Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, October 16, 2021, 13:13 (1132 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] 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”? […]

DAVID: Again your twisted version of my theory: God knew the ONLY system that would work could produce molecular errors. So He had editor systems in place, that work largely perfectly. As for your mamby-pamby God in the bold, answered many times: my God knows what He wants and does it.

dhw: It is the errors that form part of the theodicy problem. I’m always amazed at your knowledge of what your all-powerful God can and can’t do, and what he wants and doesn’t want to do. I’m doubly amazed at your response when I point out that your God may have deliberately produced precisely this system plus “errors” because that is what he wanted to produce (not what circumstances forced him to produce). You continue to ignore my bolded question concerning “humanization”, and now you claim that a God who gets precisely what he wants is “namby-pamby”!

DAVID: it is your imagined God who is n-p even if you point out the weird purpose as reasonable, which for me isn't. I did answer the bold with an answer you reject, so now I didn't answer???

Firstly, why is it namby-pamby to design a system that will produce the constantly changing spectacle that is formed by the history of life as we know it? Secondly, you have NOT answered the bolded question. Why is it less “human” for your God to be unable to produce a perfect system, and also unable to control some of its errors, than for your God to produce a system that he wants to produce?

DAVID: History reeks of purpose. He made a universe fine-tuned for life. He didn't have to. He designed an Earth with perfect conditions for life. He bothered only because He wanted life to survive. And as the only consciousness around He decided to add an organism with consciousness. The last step we debate as to His motives. Now we are at all guesswork, with all the possible motives previously listed, so take your pick. I'm content to accept God did what He wished.

dhw: If he exists, I have no quarrel with any of this. I simply propose that the vast variety of life forms, including those that had nothing to do with humans, is what he wished, and what you call the “errors” in the system are also what he wished.

DAVID: He did not wish for the errors. He had to accept them for life to exist, a major consideration you ignore.

I don’t ignore it. I challenge it. You present a first-cause, all-powerful God who finds himself unable to produce the perfect system he would like to produce. I propose that if your first-cause, all-powerful God exists, he is more likely to produce what he wants to produce than what he is forced by his own limitations to produce. (He can’t even correct some of the errors!) And I challenge your dismissal of my all-powerful version of God as “namby-pamby” and as more “human” than your own helpless God who tries his best – but sometimes fails – to correct the errors in his design.

DAVID: Corrections: 1) His choice of how to create is His choice, which I accept, without guessing at His reasons.

But you have no way of knowing that his choice of how and what to create is the same as your interpretation of it! You are “accepting” your own theory about him having limited powers. You are not “accepting” some God-given truth!

DAVID: 2) God did not 'produce' errors. he had to accept the unstoppable mistakes and price of creating living organisms, accepting this system is the only one possible.

Poor helpless God, whose powers are so limited that he has to accept that he can’t do what he wants to do, and can’t even correct some of the errors his design has to produce. How can you say he did not ‘produce’ the errors if he designed the system?

DAVID: 3) a non-humanized God knows exactly what He wishes and does it without any human reasoning.

I agree totally that if God exists, he would know what he wishes and would go ahead and do it. That is why I suggest that the ever-changing history of life, including all those life forms and foods that had no connection with humans, and the so-called “errors” in his system for life, are what he would have wished for and produced. For some reason, you think this “humanizes” him and makes him “namby-pamby”.