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

by David Turell , Monday, July 17, 2023, 15:37 (285 days ago) @ dhw

THEODICY

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.)

dhw: The fact that you have not responded would seem to indicate that you now accept the logic of this theory. Of course, that is all it is, but at least it avoids all the mental knot-twisting which downgrades evil to a minor blip that we can ignore, or which downgrades God to a callous, if not sadistic monster who deliberately creates evil and all its concomitant pain and suffering as a means of relieving his boredom.

Sorry. I have gotten tired of your same exposition of your same theory. A God who cannot foresee the future of His creations is an intellectually blinded distortion of a true God. It does not exonerate Him from blame. I've read endless theodicy excuses and leave unimpressed. The semi-uncontrolled biochemical system of life is the best that can be. Only an all-knowing God could find it. Viruses and bacteria must be a part of it, doing much good and also some bad. Free will made evil people not God. I still follow Dayenu, it is enough. My mole hill is your Everest.

David’s theory of evolution

dhw: 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: We each must conclude opinions about God's personality. No proofs available. Just what we conclude from studies of His works.

dhw: True. But then the whole discussion centres on the reasonableness of the opinions. For instance, if we study the complexities of living organisms, it seems perfectly reasonable to both of us to argue that they support the theory of design. But if we study the history of life, it seems totally unreasonable to me to assume that an all-powerful designer would deliberately design 99 out of 100 organisms that had no connection whatsoever with the only organisms he wanted to design. You yourself can make no sense of it, and yet you cling to it. See also below.

You are denying the fact of evolution within the assumption God is the creator of life, which evolved us as an endpoint.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Spinning more and more: please recognize and differentiate between excellent design of organisms used in a cumbersome evolutionary system.

dhw; Yes, organisms are an excellent design, but you are the one who, through your anthropocentric theory of evolution, castigate your God as a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer! I don’t. If I believed in God, it would be in a God who designs what he wants to design, as he does in all three of my alternatives. You do not “accept God as he is.” Nobody knows God “as he is”. You only accept your inconsistent, self-contradictory theories of what God is: an excellent inefficient designer, and an all-good creator of evil.

Again incapable of separating two issues! You admit great designs, but the evolutionary process is a system of culling which naturally results in 99.9% losses along the way. Cumbersome only when compared to direct creation.