Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 04, 2019, 10:46 (1997 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID (on “whale” thread) Of course God knew He had to design all the levels of evolution until He reached the human level!

dhw: Please explain why God “had to” specially design the whale’s flipper, the cuttlefish’s camouflage, the monarch lifestyle and the weaverbird’s nest until he reached human level. Please don’t say they all had to eat or not eat each other until he could specially design H. sapiens.

DAVID: I simply believe God guided all of evolution and created the bush of life we see. Of course they had to eat each other.

But why did he “have to” specially design every single life form in the history of life if his only purpose was to produce H. sapiens, which he specially designed anyway?

DAVID: He specially designed everything. H. sapiens was the final purpose.

What do you mean by “final”? Previously you have said it was his sole purpose. Are you now coming round to the view that he had other purposes for specially designing every life form, lifestyle etc., but after 3.5 billion years he suddenly came up with a new and “final” purpose? That fits in with one of the hypotheses I have offered you – that humans were a late afterthought. (Another was experimentation, to explain the rest of his creations.)

DAVID: Again, you are describing a God as not knowing exactly what He wants to achieve, a God with human uncertainties.

I am offering you a logical reason for all the non-human designs IF H. sapiens was your God’s only purpose, because you yourself “have no idea” why he would have chosen such a method to fulfil such a purpose.

DAVID: As usual you have no answer for my concept that God prefers to carefully evolves what He desires to create. I use history which agrees as the basis of my thinking.

dhw: History shows the evolution of millions of non-human life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders, with humans a late arrival. I have no problem with the theistic view that he used evolution to create what he wanted to create. I dispute the logic of your claim that he ONLY wanted to create H. sapiens, and therefore specially designed anything but H. sapiens for 3.5+ billion years.

DAVID: Our specialness gives us the answer, and He started with single-celled forms to get there.

Our specialness does not explain all the other special, non-human life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders that started out from single cells.

DAVID: He had to create the bush of life to reach our creation. We come from some type of ape form! You agree He used evolution. What is your problem.

You know very well what “my” problem is, because you yourself have no idea why your always-
in-total-control God “had to” specially design millions of non-human life forms, lifestyles, econiches and natural wonders in order to “reach our creation”. My real problem is your refusal to acknowledge that our coming from some kind of ape form (apparently specially engineered by your God) does not explain the coming of everything else that has ever existed (also apparently engineered by your God) from other kinds of life form, if your God only ever wanted us in the first place.