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

by David Turell , Saturday, June 17, 2023, 16:35 (523 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You make it sound as if your all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, first-cause God was somehow forced into using a system he knew would create evil! I am as glad as you are that we are here. That does not mean I must shut my eyes to the sufferings of millions of people which result from what you believe to have been his deliberate creation of all the “evils” he apparently knew would happen. It is the age-old problem of THEODICY which you are determined to ignore.

I don't ignore theodicy. I have a vastly different view than you. Free will released evil in humans, not God. The tiny incidents of biochemical errors remain and build into larger numbers, so you pounce on a collective, which does not represent the system's efficiency.

DAVID: Yes, they cause troubles, but are the exception of many trillions of proper reactions every minute. I'll stick with Dayenu, God gave enough. As for human evil, God knew it would happen when He gave us necessary free will, but it falls into our hands to control it. God can't after [alter?] His grant.

dhw: If God exists, and if he is all-knowing, as you claim, then he knew perfectly well that we would commit evil. Since we agree that he would only have created what he wanted to create, in your scenario he must therefore have wanted all the evil he knew would happen. Hence the problem of THEODICY which you are determined to ignore. (I have made this complaint before!)

The wrong conclusion. Yes, God created our free will, but that means He wanted humans to handle the problem we create, and we do, as best we can.

dhw: It is you who told us you were sure your God enjoyed creating and was interested in his creations, and may have wanted us to recognize him and his work, and you are also sure that we reflect him. That means that our enjoyment, interest and wish for recognition reflect his, since he came first.

DAVID: The human-like aspects of God's personality of course are reflected in our personalities, but these are minor points when we try to ascertain God's purpose/s aside from His possible personality. You always use this weak argument when I point out how human your God appears to be.

dhw: When we try to ascertain his purpose/s, you come up with just one: to create us and our food. You have no idea why he therefore created 99 out of 100 species that had no connection with us and our food. When you tell us you are certain that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, and wants our recognition, and that we “reflect” him (so he and we have thought patterns and emotions in common), you contradict yourself by claiming that these aspects of his personality make him too human. And it is patently absurd to claim that they could not at least be part of his purpose/s.

That humans are/were His goal does not make Him into the tunnel-visioned caricature of a God you always distort. By comparison your experimenting God is directionless, waiting for the results of each experiment to tell him what to try next.