Theodicy (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 22, 2020, 16:29 (1249 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Telling me I'm wrong proves nothing.

dhw: I proposed that there was something wrong with your theory of evolution, and you mistakenly took your theory for history. In any case, according to you there WERE errors in history – namely, those that your God could not prevent, even though he tried.

That is not an error of history, but an error of God's construction of living biology, which because of that functionality errors could occur.

dhw: I don’t [know] what constitutes the logic in your belief that he deliberately designed the bad bugs and we don’t know why.

DAVID: The logic is we don't know why as yet.

dhw: That is the strangest example of logic that I have ever seen.

The logic is taken from many examples I have given you about so-called design errors in the human body. The bugs may have a purpose we still have not learned.

DAVID: [re dhw’s possible solution to the problem of theodicy]: It is perfectly logical if you are considering a very humanized God.

dhw: Back to square one. You are sure that your God is interested in his creations, so that’s OK. But if I say that maybe interest was his reason for creating his creations, suddenly that’s VERY humanized and not acceptable, even though God probably has thought patterns etc. similar to ours.

DAVID: Again your twisted interpretation of my thoughts. Only logical thought patterns!!!

dhw: Here is an example of logic: you are sure that God is interested in his creations. Therefore it is possible that he created them because he wanted something he could be interested in. Why can’t this be called a “logical thought pattern”? Besides, you also explicitly included emotions in your original agreement, and another of your statements was that God “very well could think like us”. And in any case “His logic is like ours” makes no sense if we can’t understand his logic!

Mashing up past quotes out of context cannot refute current statements of position: God and we use logic is the only position I take about God's thinking. That doesn't mean we can understand His logical choices, based on His chosen purposes. What we have to accept is He produced what He wanted to produce, with no consideration of what might potentially amuse Him. Consider the logical thought God might be simply a creator without any self-interest! Just as possible as religions' loving God. That is Adler's indefensible 50/50.

DAVID: In my view, as you know, God is very purposeful and keeps tight control over all the processes He creates.

dhw: In my view, if God exists, he is purposeful, very purposeful, extremely purposeful, as purposeful as a purposeful God can possibly be. Satisfied? But his purpose may have been to give free rein to what he creates... [see above and below re "interest"]

DAVID: If by free-for-all you mean unguided evolution, I don't think so. Your very purposeful God would have specific goals, such as our unwarranted, unexpected arrival as based on a weak theory of Darwin survivability. All per Adler's reasoning. Only a purposeful designer can make humans appear.

dhw: According to you, only a purposeful designer could make EVERY species and natural wonder in life’s history appear. Why must my very purposeful God only want one specific species to appear if he deliberately set out to create an unpredictable variety of species that would come and go so that he wouldn’t end up with what you call a “dull Garden of Eden”? Nothing much of interest there. The free-for-all principle is in fact exemplified by us humans: just as it has produced bad bugs in Nature, it has produced good and evil in humans, no doubt the most interesting of all species.

Again your incorrect interpretation of my theory in the bold. He wanted the whole bush to appear. That means all 'the unpredictable variety of species' were all planned as part of God's creation of the living bush.