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

by dhw, Thursday, July 13, 2023, 09:11 (289 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

DAVID: What God desired to create is what was required in the biochemistry of life. He wished us to have freewill but knew there would be bad apples as a consequence. Freewill is an overall good for us. It is a tradeoff.

dhw: Murderous bacteria and viruses, robbery, rape, murder, war, floods, famines etc. were required in the biochemistry of life, were they? Yes, your all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good God knew that all of these would spring from his creations, but he went ahead (a) because the suffering of millions of people didn’t matter, and/or (b) because he wanted to set us a challenge (you can’t think why), and (c) he created free will because he didn’t want to know what would happen next (“Free will means humans producing unexpected results”) but he is all-knowing and therefore knew what would happen next. What a mess!

DAVID: A typical non-believer exaggerating the results of God's actions. The challenge is puroseful to make life more interesting than Eden.

There is no exaggeration, as proven by the next exchange:
DAVID: Where do you find you enormous statistics of suffering against an eight billion population?

dhw: Why “against”? Figures vary, but approximately 10 million people die of cancer every year, and approximately 100 million people are homeless refugees. In 2021 there were 21,570 murders and 144,300 rapes in your country alone. But apparently none of them matter to you or your God, because we should only look at all the happy people.

DAVID: It certainly matters and make us humans respond with corrections as best we can.

Thank you for at last acknowledging that evil matters. Of course we respond as best we can to the evil that your God created. And thank you also for your next acknowledgement regarding his purpose:

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

dhw: 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. […]But that does lead to the question of non-intervention, to which I have offered several alternative answers.

Apart from a rather silly remark about head in the sand (which is far more applicable to your earlier downgrading of the importance of evil), you seem to have accepted the logic of this “theoretical consideration”. Too soon to say thank you? (NB In return, I acknowledge that of course it is only a theory, as is the very existence of your God.)

David's theory of evolution
dhw: You claim that your preconceived bias in favour of a theory that makes no sense to you is derived from your faith in God. No it isn’t. It’s derived from your faith in a theory that makes no sense to you. Your refusal to consider other theories does not make your own theory any the less nonsensical.

DAVID: Your psychonalysis of me is way off base.

It is not a psychoanalysis of you. I have simply pointed out that your faith in God has absolutely nothing to do with your faith in a theory which makes no sense to you. There are alternative theories that also allow for faith in God, and which do make sense to you, only they do not conform to your personal interpretation of your God’s motive and method.

DAVID: God is an excellent designer using a cumbersome stepwise evolutionary method.[…]

dhw: 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!

DAVID: No dodge. I accept God as He is. God is good.
And:
DAVID: His organisms are superbly designed while evolving them dragged on. I know my God from a believing faith in the God I picture.

A good description. You have a believing faith in your own theory (or picture) that your God is a superb designer although he is also a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer, and is all-good although he deliberately created evil. Welcome to Wonderland.