Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, October 02, 2021, 10:48 (1146 days ago) @ David Turell

Irreducibly complex controls

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

dhw: Which of course limits his powers.

DAVID: Which He accepted to produce life.

So God, your all-powerful “first cause”, accepted the limitations he had created for himself. Whereas my suggestion has him creating precisely what he wanted to create. And yet later you call such a God “strange”.

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: The simple answer is still He chose to evolve us from bacteria over time.

And so yet again you ignore your own belief that he also chose to “evolve” (for you = design) every other life form over time, although the vast majority had no connection with humans plus food, but humans plus food were his only “intention”.

DAVID: I've told you, and you like to ignore it, if I accept your strange form of God, your theories are logical in that context.

My theories explain the problem you have chosen to ignore month after month if not year after year. What is “strange” about a God who experiments, has new ideas as he goes along, or wishes to create an ever-changing free-for-all because, as you have told us, he enjoys creating and then watches his creations with interest? The God you have proposed is all-powerful except that he has limitations. Don’t you find that strange?

dhw: 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?

DAVID: Not worth replying. Designed Evolution means we are connect directly to bacteria by progressive designed stages. You don't accept the idea so that makes me a dodger!!!! That is not debating.

I have no problem accepting that idea. But every other life form is/was also connected directly to bacteria by progressive stages, and most of the other life forms had no connection with HUMANS and their food, although you tell us that HUMANS and their food were your God’s only purpose right from the start. Your constant attempts to dodge this problem by excluding every other life form from your statements (except on those occasions when you admit you have no idea, and I should go and ask God) are not “debating”.