Back to theodicy and David's theories (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by David Turell , Saturday, April 03, 2021, 18:27 (1328 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your 'God' is a weak form of mine, allowing a free-for-all which has no predictable ending.

dhw: He is not “my” God – I am offering an explanation for the vast variety of life forms that have been and gone, and for the problem of theodicy. If your God decided to create an endlessly changing world with an unpredictable variety of life forms and events, he got what he wanted! Why is that “weak”? And you STILL refuse to tell us why a God who, just like human designers, starts out with a single endpoint in mind is NOT “human”, whereas a God who designs an endlessly varied and unpredictable system is “very” human.

My view of God is that He is determined to reach his specific goals, as shown by the specific evolution of the universe to fine-tuning for life, the evolution of the Earth itself to allow life while a humanized God who allows a free-for-all has no expectation for where it is going, and living organisms are endlessly varied under the God we have.

DAVID: Why can't God have goals?

DAVID: God certainly allowed a war between organisms, since all have to eat. As for God's possible human attributes, of course, there are obvious comparisons at a superficial level, since we deal with God's personality in allegorical terms. As for His goal, we are it.

dhw: There is nothing superficial in discussing God’s possible human attributes, and they are not “allegorical”. If he created our attributes, there is no reason whatsoever to assume that he does not share any of them! Meanwhile, you have not told us what was his goal in designing humans or in designing bad bugs and viruses. There is no point in telling us how purposeful he is if you refuse to discuss his purposes!

I haven't refused, I've told you research will unveil His purposes, as we have in the past. As for God's attributes, all theologians insist we must use allegorical terms.

dhw: […] what exactly do you think he was doing in granting free will, i.e. what do you think was his purpose?

DAVID: He didn't make us automatons, because in that way we would never have shown progress in our development. Freedom of thought allows us to advance by ourselves.

dhw: I know what it does. Why do you think he wanted us to have freedom in our development?

Why not? Perhaps to recognize Him; perhaps tp help with metabolic errors; perhaps to let us enjoy our development of abstractions: books, plays, movies, etc.

DAVID: In that way we would come to recognize Him, not for adulation which He doesn't need or want, but understanding what He has created. I believe that is enough for Him.

dhw: So he wanted to create a being that would recognize and understand what he had created. But you, my dear friend David Turell, happen to know that he didn’t want us to praise him or worship him, that he gets no pleasure from our recognition and understanding, and that he gets no pleasure from the creation which he wants us to recognize and understand. I wonder why he wants us to recognize and understand what he created, just as I wonder why he created all those 99% of life forms unconnected with humans, and why you are so determined to reject the perfectly logical idea that a God who enjoys creating might create BECAUSE he enjoys creating.

You can't seem to take in the idea of a God who creates for the sake of creation, and Who needs nothing from it..

QUOTE: Carpediemonas […] must rely on a novel set of mechanisms to carry out these fundamental processes.

DAVID: Nothing to add except it will require research to find out how the organism does it. Common descent doesn't always result in sameness. We study mice because there is much that is the same with us.

dhw: Yes indeed, if common descent always resulted in sameness, there wouldn’t have been much evolution, would there? Good to hear you talk of “how the organism does it” in the context of its novel set of mechanisms.

DAVID: Well, it has some sort of God-given mechanism yet to be discovered.

dhw: Yes, with my theist’s hat on, I find it much more likely that your God would have given carpediemonas (I love the name: seize the day!) the means of doing it, rather than having to preprogramme all this 3.8 billion years ago or popping in to do a dabble.

Major DNA changes is a "Shapiroian" thought. But this is bigger than a bacteria.