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

by David Turell , Friday, April 09, 2021, 19:39 (1322 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

Total muddle. Free will is what we do as living beings. A free-for-all evolution relates only to the mode of evolutionary progression not the same comparison in any sense. God cannot give up evolutionary control if He wants to reach a goal He desires.

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

dhw: 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?

Same muddled reasoning. First, our arrival according to Adler's philosophy, secondly, the 99% are simply evolutionary steps on the way to us, and thirdly, an unguided process has no guarantee of reaching a desired goal.5

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: 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.

IT ALL DEPENDS ON ONE'S VIEW OF GOD'S PERSONALITY. YOURS IS NOT MINE. WE CAN'T KNOW IF HE ENJOYS CREATING, AND HE MAY NOT DO IT FOR HIS OWN ENJOYMENT. HE MAY SIMPLY DO IT TO DO IT, NOTHING MORE. I WILL NOT APPLY HUMAN THOUGHT TO HIM, AS IT IS ALL GUESS WORK.

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.

DHW: 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!

You still don't get it. All of God's thoughts must be considered from an allegorical viewpoint and interpretation.

DAVID: A free-for-all is rudderless.

dhw: 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?

dhw: 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?

How do you know God 'needs' enjoyment? The bold was a possibility I suggested but not ever sure of. You pounce on every possible morsel in finding me agreeing with you about your distorted humanized view of God. God may not have any human attributes as a personage like no other human person. God is not you or any of us in some ethereal form.