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

by dhw, Saturday, July 01, 2023, 08:42 (301 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

dhw: Now your answer is that theft, rape, murder, genocide etc. make us more complete and enhanced, that he was powerless to prevent mistakes, and he was unable to devise a system which would not produce natural catastrophes, plus murderous bacteria and viruses (but he tried hard, though often unsuccessfully, to provide remedies in advance).

DAVID: The bold is a great distortion of the reality of cellular biochemistry: trillions of reactions per second are normal. Then one tiny miscue causes trouble, unless blocked by one of God's editing systems. This is the only system God found that would work.

dhw: You seem desperate to confine evil to tiny “miscues” in the biochemistry! What about the rest? As for the bold, it is clear that your God’s “editing” doesn’t always work. So much for his all-powerfulness.

DAVID: You don't realize His editing worked 99% of the time. You just glorify the rare mistake. Your god had the same results, didn't He?

And still you desperately try to confine the subject to “miscues” in the biochemistry. I have no idea where you get your 99% figure from, but I do know that millions of people suffer illness and death from the errors, and that is the subject of the discussion. I have now changed the bold to other sorts of evil.

David's theory of evolution

DAVID: God purposely used an evolutionary process for His own reasons. I can't ever tell you why.

dhw: Thank you for confirming that you can find no sense in your theory concerning your God’s messy, cumbersome and inefficient method of achieving what you believe to have been his purpose.

DAVID: It makes perfect sense to me that God chose to evolve us for His own reasons.

If he exists, of course he chose to evolve all species for his own reasons. But what does not make sense to you is the absurd theory that in order to fulfil his one and only purpose of designing us and our food, he designed 99 out of 100 life forms that had no connection with us and our food. Stop dodging!

DAVID: I’ve always thought God created a dog-eat-dog world.One purpose, another was humans. (dhw’s bold)

dhw: you have now extended your range of his purposes from the single one (us and our food) to a battle for survival in which 99% of species become extinct. And I have asked why you think he wanted to create such a battle in the first place. My suggestion is that he might have done so because he enjoys creating and watching the ever changing products of his creation. What is your suggestion?

DAVID: The battle is a natural product of life's necessity, constant food supply. Unless God supplied constant manna, it can't work any other way. Survival became a definite issue for each species.

All perfectly logical, but you haven’t answered my question. I’ll explain. Originally you thought his only purpose was to design us and our food. But now you are telling us that he had another purpose: to design lots of other life forms, unconnected with us, which would engage in a dog-eat-dog battle for survival. We can forget about humans. Long before we came on the scene, your God designed all the nice doggies that went round peacefully munching leaves and fruit and flowers and grass, and he also designed all the nasty doggies that went around eating all the nice doggies as well as each other. So please tell us why you think he would have wanted to create all these creatures to fight one another, knowing that most of them would disappear anyway.

Edited from “bacterial gut help”

DAVID: God cannot control free-living organisms.

dhw: I note that your all-powerful God is now powerless to control free-living organisms. May I suggest that instead of being powerless, he deliberately gave organisms of all kinds the freedom to work out their own means of survival in the dog-eat-dog free-for-all you have described […].

DAVID: I agree.

dhw: A sensational new development in your theory: you agree that your God created a free-for-all. So wouldn’t that explain the 99% of organisms that had no connection with humans? (See also under “More miscellany".)

DAVID: The 0.1% that survived helped to produce humans. That is how evolution works.

dhw: That is indeed how evolution worked. And I’m delighted that you have accepted the idea that it is a free-for-all, which means your God did not deliberately design 99% of life forms that were irrelevant to what you believe to have been his goal.

DAVID: No!!! The free-for-all is only among pre-designed species and is a free-for-all for survival.

A sad misunderstanding, as my "means of survival" was supposed to refer to evolutionary innovations. But in that case, we go back to my original question: if your God had a special purpose for specially designing species that would do battle with one another, and if we bear in mind that 99% of them had nothing to do with his other purpose of designing humans, what do you think that special purpose was?