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

by dhw, Tuesday, July 04, 2023, 14:15 (298 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

DAVID: You refuse to allow for balance in the results. Free will allows humans to act badly, a human problem for humans to solve. Most folks survive to old age while playing host to a necessary gut microbiome.

Once more: theodicy poses the question why an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God created evil. The question is not answered by claiming that there is more good than evil in the world, and it is not answered by the fact that humans (like bacteria and viruses) are free to perform what we consider to be bad acts. In your own version, he knew in advance that some humans, bacteria and viruses would do evil things, but he still went ahead with their creation. How does that make him all-good?

DAVID: What about the evil allowed by your God. Not answered yet.

dhw: I have distinguished between the deliberate creation of evil (as in your scenario) and evil as an unforeseen consequence of your God’s experiments, but this leads to the different question of why an all-good God does not intervene. I offered a list of alternative answers: he does not exist, he has gone away, he is dead, he doesn’t care, he enjoys watching it. I am not offering one specific answer to the problem of theodicy. I am offering alternatives, just as I offer alternatives to your illogical theory of evolution, which envisions your God as a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer.

DAVID: Your first solution is that it is OK if a God doesn't know what will happen following His creations. That is a blundering poor example of a God.

I didn’t say it was OK. I am not passing judgement. I am proposing that if he didn’t know the outcome, he cannot be accused of consciously creating evil (the Walter Raleigh syndrome.)

DAVID: I view God as giving us the best arrangement He could, since He is all-knowing. We humans might complain, but this is the best that can be, no Garden of Eden.

I don’t know why you think your all-powerful God was incapable of creating a Garden of Eden. He did the ‘best he could’ suggests that he failed, and yet you call my version “blundering” and “poor”! In another of my alternatives, he wants a free-for-all, and part of his enjoyment comes precisely from not knowing what will happen next. By deliberately - not “blunderingly” - giving organisms (cell communities) autonomy, he leaves them free to design their own innovations in the cause of their own survival. It is this pursuit of self-interest that lies behind most forms of “evil”, whether in Nature (dog eat dog) or in the human world.

David's theory of evolution

DAVID: Stop ignoring the point God chose to evolve us over time, with the result you deplore.

dhw: What result do I deplore? If God exists, he chose to evolve all life forms over time. That does not explain why, according to you, he chose to design 99 out of 100 organisms that had nothing to do with what, according to you, was his one and only purpose: to design us and our food. Stop dodging!

DAVID: You deplore the way evolution works. It is a culling process which arrives at very successful organisms. God chose that method.

No “deploring”! If God exists, I agree completely. Your God WANTED the 99% as part of the ever changing variety of life’s history. What I deplore is your nonsensical claim that 99% of the organisms were NOT successful, i.e. were specially designed failures because they did not lead to what you insist was his one and only purpose: us and our food. It is you who deplore his method, which you call messy, cumbersome and inefficient!

DAVID: Wonderful, you recognize food is necessary. But you ignore how necessary it is. Don't you eat two/three times a day? Then you berate me because I cannot give you God's reasons for His choices of methods. I simply accept what God did. Do you know all your God's reasons? He used evolution also. Please answer.

dhw: Please stop pretending that I’m an idiot. Of course food is/was necessary for all organisms, including the 99% that had no connection with us and our food. I berate you because you offer us illogical theories about what your God did and why he did it, but you insist that he did what you say he did for reasons which make no sense even to you. I offer you alternatives, and your sole reason for rejecting them is that they humanise him, although you agree that he and we have similarities.

DAVID: Our possible similarities with God do not excuse a God who thinks like a human as your "solution" God does. It is not illogical to assume God chose to evolve us from bacteria. Makes perfect snese to me.

You have demolished your own “humanising” argument again and again by agreeing that we reflect him. Of course Darwin’s theory that we are descended from bacteria is not illogical, and he allows for your God as the originator of the process. What, for the thousandth time, is illogical is your claim that your all-powerful, all-knowing God chose to fulfil his one and only purpose of designing us plus food by designing 99 out of 100 life forms that had no connection with us plus food. When will you stop dodging?