Theodicy (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 24, 2020, 11:01 (1211 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You say he deliberately designed the bad bugs. “We don’t know why” is not a logical reason for his doing so, and you’ve given us no logical basis for your belief that he did so.

DAVID: I've said 'we don't know why' as yet, awaiting for more research findings.

It’s not surprising that we have so many disagreements about what is or is not logical. Here is part of a dictionary definition of the word: “…the patterns of reasoning by which a conclusion is properly drawn from a set of premises.” In the context of theodicy, you offer us one premise: God deliberately designed the bad bugs. In the context of evolution, you offer the premises that your God directly designed every life form and natural wonder in life’s history, 99% of which had no connection with H. sapiens, although they were all part of his goal to directly design H. sapiens. Your “logical conclusion” in both cases is we don’t know why he designed the bugs or designed the life forms that had no connection with his goal! If you can’t explain your own theories, how can you call them logical?

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!

DAVID: Mashing up past quotes out of context cannot refute current statements of position:...

dhw: There is no “mashing” and no reason for you to disown your own statements. If God created us with our thought patterns, emotions, logic and other attributes, it is perfectly logical to propose that these are “probably” part of his own identity too.

DAVID: You cannot assume that as God is a PERSON LIKE NO OTHER PERSON.

The word “person” means a human being. Nobody in his right mind would tell you that a human being can create a universe, or that human beings created life. So if he is a person, it can only mean that he has certain human attributes, as you so clearly indicate with statements such as “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought”, and God “very well could think like us”, and “his logic is like ours.” It therefore remains totally absurd to reject a theory on the grounds that it endows your God with similar thought patterns etc. to our own.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: We don’t need references to religion or Adler. The subject of this thread is “theodicy”. You raised it and are therefore looking for an explanation of evil. I have offered you one which, at the same time, explains the whole of the evolutionary bush (which you can’t explain either – see under “errors”). I’m not telling you this is the objective truth. I’m asking you to find flaws in its logic. So far...not one. Just the dead duck of humanization and now the “logical” thought that it might not be true.

DAVID: I have explained God's use of evolution to my satisfaction. Not knowing God's reasoning to use that method doesn't invalidate the logical thought that it simply was His choice.

I have asked you to point out the logical flaws in MY theory, and all you can do is tell me that your theory was God’s choice!


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum