism with its safety in neutrality, no choices ever needed.

There is no “philosophy of double standards”, and it has nothing to do with our right to make choices. In such contexts, it is a term used to denote the use of a particular standard to attack an argument (deism is not mainstream) and then to defend one’s own argument although it violates the same standard (your panentheism and various other theories are not mainstream either). Please stop misusing language.