Theodicy (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 18, 2020, 11:43 (1464 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I don't dismiss your theories in the realm of logic, It is your logic about God as you humanize Him.

dhw: But you have no idea which human attributes he may have, so how can you dismiss a theory that endows him with the human attribute of being interested in his creations (you agree) and therefore possibly having created them because he wants (human attribute) to create something that will be interesting for him?

DAVID: That is your theory, not mine. He may well produce humans without interest in what humans do.

Firstly a quote: “I’m sure He sees what is going on with His own level of interest, unknown to us.” Your certainty in itself should be enough to make you take the theory seriously. Secondly, there are lots of theories, and they will all entail guesses concerning your God’s nature. Inevitably that will be described in “humanizing” terms, and there is no reason to believe that he does NOT have human attributes – as you have acknowledged (though clearly you wish you hadn’t) when stating that he probably has thought patterns, emotions etc. similar to ours.

dhw: […] you cannot find an explanation for your anthropic view of evolution’s vast bush of unconnected life forms or for the existence of evil in your God-designed world. I would suggest that this might mean that your view of evolution and theodicy and of your God’s personality, purposes and methods might just possibly contain an error or two.

DAVID: Based on my view of God's personality there are no errors. Your view of God from the distance of possible belief is off target from my viewpoint.

dhw: An extraordinary claim. How can you possibly know that your view of God’s personality is correct and therefore your anthropic interpretation of evolution’s history (which you can’t explain) and your insistence that your God deliberately designed the bad bugs, though you don’t know why, can’t contain any errors?

DAVID: All of our thoughts about God come from the evidence we have and the conclusions each of us reach are from our own form of logic about Him and His actions.

You can’t find a logical explanation to connect your anthropocentric theory of evolution with the history of life forms that preceded humans, and you can’t find a logical explanation for the existence of evil as exemplified by your God's direct design of bad bugs, but you insist that there can be no errors in your inexplicable theories!