Divine purposes and methods (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 22:34 (2144 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 22:39

DAVID: I can't explain God's reasoning, so why shouldn't I simply accept history as I see it …?

dhw: Because it doesn’t make sense even to you!

DAVID: It is your problem, not mine. It doesn't matter to me that God chose to evolve us. It makes perfect sense that God wanted to do it that way, if you simply accept that God does what He wants as the controller.

dhw: If he exists, of course he does what he wants. But you make him want what you want him to want (to specially design H. sapiens), although for reasons you don’t understand, you have him waiting 3.5+ billion years while he specially designs millions of other life forms so that they can eat each other.

I don't have to know His reasons. It is your 'humanizing of God' problem. I've simply accepted that God chose to evolve us. We can't ask him why , and I've given you the econiche logical solution a a food supply function. It explains the diversity you worry over, without ranging far afield to give God extra desires or thoughts at a human level.

DAVID: Your problem is that you constantly try to humanize Him and apply your human reasoning. I never do. At your urging I've offered possible reasons for God's actions as polite responses to your questioning , but never positive that any of those discussions were productive of real possibilities.

dhw: So what reasoning are you using when you insist that your God only wanted to design us but chose to spend 3.5+ billion years designing other things? You and I can only use our human reason, but we can’t be positive about any of our speculations. Your human reasoning has come up with a hypothesis that you can’t understand, and so you tell us that it is God’s reasoning/logic and we must simply accept it!

We can't do anything else but accept that is how He chose to do it. I understand it as food supply, and you have agreed to that. Your point is logical: if all powerful, why did He wait so long? Logical answers: either it was His choice or He had to do it that way, for reasons we do not understand, but might one day with enough research into the problems evolution present. But science is limited in how we practice and perceive it with our limits; thi s article explains our limits:

https://aeon.co/essays/the-blind-spot-of-science-is-the-neglect-of-lived-experience?utm...

"We can now appreciate the deeper significance of our three scientific conundrums – the nature of matter, consciousness and time. They all point back to the Blind Spot and the need to reframe how we think about science. When we try to understand reality by focusing only on physical things outside of us, we lose sight of the experiences they point back to. The deepest puzzles can’t be solved in purely physical terms, because they all involve the unavoidable presence of experience in the equation. There’s no way to render ‘reality’ apart from experience, because the two are always intertwined."

Comment: We are in this universe, but the best answers are available if we could look at this universe from without it. You cannot describe an elephant if you are living inside of it.

DAVID: Again it is you who question God's logic to use evolution to reach our form. I simply accept it. You want to humanize Him with your human logic. Why bother? God does what God wants.

dhw: Once more, I am NOT questioning your God’s logic. I am questioning YOUR human logic, which makes no sense even to you. Yes, your God does what your God wants.

Discussed above. God chose evolution. So be it.

dhw: That does not mean he does what you want him to want! That is a speculative "maybe". Well, maybe he wanted to create what he created: the ever-changing higgledy-piggledy bush of life. And maybe later on he wanted a being with self-awareness, or maybe he wanted us from the start but needed to experiment before finding out how to do it. Why should we “simply accept” that you know what he wanted and you know he chose a method that you don’t understand?

Again a total attempt as seeing God as human in reasoning. He chose evolution as His method and we are here as the current endpoint. Understanding His choices are your problem, not mine. Obviously that endpoint is a goal, and very likely the only goal. We have no other to look at, and imagination for future evolution is grounded in quicksand so why attempt it? Conclusions are sound only using facts we know. You are constantly treading water inventing human reasons for his choices.