Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, September 18, 2021, 08:12 (913 days ago) @ David Turell

Protection from mutations
dhw: If God created life from scratch, then clearly he created a system that would produce errors. If the errors are spontaneous and not of his doing, he must have created a free-for-all! Nobody knows what your God is like, so how can you possibly call my proposal “strange unrecognizable” – just because I propose that he may have designed a free-for-all instead of a puppet show?

DAVID: You forget God recognized the possible error problem and our biochemical system is full of constant editing systems.

If he designed a system which produced errors which he didn’t want and tried (often unsuccessfully) to “edit”, then clearly he was not in control. I simply suggest that rather than the incompetent designer who can’t control his invention, your God might deliberately have designed the system so that it would produce errors.

DAVID: Conclusion: God wanted a controlled system. You would not be your age if your body ran by free-for-all.

Millions of people fail to reach my age, and in any case, unless I am killed by accident or by an irate contributor to this website, my death will eventually be due to some kind of “error” in the system. So maybe your God designed the system to ensure that I did not live for ever as the handsome, dashing young man I wish I had once been!

Organized chaos
QUOTE: This pathway is a riot of molecular promiscuity that would make a libertine blush, where the component molecules can unite in many different combinations. It might seem futile to hope that this chaotic dance could convey any coherent signal to direct the fate of a cell. Yet this sort of helter-skelter coupling among biomolecules may be the norm, not some weird exception. In fact, it may be why multicellular life works at all.

dhw: What a wonderful description of how a free-for-all would work! Molecules and hence cells can unite in many different combinations (chaos) but they all work (organized), and that would explain how multicellular life diversifies into different species.

DAVID: if life works on organized chaos as it now seems, no wonder mistakes happen. This is the only system of life we know, and perhaps the only one that can work that God could create.

dhw: Of course mistakes happen in a free-for-all. And maybe that is precisely what your God wanted to create. Without “mistakes”, every creature would live for ever and ever! And theodicy problem also solved: God left his invention to develop in all the different ways we know of from life’s history, creating what was “good” for them, even if it was “bad” for others.

Here you repeated your conclusion to “Protection from mutations” (above), so please re-read my response.

DAVID: My God fits logical conclusions from His works.

dhw: Your guesses include thought patterns similar to ours, enjoyment of creation, watching his creations with interest, wanting us to recognize his work, and wanting a relationship with him. Why do you try to dismiss them all when I use them to link his works to his purpose?

DAVID: Guesswork about God is just that, guesses as to His real reasons.

Yes indeed, and I have quoted your guesses and logically linked them to his purposes, whereupon you try to dismiss your own guesses because you don’t like their logical implications.

DAVID: Why can't you accept that point that God chose to evolve us from bacteria over a long time. It is entirely logical to me. Your illogical complaint escapes me.

dhw: What you desperately try to escape from is your fixed belief that your God deliberately designed the “evolution” of ALL life forms from bacteria, including countless life forms that had no connection with humans (plus food), although his one and only purpose was to design humans (plus food). Please stop editing your theory in order to leave out its illogical components.

DAVID: God chose to evolve us from bacteria, His obvious choice from the history He created. And I cannot know why He made that choice, but we both guess at it.

And so yet again you edit your theory in order to leave out the bolded combination of premises that make it illogical.


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