Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 05, 2021, 11:02 (1143 days ago) @ David Turell

Irreducibly complex controls
dhw: Your proposal is that he was incapable of producing any other system, and he did his best (not always successfully – hence all the suffering) to control the “uncontrollable mistakes”. My proposal is that (if he exists) he deliberately designed a system containing what you call the “uncontrollable mistakes”, because it was essential to his plan that cells/cell communities should be "free to change" in order to find their own modes of survival but would eventually die both individually and collectively (the extinction of species, making way for new species).

DAVID: As usual your God does not have definitive goals or purposes. Doesn't explain speciation to me in any way.

dhw: As usual, you try to forget your own certainty that your God enjoys creation and watches his creations with interest.

DAVID: Your usual distortion of my thoughts about God. Not certain, just guesses!!! Offered in reply to your questioning.

Sorry, but I keep a record of certain statements and quote them, as follows:
“Back to theodicy” 9 March 2021: “God is in the business of creation and enjoys doing it or I think he would stop.”
“Theodicy” 7 December 2020: I’m sure He likes what he creates, and that He is satisfied in His results as the inventor.
“Theodicy”, 20 October 2020: “I’m sure he sees what is going on with his own level of interest, unknown to us.”

I have been quoting you ever since.

dhw: Meanwhile, you insist that he specially designed species after species, the vast majority of which had no connection with humans, although apparently humans (and their food) were his only purpose - and you object if I ask what was his “definitive goal” in producing humans.

DAVID: I cannot know why God chose to evolve us. Again you are asking me to guess. And you like to use 'only' as if that is all God had on His mind.

You cannot “know” any of God’s thoughts, and yet you insist that every life form was specially designed as “part of his goal to evolve humans” and our food.

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

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.[…]

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: Still ignoring all the ecosystems that supply life for all. […]

dhw: Of course all life needs energy. How does that explain why your God deliberately designed all the extinct life forms and ecosystems that had no connection with humans, although according to you his one and only goal was to design humans and their food?

DAVID: The colored phrase is your twisted version of my theories. Humans are God's endpoint with lots of evolution before that happens starting with a Big Bang. All described in a God-created history. History tells us what God decided to do. […]

dhw: You have repeated for months if not years that we and our food were his only goal, and all other life forms were “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” and their food. If God exists, of course he decided that all these other unconnected life forms should come and go. And that is what makes your anthropocentrism so illogical. So I’ll ask you the usual direct question: if humans and their food were not your God’s one and only goal, what was his goal in producing all the other life forms and foods that had no connection with humans and their food? Please give a direct answer.

DAVID: It is my contention that the entire bush is necessary to provide energy for all forms of life. It is all entirely an integrated system. All stages of evolution were necessary to produce us in a stepwise fashion. You are questioning my view of God's logic. I simply review the history He created to see obvious answers.

But what was the purpose of all those forms of life that had no connection with humans? Are you saying that your God individually designed every life form, econiche, strategy, natural wonder etc. just so that the animals etc. could eat one another before he designed humans? How can “ALL stages of evolution have been necessary to produce us in a stepwise fashion” if most life forms had no connection with us? On another thread, you describe the trilobite with unique multiple eyes. How was that “necessary” to produce us?