Theodicy (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 30, 2020, 13:42 (1455 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I never try to explain why He chose to evolve us.

dhw: That is not what I ask you to explain. I ask you why, if we were his goal, he directly designed millions of extinct life forms and their food supplies that had no connection with us. Please stop dodging!

DAVID: Same illogical complaint. You are simply describing God's evolution and then claiming He shouldn't have done it in the way He chose to do it.
And later:
DAVID:Your usual fallback argument which has no basis.

It is not a complaint or a fallback argument, but a request for a solution as bolded, so please stop pretending that my criticism of your theory is a criticism of God. Unless I have made a terrible blunder, you are not God!

dhw: […] your new thought is that there might be things he could NOT do – in particular, “directly create us”. So a possible limitation would be his not knowing how to create patterns of thought and emotions similar to his own – as you so aptly put it. Hence experimentation. Please tell us what other limitations you can think of that would prevent him from directly creating us, and please give me a logical reason why experimentation as I have presented it is not a possibility.

DAVID: I noted the possibility that There might be limitations in methods of creation that limited God as He evolved life from bacteria. I do consider all possibilities. You can't seize upon this opinion as any form of basic fact to allow your humanizing forms of thoughts about God. I see no evidence of experimentation. I see a determined God doing what He wishes.

I have not seized on your opinions as facts, because nobody can possibly know the facts. You have suggested that God might have limitations, especially when it came to directly creating us. I too consider all possibilities, and I have pointed out that this particular possibility would fit in with the theory of experimentation. Instead of finding flaws in the proposal, and explaining what other limitations you can envisage, you try to slam the door on further discussion by saying that a theory is not a fact! My own proposal of a free-for-all also has a “determined God doing what he wishes”.

dhw: You are sure he is interested in his creations (then it can’t be zero interest). So please explain why it is illogical to propose that he might have created his creations in order to have something to be interested in.

DAVID: You have given him a human purpose He does not need, in my view.

dhw: Your purposeful God must have a purpose. I have proposed a purpose based on your own certainty that he watches us with interest. You have not offered us a logical flaw, but only your extraordinary refusal to agree with yourself that your God “very well could think like us” and probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours.

DAVID: Same repeat of old comments, when my position is God uses logic as we do, and we can know no more about His reasons for His actions.

You can’t know that he uses logic as we do if you can’t explain his reasons for the actions and purposes which you attribute to him.

DAVID: The only purpose I can be sure of is He desire to produce humans at some point in His creations. […]

dhw: Well, at least we now have a more flexible approach to evolution, since apparently you are no longer sure that he directly designed every life form etc. as part of the goal of designing humans. That opens the door to other theories […]

DAVID: Of course God directly designed all advances in evolution. That is how designed evolution can give the appearance of a natural process.

By “natural”, you usually mean without God’s intervention, but it never occurs to you that the appearance of a natural process might be due to the process being “natural” once your God had set it up to proceed without his intervention.

DAVID: I have explained theodicy as our lack of discovery of God's purposes, at which we continue our research.

dhw: Your explanation of God’s creation of evil (he deliberately designed the bad bugs) is that we don’t yet know why he did it. I’m sorry, but I can’t regard “I don’t know” as an explanation, let alone as a valid justification for rejecting theories which you yourself accept as being logical.

DAVID: Your theories about God are logical if you begin from a position of describing God as very human. I never do.

What is this “very human” you keep trotting out? You are sure God watches his creations with interest. I have suggested that if he exists, he created his creations so that there would be something interesting for him to watch. Why is your interested God not “very human” and my interested God is? And what is wrong with your own proposal that your God probably has human-type thought patterns, emotions etc.? That is perfectly feasible since you believe that he created life out of himself as “first cause”.