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

by dhw, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, 09:04 (311 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Do you believe some bacteria and some viruses were programmed to kill us, or did your God give them the freedom to do so?

DAVID: Definitely no. Those bugs were fine as long as they were living in their own safe place. The bacteria in the colon are just very helpful, unless they leak outside the colon. Viruses must invade your body to cause trouble.

Of course bad viruses must invade the body – I didn’t think they did their dirty work by telepathy. I’d have thought the same would apply to many of the bad bacteria which do so much damage. And I’d have thought they all survived precisely by invading our bodies and attacking our goodies, and providing themselves with enough energy to stay alive. And both bacteria and viruses seem to be able to work out ways of defying whatever means we invent to kill them. As regards my question, I’m not sure what your “no” refers to. Your all-knowing God knew the bugs would kill us. If he didn’t programme them to do so, he must have left them free to do so.

DAVID: What you want is a Garden of Eden now. You can't have it. You must live with tradeoffs that necessarily exist. I lead a happy life. I guess you don't.

dhw: I’m afraid the fact that you lead a happy life (and so do I) does not explain why an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God would create evil. Stop dodging.

DAVID: God did not directly create evil. Free-will humans do that; all so-called bad bugs become that only if they get in the wrong places.

If he created bugs and humans and he knew they would do evil, then he is to blame, as you have made clear in the following exchange:

dhw: your all-knowing, all-powerful God would only create what he wanted to create, and therefore he wanted to create evil.

DAVID: So a lack of knowledge exonerates your God from all the evils He creates? Preposterous.

If it is preposterous to “exonerate” him, and he creates the evils, you are blaming him for creating the evils.

DAVID: Being aware of His creation's potential, He provided safeguard mechanisms documented here.

dhw: I'm not concerned with his so-called safeguards, because if he and they exist, they could have been inserted when he became conscious of the damage he had done, and in any case they were woefully inadequate, since the diseases and other evils he created are still rampant, and the problem of theodicy is concerned with the evil that exists, not with the good or with safeguards. (David's bold)

DAVID: I've bolded the overt use of propaganda, in which the repetition creates a 'truth'. The definition of rampant is: "Extending unchecked; unrestrained. Occurring without restraint and frequently, widely, or menacingly; rife." Nothing like that exists in real life. Your use is overblown.

Now what are you saying? Evil is not rampant, and so you can exonerate your God from all the evils he created? Purely out of interest, the cancer figures I gave before were out of date. Just under 10 million died from it in 2020 (no doubt more since then). As a result of human evil, which according to you, your God knew would happen, there are currently 89.3 million refugees (including 36.5 million children) fleeing from evil of one kind or another. Just two examples of the “evil” your God knew would happen. Even if you don’t think that qualifies to be called “rampant”, you are still blaming your God for it. And you may be right.

DAVID: Your God and my God produced the same system of evolution.

dhw: In none of my theories do my versions of God produce the same system as yours: you have him deliberately designing 99 out of 100 species that are irrelevant to his one and only purpose. This is never the case in any of my alternatives.

DAVID: I don't see your conclusion as valid. Both of our Gods created the same evolitionary process with a 99.9% loss rate.

In your interpretation, the 99.9% were mistakes (which once you even called "failed experiments"), because they had nothing to do with your God’s one and only purpose – hence your description of his system as messy, cumbersome and inefficient. In mine, they were successful experiments as he tried out new ideas, or watched his invention produce its own new ideas. The latter is illustrated beautifully by your comment on the following:

Fungal spore defense

DAVID: The amazing battles continue. It is still a dog-eat-dog world with each side capable of adapting.

This sums up the world of good and evil. Your God does not intervene. So maybe this free-for-all battle for survival, with its vast range of variations, adaptations, innovations, comings and goings, goods and bads, was his purpose right from the start.