Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, August 21, 2021, 12:54 (979 days ago) @ David Turell

FESER

dhw: You and Feser impose an arbitrary list of “limitations” on descriptions of a possible God. If you say he is all-powerful and all-knowing, the rest of us are not allowed to suggest that he might deliberately create something that functions without his control, or that he might experiment and/or learn new things as he goes along. (See below on “humanizing”.)

DAVID: You are allowed any fantasies about God you wish. Some may accept them.

That’s very kind of you. And of course I will grant you and Feser the same latitude. Since we agree that if God exists, the only way we can get to know him is through his works, perhaps now we can get back to testing our respective “fantasies” against what we know of life’s history.

DAVID: …you want him spectating.

dhw: …you are sure he watches us with interest.

DAVID: Allegorically, not in a human sense.

dhw: What on earth does that mean? What does watching with interest symbolize?

DAVID: He does not watch in a human way.

dhw: I don’t suppose he has a pair of eyes peering through a pair of spectacles, but do you or do you not think he has his own means of observing his own creations?

DAVID: He observes in His Godly way, not in a human sense.

Good. So we now we both have him spectating/watching/observing with interest in a godly way. How does that mean he doesn’t watch us with interest?

DAVID: You are right about all the different deism/theisms of which I am totally aware. I follow Thomism thought in thinking about God. Thus I read Feser.

dhw: All my alternative explanations of life’s history deliberately allow for God – they are compatible with theism. So please stop pretending that your way of thinking is the only way any theist can possibly think about God. Why don’t you focus instead on the reasonableness of the theories?[…]

DAVID: You keep forgetting I accept your theories only if I accept a very humanizing form of a God, which I don't. Please remember the point even if you don't like it.

dhw: I don’t like the silly argument that a God who created us could not possibly have endowed us with some of his own attributes. Nor do you, because you agree that he possibly/probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours, and you are “sure that we mimic Him in many different ways”. But you think you can discredit a logical proposal merely by using the word “humanize” if the “mimicry” does not correspond to the “humanizing” you believe in.

DAVID: We are in an area of discussion imagining how we might be made to mimic Him, but since He is not a human person the mimicry is uncertain.

So why do you insist that only your “humanization” of him is possible, and dismiss my humanizations because they are humanizations?