Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 23, 2021, 08:46 (1156 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Dying is purposeful.

dhw: And its divine purpose is….? I would suggest the possibility that, if your God exists, its purpose is to ensure that life both individually and generally is an ever changing process of comings and goings which, in your own words, provides him with both the enjoyment of creation and with something interesting to watch. […] This would explain the vast extinct variety of life forms that had no connection with humans and would also do away with the problem of theodicy.

DAVID: You know my answer, dying makes room for the future

There is no clash here. We agree that without dying, there cannot be an ever changing process of comings and goings. All part of the possible purpose I have described.

DAVID: We are His obvious goal along with a survivability food supply from the whole bush.

dhw: There you go again. The "whole bush" contained countless extinct life forms and foods that had no connection with us! […] That is the basic illogicality of your theory, since you believe he specially designed EVERY life form and food “as part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” and our food.

DAVID: Please remember our huge population size foreseen by God needs the current huge bush for food supply.

Of course we need the current huge bush, but we do not need the 3.X billion years’ worth of bush which had no connection with the current bush, but which you say your God specially designed even though his only purpose was to design us and our current bush.

DAVID: I've agreed with your proposals for God only if I consider your very humanized God who is bumbling along. The fine-tuning designed into His creations show a brilliant mind who knows exactly what He intends to do and does it.

dhw: No “bumbling”, brilliant mind yes, “knows exactly what He intends to do and does it” applies to the free-for-all and the experimenting, while getting new ideas fits in with the purpose/intention of setting something in motion in order to see where it will lead.

DAVID: Again describing a God unsure of His future creations doesn't change the picture of a weak struggling God, compared to my God who creates with specific purposes.

I’ve just answered this, so why do you repeat it?

DAVID: Accepting us as the final intended goal makes what we know of His works fit beautifully into that conclusion.

dhw: How does the design of countless extinct life forms which had no connection with humans “fit in beautifully” with the conclusion that we were his “final intended goal”?

DAVID: Your usual totally illogical complaint, when my theory is simple: God chose to evolve us from bacteria, as history demonstrates.

Yet again you leave out the rest of your totally illogical theory that your God’s only purpose was to evolve [=design] us and our food, but he spent 3.X billion years evolving [=designing] countless life forms and foods that had no connection with us. Please stop the dodging!