Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, January 29, 2023, 08:26 (447 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 99% failure is part of our evolutionary system, as Raup states. Your statement about luck is totally inconsistent. No luck is involved if God can design for any set of requirements.

And under “body heat”

DAVID: An all-powerful God does not need any 'lucky' circumstances. He can design for/around any conditions present.

Something is a failure if it doesn’t achieve its purpose. In your theory, your God’s sole purpose was to design us and our food, and so because 99% of his experiments had nothing to do with us and our food, you say his experiments were mistakes/failures. However, if his purpose was to enjoy creating an ever changing world, and an ever changing world is what he created, then none of what he created was a mistake or a failure. As for luck, if he did not control environmental conditions but could only design what those conditions required, he had to wait for luck to provide him with the right conditions. And if luck determined which organisms survived or didn’t survive, he needed luck to provide him with organisms which he could develop into us and our food. In both cases, according to you, he kept on designing organisms which did not lead to us and our food, and these 99% of his creations were what you call his mistakes and failed experiments. That does not make him all-powerful.

dhw: If he exists, then of course he does what he wants. That is why it makes perfect sense to assume that he WANTED the history of life with its vast variety of comings and goings, and it makes no sense at all to assume that he wanted to make mistakes and conduct failed experiments.'

DAVID: I fully agree. God knew exactly what He was doing and what He wanted to do. He knew and expected species would disappear allowing Him to design the next steps in evolution.

The species which disappeared did not “allow” him to design the next steps. You can’t develop a life form that doesn’t exist! As you have agreed, it is the 1% of life forms that evolved into us and our food. And it is you who tell us that the other 99% were mistakes/failures.

DAVID: Failure equals non-survival, which is necessary for evolution to advance under God's designs.

Failure does not equal non-survival! Failure = not achieving one’s purpose! If your God WANTED an ever changing world in which species came and went (went = failed to survive), there were no mistakes or failures by God.

DAVID: Again, you want God to be a playwright like you have been, creating life by letting His imagination drift along. I know of no theist who would accept this view.

dhw: It’s akin to Whitehead’s process theology: “God is in the process of becoming…God in his consequent nature prehends the temporal world…and in this growing and changing nature, experiences the process, knowing and loving it. […] God works like an artist attempting to win order and beauty out of opportunity.” (Oxford Dictionary of World Religions)

dhw: All ignored. I wonder how many theists believe 99% of God’s work consisted of mistakes and failed experiments, and his success depended on luck providing him with survivors and conditions that he could use to achieve is one and only purpose.

DAVID: I know from the past you had a favorable view of Whitehead. I'm not impressed with his theory and haven't noted much support. Once again you cannot accept the idea, clearly presented previously, an all-powerful designer doesn't need special circumstances/conditions to provide a suitable design.

You doubted if there was any support for my theory. There is. How much support is there for your theory that your God kept making mistakes and conducting failed experiments in pursuit of his one and only goal? But you are absolutely right that an all-powerful God would not need special conditions, which is why your version of God, who has no control over conditions and depends on luck to provide the right ones, cannot be called all-powerful. Your theory makes nonsense of the term all-powerful, as does your belief that 99% of his work comprised failures and mistakes, no matter how hard you try to wriggle round your God’s acknowledged “responsibility for the mess”.

DAVID: I've previously made the point that perhaps evolution was the only available method that would work. And another rephrase is necessary: God used a system that produced mistakes. God did not make any mistakes, Himself.

Your all-powerful God apparently did not have the power to invent a system that would work without mistakes and failures. You have acknowledged that he was “responsible” for the mess, but now you are saying that a God who designed a system that makes mistakes is not responsible for the mistakes. If the house that you designed fell down because the design was faulty, you would blame the design and not yourself.