Evolution and humans (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, May 24, 2015, 18:45 (3469 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Evolutionary attempts at advancement produced different types of Homo under God's guidance all probably branched from H. Erectus. I don't see why, except sapiens were the target and that was achieved. -> dhw: Here are three theistic alternatives: 1) God knew what he wanted, but couldn't work out how to do it; 
 
> DAVID: You've left out a fourth possibility: God knew exactly what He wanted, but set up competition just to be sure He had the right formula for a human species survivorship of the type He preferred. 
 
> dhw: Your 4) is the same as my 1), except that you're substituting the uncertainty of “just to be sure” for the uncertainty of “couldn't work out”.-My 4) is more of a hands on interpretation in guiding evolution. of course He could work out what he wanted, but perhaps not with coding in advance (pre-planning).
> 
> dhw: With my theist hat on, I can accept the possibility of God dabbling for particular purposes, but find it impossible to reconcile dabbling and/or preprogramming with the countless innovations and organisms apparently irrelevant to the production of humans if humans were his goal. “Worked through evolution (I don't know why)” is nice and honest, but in turn I don't know why you refuse to question a hypothesis that clearly makes no sense to either of us.-Why bother to 'make sense'? I'm convinced humans are the goal since we are so unique and very different in kind, and the need for balance in nature has been pointed out before. You are much more analytic of God than I would ever need to be. I don't think our minds are comparable to His, just partially so.