Return to David's theory of evolution and theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 13, 2023, 07:27 (527 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Unfortunately, you have duplicated your "Miscellany" post. I blame your Neanderthal genes.

DAVID: So where is my Theories reply? I'm still confused!, because I can find it!

Oh, oh, oh! Abject apologies! This is entirely my fault. I am the one who got it all muddled and mistakenly copied a "Miscellany" post into this theory thread. I can only plead that at the moment my mind is mainly on an unfolding family tragedy, and although these discussions provide welcome respite from it, I'm sometimes struggling to concentrate.

I've now deleted your repeated reply to the "Miscellany" post, and this is my reply to your "theory" post.

DAVID: Once again God did not produce evil. He produced bacteria which do more good than evil and viruses, both of whom do no evil unless ending up in the wrong places. Giving free wiil to humans allowed them to be evil.

dhw: You seem to have forgotten that your God is all-knowing, which means he knew that some bacteria, some viruses and some human beings would do evil. The problem of theodicy is why your “perfect” and all-powerful God would knowingly create a system which produced evil and the suffering it causes. The problem is not solved by putting on a pair of blinkers that allow you only to look at the good things he created.

DAVID: There is irrefutable evidence God knew of the problems His creations might cause.

There is no irrefutable evidence even that your God exists, let alone that he is omniscient. If it was irrefutable, everyone would agree. However, the theory of omniscience and omnipotence and all-goodness is precisely what creates the huge problem of theodicy!

DAVID: Living biochemistry is filled with editing safeguard mechanisms to correct errors. Since living reactions move at such high speeds, everything is correct 99.9999+% of the time.

You seem desperate to confine “evil” to the odd crash by racing molecules. Do you never read the newspapers or watch the news on TV? Have you never heard of diseases, floods, famines, wars, crimes etc., all of which – including all those perpetrated by your God’s specially created human beings – your God apparently knew would happen, and yet he deliberately went ahead creating all the causes of these evils!

DAVID: But those good works are 99% of God's story.

dhw: I have no idea where you get your statistics from, but even if they were correct, a perfect God is not 99% good. It’s no defence to say that Dr X saved the lives of 99 patients but murdered the 100th.

DAVID: Same illogical point. God does not murder, but His creations can cause death.

So your all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good God designs creatures which he knows perfectly well in advance will murder us, but defence counsel D. Turell pleads on his behalf that it’s not his fault.

DAVID: I'm sure we reflect God as you note.

dhw: If you are sure we reflect God, why are you sure that although he enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, and might want recognition for himself and his works, he cannot possibly have created life so that he would be able to enjoy creating things which he would be interested in and which might appreciate him and his works?

DAVID: God may have those thoughts as secondary to His purpose in producing humans.

dhw: And so far, his purpose in producing humans is to have them recognize him and his works – which is a nice humanizing addition to the list of purposes I have proposed in order to explain the 99 out of 100 designs which had nothing to do with humans. Your agreement that he may have these thoughts finally invalidates your objection to my alternatives on the grounds that they “humanize” your God. Thank you.

DAVID: My agreement is a 'may have' which means a possibility of God's personality characteristics.

Every speculation, including that of God’s existence, is a “may have”. There is no irrefutable evidence of anything.

DAVID: Your God enters into an experimental form of evolution with no goals in sight. So lets go back. Why did He produce a universe, invent life? What was His reasons to get things started? It is ludicrous to think He was just playing with possibilities to occupy His eternal time.

I have no idea why you think it is ludicrous for your God to want to do something with his eternal time. If he exists, then clearly he wanted life to exist, or he wouldn’t have created it. You are certain that he enjoys creating and is interested in his own creations, but you refuse to believe that he might have started life with the goal of doing something he finds enjoyable and interesting. You are also sure that “we reflect God”, and so one of his goals might have been to create a being that would reflect him (and he conducted experiments in order to find the best formula for such a being). Why did he want to create such a being? According to my resident expert, he wanted recognition of himself and his works, and maybe to have some kind of relationship with us. Thank you for answering your own question, but please don’t ask it again.