Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 15, 2023, 11:32 (645 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolving a universe for life

DAVID: God ran evolution. He is responsible for all its warts.

dhw: So why did you say he was not to blame? Please stop contradicting yourself!

DAVID: No blame. He produced us by His system.

Your God is responsible for all the warts, but he is not to blame?

dhw: If he exists, then his “system” produced us and everything else that exists and existed, but I have offered you three interpretations of evolution’s history which remove your humiliating view of your God as an incompetent blunderer.

DAVID: Isn't it obvious evolution is a convoluted series of experimental forms? Your three theories result in God being a wimp, a secondhand designer who experiments and changes His mind or course as belowe frpm prevously:

If God exists, I have myself suggested that evolution is a convoluted series of experimental forms, but none of my three theories have him changing his mind or his course: 1) his intention is to design a being like himself, and he experiments with different approaches; 2) his intention is to explore all the possibilities of his invention (the living cell) by trying out new ideas; 3) the same as 2), but he gives his invention free rein, although retaining the option to dabble. Contrast this with your own theory: a blundering God whose work consists of 99% mistakes, failed experiments, wrong choices, responsible for what you regard as a mess, and reliant on luck to provide him with the conditions that will enable him to design the only life forms he actually wants to design.

DAVID: You have a totally blundering idea of my God, twisted by your preconceptions of how to think about God as theistic philosophers do. Why don't you investigate their thinking?

Please tell us which parts of my bolded summary above are not applicable to your idea of your God. And I’d be interested to know which theistic philosophers support it.

dhw: […] your God’s inability to control environmental changes forces him into designing the life forms which you call mistakes. No, he does not need luck to make his faulty designs. He needs luck to provide him with conditions that will enable him to design the only life forms he wants to design. Another of your distortions.

DAVID: No luck. God can design for any set of conditions as necessary. How can you contradict His success, us?

You just go on ignoring my responses, so I have to repeat them. If he has no control over conditions, he can ONLY design life forms that fit in with those conditions. But since those conditions are not suitable for us and our food, he is forced to design life forms that have no connection with us and our food, and that is why you call them mistakes and failed experiments. I am not “contradicting” his success, us! We are the product of the 1% success rate, made possible when your version of God was finally presented by Lady Luck with the conditions he needed to design us.

DAVID: I'm referring to the powerful God of the OT. He is my God.

dhw: The OT does not present us with a powerful God who has no control over the environment, and makes millions of mistakes on his way to evolving multiple homos and hominins which eventually lead to Adam and Eve.

DAVID: No, it has a very powerful God who can do anything He wants. I've brought Him into modern knowledge and applied Him to it.

I’m all in favour of a God who can do anything he wants. I had no idea that modern knowledge had proved that the all-powerful OT God was forced by his lack of control into a messy process of evolution which caused him to conduct 99% of failed experiments, mistakes, wrong choices etc. before he was at last able to design Adam and Eve and their breakfast.