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

by dhw, Thursday, July 27, 2023, 13:08 (483 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have stated explicitly that your God is interested in his creations. Knowing what will happen would be boring. And so it makes perfect sense to have him create something that will produce “unexpected results” – the expression you have used in relation to the free will you say he gave us humans. Why not apply the same reasoning to other life forms? Instead of this crazy idea of your God having to design 99 out of 100 species that have no connection with the only one (plus food) that he wants to produce – he could have produced a mechanism to design countless “unexpected results”.

DAVID: Your humanized God gets bored; my God doesn't. Evolution happened. My God did it and He expected the results.

My "humanized" God presumably didn’t get bored, since he invented ways of keeping himself interested. However, according to you, your humanized God “would be bored by Eden”, which is one reason why, according to you, he deliberately created evil as a challenge, and he gave us free will so that we would produce “unexpected results”. But we agree that evolution happened. (NB As I keep repeating, if your God created us and we reflect him, as you believe, any shared characteristics make us godlike – they do not make him human.)

DAVID: That God chose to evolve us is an entirely reasonable position.

dhw: If God exists and if we believe in evolution, then of course it is entirely reasonable to argue that he chose to evolve us and every other organism that ever lived. What is entirely unreasonable is the theory bolded above [i.e. that God specially designed 99 out of 100 species that had no connection with the only species you say he wanted to design – us and our food], which you continue to gloss over with your vague generalizations. Please stop it!

DAVID: Stop what? Long ago you declared God should have directed created us as more efficient than evolution. What is it about evolution you don't like? I've taken the view it is messy and cumbersome. Is that incorrect?

I have never said he should have created us directly, and I am happy with evolution. It is the above bolded theory I don’t like, plus your absurd declaration that your God is a brilliant designer who devised a messy, cumbersome, inefficient method of design to fulfil the purpose you impose on him. Stop dodging.

DAVID: I admit there is a problem. Evil exists.

dhw: Thank you. Perhaps you will also admit that your theory, which has him deliberately creating evil as a “challenge”, runs totally counter to the concept of an all-good God.

You seem to have forgotten this theory of yours, which has him deliberately creating evil.

dhw: (re theodicy): Your solutions so far appear to be (a) God is mostly good, so forget the evil, or (b) your God knowingly created evil, which can only mean he is not all-good.

DAVID: To repeat as always: my all-knowing God chose the best method available to create a system of life. I conclude there is nothing better. Started with bacteria, still here, and had to have viruses.

To repeat as always:[…] a few days ago you wrote: “an all-powerful God had many methods at his command”. But he chose one which you ridicule as being messy, cumbersome and inefficient, and you refuse to consider any other possible purposes and/or methods. Your all-knowing God knew in advance that some bacteria and some viruses would create the evil you now acknowledge, but he still went ahead, and despite being all-powerful, he was powerless to prevent the evil he had created.

Conclusions: 1) your “humanized” God used an inefficient method to fulfil the purpose you impose on him through a theory you yourself find incomprehensible. 2) Your all-good and all-knowing God knew in advance that his bugs would cause evil but he went ahead and created them, and 3) your all-powerful God was powerless to stop their evil, though in another theory he wanted the evil as it presented a “challenge”. 4) Your “humanized” God enjoys creation and is interested in his creations, but he could not possibly have designed evolution because he wanted to enjoy creating something that would interest him. 5) Your “humanized”, all-knowing God gave humans free will, so that they would produce results he could not expect, but he expected the results that they produced.