Theodicy: bad bacteria seen differently (Introduction)

by David Turell @, Sunday, July 18, 2021, 16:02 (974 days ago) @ dhw

BACTERIAS’ ROLE IN HUMAN BIOMES

DAVID: As usual you take God out of full control. My view includes all organisms that get in the way. The unavoidable need for constant energy creates the problem.

dhw: The unavoidable need for constant energy (= food) is what leads to the battle for survival. In this, every life form has its own means of acquiring energy. And so you are left with a stark choice: either your God invented each life form and its strategies for survival, or he gave them the means of devising their own strategies (which would include changing their own structures) for the same purpose. If he deliberately invented a bacterium which, for instance, would survive by destroying another life form (of course carnivorousness is a prime and direct example of survival by destruction of other life forms), then so be it. But this lies at the heart of the problem of theodicy: we humans don’t like it when we get eaten, and we think it’s “bad”, and so we ask why a good God would invent such nasty things. All I am suggesting is that if he exists, God did not invent them. He only created the means whereby life forms could design their own means of survival. Theodicy problem solved.

Your solution removes God from managing evolution, contrary to my view. How would we get from bacteria to humans by self-evolving forms doing their own thing? That makes us lucky chance beings. I know how you will howl about this, but I know we are obviously special.


DAVID: It seems God did not plan some of them:
https://phys.org/news/2021-07-bacterial-parasites-super-bugs.html
DAVID: God may have designed everyone in the past, but what is happening now is not under His direct control. [..]

dhw: Once again, my thanks for reproducing material that contradicts your own theory. I agree that he cannot be held responsible for events that are out of his control; that is the whole basis of my “solution” to the problem of theodicy. By creating a free-for-all, he did not design anything “good” or “bad”.

DAVID: Right, your God is not in control, so He can't be blamed. Wow, what a solution!!! God who created the universe fine-tuned-for-life, guided the formation of our galaxy and our special Earth that allows life, started life, and did it all by free-for-all. Your analysis about God limps.

dhw: I have never said that fine-tuning etc. was done by free-for-all! If God exists, I accept that he would have designed the conditions for life and the first forms of life. The free-for-all concerns EVOLUTION! And yes, WOW, it provides a solution to the problem of theodicy. If organisms were given the means to design their own ways to survive, God is not responsible for the means that they designed. See above. Now instead of misrepresenting my proposal, please tell us what faults you can find in its logic.

Since the discussion has circled back, from above: "Your solution removes God from managing evolution, contrary to my view. How would we get from bacteria to humans by self-evolving forms doing their own thing? That makes us lucky chance beings. I know how you will howl about this, but I know we are obviously special." And finally survival doesn't drive evolution, God does. You are still using that old tautology, "survival of the fittest". You are still clamped cheek to jowl with Darwin. What I accept of him is he fully championed that we evolved. But his thoughts as to how it happened have not proven out. Not his fault. He didn't know what we now know. You love to bring up the 99% gone. They have to be gone to make room, but also because they were no longer needed as stages of invention. You keep forgetting the major point about bacteria. Why aren't they past history? Because they are a necessary part of the whole design reaching us and still acting in helpful ways.. Your 99% is pure strawman, an empty point. It seems you cannot think from a purpose standpoint as you try to be a theist. I start with a very purposeful God, you don't, a good summary of our difference.


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