Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, October 01, 2021, 12:20 (1147 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: [...] the difference is God's personality as each of us views Him. My God picked the best system possible, knowing mistakes were necessarily built in, but had to be accepted.

dhw: We are going round in circles. This means your all-powerful, all-knowing God was limited in his powers, and tried but sometimes failed to correct the errors in his design. My all-powerful, all-knowing God would have created precisely what he wanted to create and did create.

DAVID: My God knew the limits of the one possible way to invent life and used it.

Yes, I understand. Your God’s powers are limited and I propose that he is all-powerful and creates what he wants to create.

Irreducibly complex controls
DAVID: God edited His system, but free-to-change-shape molecules can make uncontrollable mistakes.

Which of course limits his powers. See above.

DAVID: He designed evolution with direct intentionality to reach the production of sapiens.

dhw: And so his “direct intentionality” entailed designing countless life forms that had no connection with his intention, which was humans!

DAVID: Same answer, God chose to evolve us by stepwise design. Your approach, knowing the history God created, is totally illogical.

His direct intentionality led to his designing life forms that had no connection with his intention, and that apparently is logical. The various alternative approaches I have proposed are all logical, according to you, and that makes them all totally illogical.

God always evolves goals
dhw: I have no problem envisaging your God as an experimental scientist, working out the right formula for life and evolution. I only have problems with your anthropocentric view of evolution, which ignores all the life forms that had no connection with humans, and with your non-explanation of “theodicy”, which appears to be that his powers were limited, “errors” were not his fault, he had good intentions which will one day be revealed, and we should only think of the good things he’s done.

DAVID: You've summarized my approach, which is a clear explanation of His works.

Except that you can’t explain why he designed life forms that had no connection with what you say was his sole purpose (your theory of evolution), and your explanation of theodicy is that we don’t know what his good intentions were so we should think of the good not the bad.
The rest of your post simply goes on dodging the bolded question: if your God’s only purpose was to design humans and their food, why would he have designed countless extinct life forms and foods that had no connection with humans?