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

by dhw, Tuesday, July 11, 2023, 08:56 (499 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

dhw: […] why and how would an all-good God create evil? Your answer here: let’s ignore the evil and focus on the good. My question is why, if your God deliberately gave us free will because he wanted “unexpected results”, the same purpose cannot underlie the higgledy-piggledy process of evolution, with all its comings and goings. Please stop dodging.

DAVID: As a believer, I'm not dodging. I accept God's creations produced evil, and I don't blame God. Evil exists in a small percentage way, that I accept. My molehill is your mountain.

But you believe that when your all-knowing God created his creatures (including us), he knew that they would produce evil, in which case he deliberately created creatures which would produce evil. But you don’t blame him for deliberately producing creatures that would produce evil. You believe (not “accept”) that evil is a molehill not a mountain, but that does not explain why an all-good God would create even a molehill which causes suffering and misery to millions. [...]

dhw: My question is why your all-good God is not intervening to put an end to all the suffering he has created.

DAVID: He most likely sees it as I do.

So he watches millions of people suffering, as he knew they would, but that doesn’t matter because lots of other people are OK. That makes him callous in the extreme, and possibly even sadistic. You may be right, of course. But in that case, if you were one of the millions who are suffering, I doubt if you would call him all-good.

Your new theory, however, is that he created evil in order to provide us humans with a challenge. I asked what his purpose might have been.

DAVID: Life would be boring without the challenges, is my view.

Previously you used the Garden of Eden as your metaphor for a boring life, and I asked the age-old question why your God created the serpent, knowing that it would be the instigator of all the evil to come. You also wrote: “Free will means humans producing unexpected results,” and you have now agreed that this could only mean results which God did not expect. We then had the following exchange:

dhw: Put the two together, and you have a logical explanation for the history of evolution, a possible explanation for theodicy, and a clear purpose: A Garden of Eden would be boring for your God.

DAVID: I agree God would be bored by Eden, as a theoretical consideration.

This “theoretical consideration” supports the theory that your God deliberately created the whole of evolution as a free-for-all, because he wanted to create something that would be of interest to him, and watching the unexpected is infinitely more interesting than watching something you already know will happen. It can also absolve him from the accusation that he deliberately created evil. If the results of his invention were unexpected, he cannot have been all-knowing and cannot have foreseen the evil that has arisen from the self-interest which drives the struggle for survival.

David's theory of evolution

DAVID: God chose to evolve us for His own reasons, rather than directly create us.

dhw: “For his own reasons” can only mean you have no idea why your God chose to design 99 out of 100 life forms which had no connection with the single purpose you impose on him, despite your bluster about their being “absolutely necessary”. In brief, your theory makes no sense to you, but still you cling to it. A blatant example of what, on another thread, you call “preconceived bias”.

DAVID: No, simply a faith in God.

It is not simply faith in God, but faith in a nonsensical theory about what God might have intended and done. All the alternatives I have offered you include God as their creator.

dhw: NB All of your negative views concerning your God’s inefficiency as a designer and his deliberate, callous (possibly sadistic) creation of evil and its terrible consequences may be correct. My alternative explanations are no less theoretical than your own, and in some cases can also be interpreted as negative. We don’t even know if your God exists, let alone how he thinks.

DAVID: Same confusion on your part. God is an excellent designer using a cumbersome stepwise evolutionary method.

dhw: So a designer who designs a messy, cumbersome, inefficient method to achieve the goal you impose on him is an excellent designer. Welcome to Wonderland.

DAVID: Still missing the point: the organisms are wonderfully designed.

As with theodicy, you put on your blinkers and insist on seeing nothing but the good. And yet it is you yourself who insist on the nonsensical theory which has your all-powerful God designing 99 out of 100 species that have no connection with his purpose, and it is you yourself who label his design messy, cumbersome and inefficient. Stop dodging!