A possible God's possible purpose and nature (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Thursday, January 20, 2022, 11:40 (1036 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: His actions producing unexpected humans shows God's purpose (Adler)

dhw: You seem to have forgotten that you were telling me we can only define your God’s PERSONALITY by his actions. Of course you can extrapolate purpose from his actions. In that case, his actions of producing the unexpected brontosaurus and every other unexpected extinct life form that had no connection with humans and their foods show his purpose. So do tell us what that purpose was. (Adler apparently doesn’t cover that.)

DAVID: Amnesia! Adler uses God's purposeful production of highly unusual humans as a result of evoution to prove God.

It is you who are suffering from amnesia. Our disagreement is not over Adler’s “proof” that God exists, but over your interpretation of God’s purpose! Please reread the above exchange and tell us your God’s purpose for producing past “unexpected” life forms that had no connection with humans and their foods, if his purpose was only to produce humans and their foods. On second thoughts, don’t bother. It’s covered on the other thread: His reasons are “unknown to us”.

dhw: […] you cannot possibly know that your all-powerful God was unable to design a system without errors, and I suggest that your all-powerful God designed the system that he WANTED – and what you call errors were not errors but were/are life forms using their freedom to find their own ways of survival.

DAVID: So you ignore mistakes that kill?

dhw: I have said they are not “mistakes” but are merely examples of free organisms designing their own way of surviving. Bacteria or deviant cells that kill us by feeding on us are no different from all the other life forms that survive by killing. Do you see all carnivores as “mistakes” your all-powerful God didn’t want but couldn’t correct?

DAVID: I'm referring to metabolic errors that can kill, while you remain off that point. God edited to prevent them.

And in some cases – despite being all-powerful – he failed to do so. The “metabolic errors” were included under “deviant cells”, and I am suggesting that the diseases that kill, like everything else that kills, are the result of the freedom of choice you have acknowledged as being part of your God’s system.

Importance of pathogens
dhw:. If accidents can cause your God to “change course”, then it is illogical to claim that he had planned everything in advance and was always in total control.

DAVID: He obviously planned for the great oxygenation event. But some events certainly seem at random like the course of each asteroid now flying around the solar system.

You can pick and choose as much as you like, but you cannot dispute the logic of my statement.