Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, January 19, 2023, 12:28 (672 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] God’s talent for adapting his designs to whatever conditions chance imposes on him does not fit in with an all-powerful God having only one purpose and knowing exactly how to achieve it. However, it does fit in perfectly with the concept of a God who enjoys creating and has new ideas as he goes along.

DAVID: If God is really a human.

How can a God who creates universes be a human? If he exists, there is no reason at all why – as you agreed in the past – he should not have certain thought patterns and emotions and logic in common with the being you believe he created (us). You yourself endow him with human qualities (e.g. kindness, enjoyment of creating and interest in his creations) and frailties (making mistakes, conducting failed experiments).

dhw: Why is it less “human” to achieve a goal despite lack of control of conditions, and despite countless mess-ups, mistakes and failed experiments, than it is to achieve a goal without making any mistakes or conducting any failed experiments?

DAVID: But that is not what happened, is it? An all-powerful God chose to use evolution with its messiness and 99% failure rate to successfully produce humans.

That is your derogatory interpretation of your God’s form of evolution, as opposed to: 1) a God who conducted successful experiments (all his designs lived – some of them for hundreds of millions of years) but still wasn’t entirely satisfied and went on experimenting, or 2) a God who experimented and had new ideas as he went along, before finally hitting on the idea of us humans. In both theories, he did not make mistakes and did not conduct failed experiments, but still produced us. Both theories would also fit in nicely with your belief that he did not control the environment. A free-for-all could also have produced humans, and if I adopt the same attitude as you (but still theistic), I can say: “Look, God’s free-for-all produced humans, so why are you opposing my theory?” This covers the rest of your post, apart from your amazing insight into God’s mind (he’s “not worried about lack of total control”). He has nothing to worry about in any of my alternative theories, since he does and gets exactly what he wants without making any mistakes at all.