Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 27, 2022, 08:38 (485 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Now you have jumped to permanent local changes of such a magnitude God might have had a role in creating. I thought we were discussing local weather and local climate. I can point to ice ages where God may have had a role.

dhw: I have not jumped. I gave you the example of desert to forest right from the start, you agreed that your God would have played no role in the change, and you agreed that species appear locally and that your God continued “speciation which responds with forms adapted to new conditions.”(My bold). If your God responds to new conditions which he did not control, he can hardly be said to have been in tight control of evolution.

DAVID: Even if limited to creating new evolved forms, a designing God is in tight control. It doesn't matter how conditions change, God, with his powers of design, can design the required new forms.

I think I’ve understood your new theory. He started out with the desire to create a being like himself, couldn’t control the environment, and so kept on experimenting with different life forms, the vast majority of which were mistakes, failed experiments, wrong choices, until at last luck created the conditions under which he was able to start experimenting with whatever life forms had been lucky enough to survive. Then eventually, even though he continued to mess things up with further failed experiments, he was able to put all the bits and pieces together to claim success.

DAVID: It is your observation God took a cumbersome way to produced us, by evolution rather than directly. The entire discussion supports that observation. And it can now end. God does it His way.

dhw: Let’s use your vocabulary. The entire discussion supports your observation that your God is responsible for all the “mistakes, “failed experiments”, and “messy aspects” of evolution.

DAVID: Yes, God chose to evolve us through that messy process.

Thank you for confirming your faith in the experimentation theory. As I have explained before, it is my least favoured of the three I’ve proposed, because it makes him rather weak and messy, but we needn’t go into the details again.