Theodicy (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 14:27 (1436 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I know the dispute, which will never be resolved. Humans obviously are God's prime purpose as I follow Adler's reasoning.

dhw: As before, “prime purpose” means there are other purposes, but you never tell us what they are. In any case, the dispute does not concern the specialness of humans, but your belief in a method of fulfilling his one and only goal (specially designing millions of life forms and food supplies unconnected with humans) which – you may remember – leaves you with “no idea” when you are asked for an explanation.

DAVID: Smile all you want, but your question needs no answer: As His prime goal is humans all the other steps leading up to that are necessarily secondary purposeful steps/goals.

dhw: “Prime” goal again, so what are the other goals? Even “prime goal” is an assumption, not a fact (though it is possible to make out a logical case for this belief). “All the other steps leading up to that” is your usual glossing over of your admission that 99% of earlier life forms and food supplies had no connection to humans, and you have “no idea why He uses that method”. (See also under “Sea turtles”)

DAVID: Same old issue. The reason humans are not directly connected is a time concept. Your illogical complaint chops up time into unrelated segments. My God is in charge of creation. Evolution happened so God ran the evolution whose history we know. Our connection to the original bacteria is common descent as shown by the existing DNA, and you accept that connection, and then illogically complain about detachment in time.

dhw: I really thought we had agreed to end this discussion when you admitted that you had no idea why, if your God’s sole purpose was to design H. sapiens and his food supply, he chose to design millions of life forms, food supplies, econiches, natural wonders etc. that had no connection with humans. Now you have stepped straight back again to vague arguments about time. Back we go over the same old ground! I am not complaining about detachment in time, whatever that means. Time is a continuum. It is what happens during time that I “chop up” into segments. These segments are the thousands and thousands of life forms that branched out from bacteria. Although they all descended from bacteria, they did not all descend from one another. It’s what we call speciation. And 99% of them (plus their food supplies) had no connection with humans. It is therefore absurd to argue that every one of them was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans.” You have no idea why he chose to design humans by first designing thousands and thousands of life forms that had no connection with humans.
Me: I suggest we leave it at that.
You: Fine.

dhw: So please leave it at that.

OK, but You questioned my assertion we are a prime goal, by asking, for no good reason, about other goals and challenging my belief that God evolved us. I believe He did. The end.