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

by dhw, Saturday, November 13, 2021, 07:37 (1105 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: With your various posts, you have now offered various possible answers to the problem of theodicy, which asks why an all-good, all-powerful God created a world full of what we call bad. Here are your answers: 1) We should focus on the good and not the bad. 2) What we call “bad” might not be bad. 3) The all-powerful God could not control the bad caused by his system, hard though he tried. 4) He is not all-good.

dhw: My own suggestion, for what it's worth, is that (assuming he exists, of course) the all-powerful God deliberately designed a system whereby at all levels - ranging from their responses to changing conditions (resulting in evolution) to human free will - all life forms had the ability to work out their own destiny. (But he could dabble if he wished.) The outcome is the higgledy-piggledy history of evolution, and many of those features of life which we consider to be bad and which have arisen inevitably from the self-interest which governs the fight for survival. Like you some of the time - when you are not harping on about his good intentions - I would not touch on whether he himself is what we would call "good".

DAVID: A good summary of your views.

Thank you. I take it that you cannot find any fault with them, and you accept my summary of your own views. We can probably draw a line under the topic now, though 3) and 4) may well crop up again in future discussions,