Theodicy: the 'good' view of viruses (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 01, 2021, 10:43 (1116 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Wrong interpretation: He used the only system available. Can you tell me about any other workable system? Unfortunately we can only study this one that works.

dhw: What do you mean by “available”? If your all-powerful God is the first cause, nothing was “available” until he designed it. So he is responsible for it. You are quite right that this is the only one we can study, but we are left with the astonishing fact that you think your God left it to us humans to correct the errors he couldn’t correct, and you even tell us that he kindly gave us the brains to do it. So if we can correct those errors he couldn’t correct (and sometimes we can), you are presenting us with an all-powerful God who can’t even do what we can do.

DAVID: Totally twisted invention. Realize all errors are future events. God knew His life system would work, realized future errors would happen and added editing systems. Our smarts allow us to correct some. But we are alive through God's actions. Dayenu!!!

If your God exists, of course we are alive through his actions. But that has nothing to do with the problem of theodicy. There is no twisting. You have argued that your all-powerful God could not have invented any other system, and there were some errors he was unable to correct, both of which can only mean that his powers are limited. My alternative is that your all-powerful designed what he wanted to design.

DAVID: In your interpretation it becomes negative. He designed a system that works, but I believe it is the only system available that can work.

dhw: How can designing what he wanted to design be “negative”, whereas having to design something he didn’t wish to design is positive?

DAVID: It is YOUR view of God that is often in the negative.

I offer different views: why is it negative to propose that he wanted and got a free-for-all, or that he enjoyed experimenting and/or getting new ideas, that he likes watching his creations, and that he designed what he wanted to design, not what he was forced to design?

Transposons
DAVID: God does not control our active cells. His designs created many multiple processes acting automatically in concert with life emerging.

dhw: Why do you always insert the word automatically? That is the whole issue. Still with my theist cap on, I’m proposing that your God designed a mechanism which could autonomously create multiple processes acting in concert with changing conditions. You have rightly pointed out that this theory is not accepted by the scientific world. I have pointed out that yours isn’t accepted either. Nobody knows the truth. (See also "Miscellany".)

DAVID: I shouldn't insert the word automaticity!!!! We shouldn't debate??? I have a fixed viewpoint to argue about how living biochemistry works. All the cellular processes I have studied show a series of molecular reactions to achieve a result, responding to all various stimuli.

You insert it as if it were a fact. That is what we are debating. And yes, your viewpoint is so fixed that you dismiss alternatives, even though your theories are just as unproven as the alternatives.