Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 13, 2021, 15:29 (1135 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I have accepted God as the creator of all history, and don't have to explain it.

dhw: If God exists, of course he is the creator of all history, but you insist on explaining it (God wanted to design humans, and so he designed countless life forms that had no connection with humans), and then you complain when I point out that your explanation is illogical!

My explanation accepts that God can do what He wants when He wants, and what everything is on Earth now is what He wanted to be here. We are His end goal of brain complexity, which is obvious.

dhw: I’m not talking about individual human lives. If your God tried but failed to stop errors, then of course he didn’t want a free-for-all. You are advocating an all-powerful God who simply lost control. Why does that make him less “humanized” than an all-powerful God who deliberately produces a free-for-all because that is what he wants?

DAVID: The bold is your error in viewing my thinking. God KNEW errors could happen because of the system He HAD/WAS REQUIRED to create. The editing systems are very good, just not perfect.

dhw: So he knew he couldn’t control the system he had created. He is supposed to be the first cause, so who or what made him create an imperfect system (“had to/was required to”)? Please answer my earlier question: how does his inability to create a perfect system make him less “humanized” than a God who deliberately chose to create a system that gave cells the freedom to do their own designing, complete with the capacity for making “errors”?

Once again you are inventing a God who thinks in human terms. The bold is a total error of what I said about God's choice of living biochemistry for life. God knew the system with free-floating molecules that had to change shape automatically might make mistakes, but was the only system that would produce life alas with a very tiny degree of errors, for which He produced editing systems that are highly but no perfectly effective. Yet most life works perfectly well.