Watching asteroids; possible damage (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 01, 2017, 18:22 (2612 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: If I'm convinced that He wanted to produce humans, it all makes sense to me. That He used evolutionary processes is obvious to me. Which means apparently He had to. He began the universe which then evolved. He created life which then evolved. That is a pattern for God's methods. He chose them because He couldn't do direct creation as the Bible suggests in Genesis. That is a reasonable thought.

dhw: A strange idea of “choice” if you the creator of All That Is “have to” do this and can’t do that. Since we both believe that evolution took place, of course your God (if he exists) both designed and used the evolutionary process. However, although your concept of evolutionary dabbling differs from the biblical one of separate creation of species, it is still nothing less than “direct” creation, simply using existing organisms and changing them into something new. According to you, he either preprogrammed or dabbled (directly created) every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of evolution, until at last he could dabble the human brain. This originally did not make sense to you, but now you have hit on the explanation: suddenly, he who until just a few days ago was always in tight control (one of your reasons for rejecting the concept of the autonomous IM has always been that your God would NOT sacrifice his tight control) is forced to design all of this because owing to circumstances which he created but which are beyond his control, he is simply incapable of doing what he set out to do, i.e. dabble the human brain, until the year X. And it was his choice to make himself incapable of doing it any other way.

For further convolutions and contradictions, see “Evolution took a long time”.

You extrapolate my suppositions beyond all recognition, which is fun in a debate but does not truly explore the intent of my thinking which is expressed above. I've never changed as you imply. I have always recognized the God might have limits, but He always uses an evolutionary process and keeps as tight control as He can. I don't know that He chose to be incapable; your phrase came from what thought? He may simply could not do it any other way and is not as all powerful as the Bible proposes.