Divine purposes and methods (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, December 17, 2018, 18:35 (2166 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: In analyzing God's methods and motives, a conclusion will depend upon one's concept of God. All of both our proposals are logical. I view God as more controlling and purposeful than you do, and therefore favor the proposals I've given. [/i]

dhw: If you can’t explain something, then you can’t say it’s logical. If your one and only “purpose” idea (H. sapiens) is correct, I suggested experimentation and/or humans as a later idea to bridge the gap. These alternatives do reduce his level of ability to control, but your belief in full control is one cause of the gap you can’t explain! (See next comment below.) My theistic evolutionary hypothesis leaves him with full ability to control, but proposes that he deliberately created a mechanism to run independently of his control. No gap, but just as purposeful.

You are simply disagreeing with my view of God. What I can't explain is why God chose evolution as His method of creation. I don't read his mind. Nothing illogical about my approach.

dhw: We both agree that evolution happened, but that does not mean (a) that his method was to specially design every innovation, econiche etc., or (b) that he did so solely for the purpose of providing food for 3.5+ billion years until he could specially design H. sapiens, which you say he could have done anyway, since he has full control. Hence the logical gap you acknowledge and then try to dodge.

My reasoning is certainly not yours. Humans are the current endpoint of evolution, and we control life so much, evolution of humans may well be at an endpoint, with minor adaptations like drinking milk into adulthood. I view what God did as logical. That I can't explain why He chose His evolutionary method to achieve humans is not illogical in any way. I have my own interpretation of how it all happened under His control.

DAVID: And as I sit here answering you, I am as far removed from apehood as anything you can imagine. We are the current endpoint. If God used evolution to guide creation and we are the current result, I just accept it as a logical conclusion that we have been His purpose all along. And furthermore, where does evolution go in the future? Superhumans? Same endpoint! Flying humans? We already have that. Case closed.

dhw: Your “if” is the point at issue: maybe he didn’t “guide” creation (which apparently means he specially designed everything), and the current result is us, whales, elephants, the duckbilled platypus etc. The future part of the “case” is wide open and does nothing to bridge the logical gap which you keep acknowledging and then trying to sidestep.

You are dealing with my faith belief that God is the creator and is fully in control. I've given my reasons for jumping the chasm as developed from scientific discoveries. My logic is not your logic on your agnostic side of the chasm.

DAVID: You are forgetting that the whale series shows a series (8 or 9)of intermediate changes. They didn't just jump into water. it was a series of changes in form and then function, as I view designed by God.

dhw: I’ve picked on the stages we have been discussing, and I would suggest that every stage provided an improvement in the whale’s survivability. Your logical gap is expanding: (a) If your God wanted to produce a whale, why bother with intermediate stages, and (b) if your God only wanted to produce H. sapiens, why bother with eight stages of whale?

Exactly my point. Unless very complex phenotypical and physiological are designed the new stages would not have survived. Why did God bother? The only reason I can think of, and I've guessed, they are part of the food chain. Your answer is?

DAVID: About survival 99% are gone! Some survival rate! If survivability drives evolution that doesn't explain bacteria. They haven't needed to survive by evolving.

dhw: Bacteria survive by constantly adapting to every environmental condition. We keep agreeing that they remain themselves, but somewhere along the line, unicellular organisms joined forces to create multicellularity, and that is presumably when the unexplained process of innovation and speciation began. 99% extinction (sometimes after millions of years of survival) fits in perfectly with the proposal that the whole process runs on the interplay between an ever-changing environment and the ability or inability of organisms to survive by adapting and/or innovating. I cannot see how it fits in with the proposal that your God specially designed every econiche and planned every change for the sole purpose of providing food, then different food, then more different food in order to pass the time until he could produce H. sapiens, which you think he could have produced directly anyway.

I accept what we see God create. You don't. I accept His method, as illogical as it may seem to you. You have no idea why unicellular organisms decided to join forces and become multicellular. I see God arranging for it. It was never necessary. Bacteria never had a problem adapting as you first note and then you illogically want evolution to advance because more complex organisms can't survive. (See the bolds in your statement above.) Why become more complex if it makes survival more difficult? Talk about illogical! What drives complexity is an outside designer, God. It is obvious organisms become more complex with no relationship to survival.