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

by dhw, Friday, April 09, 2021, 08:42 (1323 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: In a football match, the goal is to score goals and win the game. But what would be the point if you already knew the result? The inventor of the sport did not want anyone including himself to know the result beforehand. He “purposely created” an activity that was open-ended – apparently something you don’t understand: that open-endedness can be a purpose in itself. Your own example could be your always-in-total-control God’s creation of free will, but I never hear you talk of this "purposely created" “free-for-all” behaviour as “humanizing” God.

DAVID: Totally off point: human free will is no part of creating new organisms through a process of evolution Your free-will-evolution is a guideless process of creation.

Free will is an example of your God deliberately giving up control. And yes, my free-for-all means that your God chose to design a system that would provide unpredictable variety. You keep telling us ad nauseam that your God would not give up control. He gave it up when he gave us free will. You keep telling us ad nauseam that giving up control makes God “human”, and I keep asking ad nauseam why wanting to give up control is more human than wanting to have total control. Your only answer is:

DAVID: My God had a goal of creating humans through a process of designed evolution. He would not want an unguided process.

First of all, how do you know? Secondly, if his only goal was to create humans, why the 99% of organisms that had no connection with humans? Thirdly, why does not wanting an unguided process make him less human than wanting an unguided process?

DAVID: Nothing in your entry has anything to do with the use of allegorical terms in describing God. Allegorical terms are used to describe God, Himself as an allegorical personage, not His intentions or plans. The difference is very clear.

dhw: Nothing in this whole discussion has anything to do with allegorical terms, unless you regard the analogies we use to illustrate our theories as allegories. This thread only concerns your theory of evolution and the problem of theodicy, both of which hinge on his intentions or plans. All this talk of “allegory” with your long quote about interpreting the Bible is nothing but a red herring. Please get back to issues and tell us at last why it is not humanizing for your God to want only to create humans, to enjoy creating and possibly to want recognition, but it is “very human” for him want to create a free-for-all and to create BECAUSE he enjoys creating.

DAVID: To repeat: "My God had a goal of creating humans through a process of designed evolution. He would not want an unguided process."

You don’t need to repeat it. Please just answer the questions.

DAVID: And allegory is important in thinking of God's motives. His 'enjoyment' of creating is understood allegorically, since we theists don't think of God as creating solely for His own enjoyment or doing it for a sense of required enjoyment.

What is the allegory? You believe he enjoys creating, but you don’t believe he creates because he wants to enjoy creating. There is no allegory here!

DAVID: A free-for-all is rudderless.

Correct. How many more times are you going to explain the meaning of a free-for-all? How does this come to mean that he didn’t want a free-for-all?

DAVID: Of course an all-powerful God is capable of doing that if He wished, but why would a purposeful God wish that, losing control?

Because maybe your purposeful God wanted to create something he would enjoy, and there is more enjoyment to be had from watching the unpredictable than from watching the predictable. And before you cry: “humanizing”, why is that more “humanizing” than a God who enjoys exercising total control as he pulls the puppets’ strings? And for good measure, let us not forget your claim that he enjoys creating, in which case why would he enjoy creating the bad bugs and viruses?