Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, August 19, 2020, 11:15 (1555 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I've removed all your quotes from my previous posts as I was working through my thoughts about errors. it has been a work in process, not all thought-through at the beginning and bouncing ideas off you to help me progress. I've now completely reached a coherent theory about God's handling errors during evolution and while organisms live.

I’m glad to have helped, but removing all quotes does not tell me which of your “not thought-through” ideas you have abandoned. I can only comment on what you say and have said. Sadly, your announcement that your theory is now coherent does not make it coherent.

dhw: We agreed that there are two categories of errors: one that affects evolution, and one that causes diseases and death (see later). “Omissions in God’s pre-planning” already weakens your original theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God always knew what he wanted and how he would get it.

DAVID: Your bias shows. I view God as all-powerful for many reasons.

What bias? Either God is all-powerful or he is not! You give examples of his power, and then tell us:

DAVID: What He cannot control is the moment by moment molecular reaction errors during life which He created.

You then try to minimize this lack of control, but you have told us that the random (i.e. not designed) errors in your God’s system are responsible for changes in the course of evolution (controllable), and for diseases and death (uncontrollable). So he is not all-powerful. How does this make me biased?

DAVID: The random mutations are explained above. God runs evolution; He is in charge of speciation and He acts as final editor-in-charge over any DNA errors that appear removing all bad ones and allowing minor variations that fit His purpose. Remember 'good' mutations are extremely rare per science.

Are you now saying these random “errors” did NOT change the course of evolution, and that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God” could NOT have “arranged our human evolution”? What are these “minor variations” that you have suddenly introduced to replace the errors that can change the course of evolution?

dhw: According to you – but correct me if I’m wrong - he has designed a system that makes errors which may change the course of evolution and which may also cause disease and death. As regards the first, he can allow them to survive or he can destroy them. These are changes to evolution which he did not design, and this contradicts your first theory, which had him directly designing every life form.

DAVID: A total distortion of my theory as now presented. Every error has to fit His plans for it to be allowed to remain. He edits fully all species changes.

What distortion? He did not design the errors, whereas in your original theory he directly designs every life form. An editor who allows something is not a designer who designs something. But thank you for restoring “species changes” in place of “minor variations”.

dhw: As regards the second, despite your protestations to the contrary, he worried about them to the extent that “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” […]

DAVID: Again confusion about which errors are discussed. During evolution, all bad errors changing the course of evolution are destroyed […] Above, I've mentioned good mutations as possible 'omissions', a possibility which you think weakens God's powers. That is a correct observation.

Thank you. But the confusion about which errors is yours. The backups, which indicate that “He was correcting as much as he could” can only refer to errors that cause disease and death. He did not require backups for the evolutionary errors he allowed! And so your claim that he did not care about disease-causing errors ( ignored here) cannot be true, and again this reveals his lack of control.

DAVID: An all-powerful God could theoretically omit something. Let's consider it a sop to your fully humanized experimenting God, but I can easily go back to a totally all-powerful description. Perhaps, as I ponder the errors and how to fit them in, I should stick with completely all-powerful.

He would only be all-powerful if he deliberately omitted something, which has been my proposal all along: namely, that the system he invented (if he exists) was the system he intended to create, and the so-called “errors” were produced by a mechanism deliberately designed to create the countless variations of life forms etc. that go to make up life’s history. The “molecules” were given the freedom to go their own way. Please keep pondering!

DAVID: During life errors are allowed as that cause required deaths. Vast differences in considering which error is viewed.

Yes indeed. And doesn’t it strike you as odd that your God had full editorial control (all-powerful) over evolutionary errors, but limited editorial control (not all-powerful) over disease-causing errors (he corrected what he could), although they all occur within the same system as he designed it? And we haven’t even mentioned your passionate defence of the evolutionary role played by chance (“Chance can play a role!!!”) countered by “There is no reliance on chance”. I’m sorry, but I do not think you have “completely reached a coherent theory”, or that the contradictions are due to bias on my part.