God and evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 18, 2017, 00:29 (2806 days ago) @ dhw

dhw:So far so good. Nobody would deny that every organism needs energy, and that evolution takes time (approx. 3.8 billion years till now). But you’ve left out your contention that the purpose of all these micro-niches extant and extinct was to buy time until evolution produced humans.

He wasn't 'buying time'. He may well have wanted that much time to pass. After all, if He has been around forever, time doesn't matter, except to you.

dhw: As regards humans being the endpoint (if they are – evolution probably still has a few billion years to run), I have offered you theistic alternatives: your God may have experimented in order to produce us, or we may have been a new idea that came to him as evolution progressed. I’m afraid I remain sceptical that he said to himself: “I must specially design the fly’s compound eye so that life will continue until I am able to dabble with the pre-human brain.”

If He has been in full control, humans came whenever He wanted them. If He is limited then He had to wait, either or. Either way the balance of nature fed everyone.

dhw: In any case, your objection was that some of my proposals took control away from God. Look at this exchange:
dhw: And in relation to solar systems, we now have him either not in control and having to wait until the right system comes along, or being in full control and creating lots of galaxies with lots of life forms (all apparently culminating in humans!).
DAVID: Either is possible. I can't make a choice. Both are acceptable.

dhw: So a hypothesis in which God is not in control is acceptable, whereas two days ago a hypothesis in which God is not in control is unacceptable.

I have always said He might have limits.

dhw: My point is that the ever changing balance of nature gives no support to your God-designed-it-all-for-the-sake-of-humans hypothesis.

DAVID:It is not meant to support my God-runs-evolution-to-reach-humans. It teaches that balance is necessary for life to have the energy to continue evolving under God's guidance, creating life's diversity.

dhw: The balance is constantly changing! Energy is necessary for life to continue, and the changing supply of energy leads to life’s diversity. That’s it. Why do you insert “under God’s guidance”? Maybe God created the evolutionary mechanism to run its own course (though he might have dabbled.) You have always used the balance of nature argument as if somehow it was geared to the production of humans. I am delighted that you are at last withdrawing that attempted link and only relating the ever changing balance of nature to the diversity of life. I suggest you leave it at that.

I won't leave it. Humans took 3.8 billion years, and the process needed energy all the way. That is the only relationship to my concept that humans are the purpose of evolution.

dhw: That is the reason for my agnosticism, but it is also the reason why one of your two God-runs-evolution-to-reach-humans hypotheses makes no sense even to you (see yesterday's post). Yes, humans have a remarkably advanced level of consciousness, which makes them very special. But – once more – that does not mean your God designed or had to design the fly’s compound eye in order to balance nature in order to keep life going until he was able to produce the human brain.

Covered in my last statement. 3.8 billion years may or may not relate to His ability to produce us. It may well be His choice to wait that long. Remember we do not know if He is limited. All we know is He uses evolutionary processes for everything He develops.