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

by dhw, Thursday, July 06, 2023, 11:45 (296 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

dhw: […] the question is why an all-good God would create the possibility of evil in the first place. Why was he incapable of designing a Garden of Eden? (To complete the metaphor: why did he create the serpent and the forbidden fruit?) I’m not complaining. I’m asking the age-old question how a God who creates evil can be all-good. So far, your answer has been: ignore evil, it doesn’t count “proportionally”.

DAVID: The serpent and the fruit mean God chose to end the possibility of Eden. He meant for us to have a challenging life using our brain. And thus we are to deal with evil.

So you are now withdrawing your theory that God was incapable of designing a world without evil, but instead you have him deliberately creating evil as a challenge to us humans. Just for a moment, let’s leave aside theodicy and the question why he spent 3.X billion years designing 99 out of 100 organisms unrelated to humans so that they could kill one another in a battle to survive. We have always agreed that your God must have a purpose for whatever he does. So what do you think was the purpose of the challenge he set by deliberately creating humans who he knew would rob, rape, murder, exploit, wage war etc.

dhw: Two possible answers to the theodicy question are that he did not know in advance all the outcomes of his experiments, or he did not know (and did not want to know) in advance the outcomes of the free-for-all he set in motion.

DAVID: A creating God without anticipation is creating a world blindly. Not much of a creator.

You are certain that your God is interested in his creations. A creating God who WANTS to create a world which will interest him through its unpredictability is not creating it blindly. With your latest theory, do you think your all-knowing God watches us and knows precisely how we are all going to respond to the challenge?

DAVID: I've presented my God here as allowing evil, as a challenge, not like yours out of ignorance of it.

Yes, you have presented your God as deliberately creating (not merely "allowing") evil as a challenge. You may be right. Back to theodicy: your new answer to the question of how an all-good God can create evil is clearly that he is not all-good. I offer alternative explanations (but NB they are not beliefs – I can’t even decide whether God exists or not!).

David's theory of evolution

DAVID: So we agree. God wanted the 99%. I remind you, early in our discussions YOU raised the issue of 'why evolve' when direst creation was the better option.

dhw: We do not agree. [...] I raised the issue only because you insist that humans plus food were his sole purpose. In your nonsensical theory, he does NOT want the 99%: for some unknown reason he is forced to design them, although he knows that they are not necessary for his purpose

DAVID: Since God chose to develop humans in a stepwise fashion through evolution, the 99.9% culled out are absolutely necessary.

In your nonsensical theory, the problem is not the culling but the deliberate creation of 99 unnecessary organisms which have to be culled!

dhw: Only in my proposals are they successful, because his purpose is to create the ever changing variety of life forms which constitutes the history of evolution.

DAVID: And our appearance is a lucky result!!

Stop changing the subject! In my theory, the 99 are successful, whereas in yours they are failures. Hence your description of your God’s design as messy, cumbersome and inefficient. Our subject here is your nonsensical theory. In two of my alternatives, your God creates humans through experimentation. No luck involved. Even the third - the free-for-all - leaves open the possibility of divine dabbling.

DAVID: As for our possible resemblance to God, it doesn't negate your God's obvious human thinking.

dhw: Of course it doesn’t. It supports his human thinking. Thank you.

DAVID: Just the opposite. A God who thinks like us, at the human level is not much of a God.

It depends what thought patterns and emotions you are referring to. You accept that like us he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations. Why shouldn’t our method of designing via experimentation, discovery, on-going improvements etc. reflect his own?