Theodicy (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, November 26, 2020, 10:40 (1209 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It is totally logical for a believer in God and in evolution to say that God chose to evolve humans! What is not logical is to argue that God directly designed every species and food supply that ever lived, 99% of which had no connection with humans, and yet all of them were “part of the goal of evolving (= directly designing) humans.” You admit that you can’t explain why he would choose such a method to achieve such a goal, so you can hardly call it logical.

DAVID: Same illogical complaint. The ID folks believe a designer designed the forms that appear in evolution. They never say God, but I do. There are herds of science folks who contribute to the Uncommon Descent website. If God is the Creator, he can chose any way He wishes to create anything He wants. Seeing the necessity for design keeps you Agnostic. Its all part of the same evidence that I use more concretely than you. And I can't be expected to have factual reason for God's choices. They are in His mind only, and are my logical guesses.

There is nothing in this comment that even touches on the issue that makes your theory illogical! Yet again: what is your “logical guess” to explain why your all-powerful, all-purposeful God would directly design millions of life forms and their food supplies that had no connection with humans, although his goal was to directly design humans? If God exists, it was certainly his choice to invent the process of evolution, but the rest of your theory is YOUR choice, and if you can’t explain the logic of YOUR choice, then maybe there is something wrong with it.

DAVID: There are no illogical statements you make from your primary view of God as part human.

dhw: “Part human” conjured up lots of silly images. To remind you: you are sure that your God is interested in his creations. I have suggested that if he exists, maybe he created his creations in order to have something outside himself that he could find interesting. No other “attributes” involved. Hardly “part human”. And I suggest that a free-for-all would be more interesting than a dull and predictable Garden of Eden (your own image). This explains the vast and ever changing bush of life AND the existence of evil, since a free-for-all would produce an almost endless flow of ways to survive, including good cooperation and nasty self-interest. Thank you for accepting that this is a logical theory. There is no need for “primary view of God as part human”.

DAVID: All the above is humanizing God. How do you know He needs 'interesting somethings' to follow? The problems in life we face make life interesting and not Garden of Eden, but may not follow any intention from God.

I don’t “know”. Nobody knows. How do you "know" that your God designed every life form etc., as above? That is why we have theories! And then we test those theories to see if they are feasible (logical). We have dealt with the silly “humanizing” argument over and over again. YOU said you were sure God was interested, and I have deliberately kept to that one “human” factor in my theory. You can find no logical flaw in it. That’s good enough for me. That doesn’t mean I believe it – I don’t even know if your God exists – but the whole point of this forum is to discuss all the possibilities and to test them. I like to think that this is one of the great human qualities: even though we can’t “know”, we never give up trying to find out. I'm sure THAT's something we can agree on!


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