Return to David's theory of evolution PARTS 1 & 2 (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, July 19, 2022, 20:27 (856 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You forget my view is God did everything He thought He should/had to do to prepare for the appearance of humans and their eventual giant population.

dhw: How could I forget the view that has been the subject of this discussion year after year? Now, according to you, he thought that in order to fulfil his one and only purpose of designing H. sapiens plus food, he “should/had to” design countless life forms and econiches which had no connection with H. sapiens plus food. Not even he “chose to”, but it was some kind of obligation or compulsion. No wonder you say such a theory “makes sense only to God”.

Not an 'obligation or compulsion'. You are back, as usual, to a humanized vision of God. God purposefully knows exactly what must be done in a proper design for the arrival of humans.

dhw: […] please explain how your inability to explain a theory which “makes sense only to God” can possibly mean that the theory makes sense to you?

DAVID: Your same inability to see God as I do.

dhw: I must plead guilty to the crime of being unable to visualize an all-powerful, all-purposeful being who has one goal in mind, and thinks that in order to fulfil his one and only goal, he should/has to come up with countless designs that have no connection with his goal. And I am also guilty of scepticism concerning a theory that does not even make sense to the person who proposes it.

Your analysis of God's work is at a skeptical human level of faulty reasoning compared to God's. God did what He knew he had to do. You simply don't understand how to view it.

dhw: One of your certainties in the past was that your God enjoyed creating and was interested in his creations. One of my alternative theories is that he might have enjoyed creating all the life forms and econiches (including humans), and he wanted to create something that he would find interesting. Please explain why you find this possibility unacceptable.

DAVID: God does not ever need anything for self-interest. He is complete within Himself, something you do not understand.

dhw: I don’t know why you keep talking of “need”. If he enjoys creating things he finds interesting (which you yourself proposed), why shouldn’t that be a reason for his creating them? However, since you adhere to the idea that H. sapiens (plus food) was his one and only goal, please tell us why you think he set out to design H. sapiens (plus food). If I were a believer, I would regard that as a number one priority question.

We do not know if God creates anything to please Himself. But we do know He has given us brains which can think about Him and ask questions. Anything further is guesswork.

DAVID: Your constant interpretation of my thoughts is so twisted and lacks so much insight into my thinking it seems impossible for me to explain it, but I have tried above.

dhw: How can you possibly explain a theory which “makes sense only to God”? Please tell me which of these “interpretations of your thoughts” are twisted: 1) God’s one and only purpose was to “evolve” (= design) sapiens plus food. 2) God individually “evolved” (= designed) countless life forms and econiches that had no connection with sapiens plus food. 3) God designed some species (Cambrian) that had no precursors (i.e. that did not evolve in stages).[…]

DAVID: […] Same response: "You forget my view is God did everything He thought He should/had to do to prepare for the appearance of humans and their eventual giant population.

dhw: See above. Now please tell us which of the above “interpretations” of your theories is/are “twisted”.

I accept what God did with no need to explain it to myself or you. His reasons are His alone.

DAVID: And: The only aspect of my theory you have glommed onto is simply 'what makes sense to God' is the reason He chose to evolve us. It is His private reasoning. Simply accepting it is OK. So it makes perfect sense to me and many others.[/i]

dhw: What makes perfect sense to you and others? Certainly not the combination of theories I have listed above, which you say “makes sense only to God”. A theist who believes in evolution will of course believe that God designed evolution, which includes us. How does that explain his individual design of all the life forms and econiches that had no connection with us?

What a foolish request! If God designed evolution, what we see is what He wished to do.

DAVID: And to repeat: you do not know how to think about God. Not an insult to your intelligence, but an inability to entertain a different sort of God than you are able to envision.

dhw: Again, it’s true that I cannot envision a God whose reasoning tells him that in order to design H. sapiens plus food he must first design countless life forms that have no connection with H. sapiens plus food. I envision a God who knows what he wants and produces what he wants. Hence all my alternative theories, which you accept as being logical but which do not entail his "having to" produce things he didn’t actually want to produce.

Again, foolishness. God designed evolution exactly as He wanted to. There is nothing He didn't want to produce. Just your total confusion about to how to think about God.