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

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 09, 2023, 16:36 (262 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: How can he possibly enjoy it [creating] without feeling any enjoyment himself? And why would he create if he didn’t want to?

God's enjoyment is God's form of enjoyment, not ours. Of course, God does what He wants to do.

DAVID: God is selfless, not requiring human needs.

dhw: You have simply ignored my comment about “needs” and the question I have asked you, and repeated your mantra as if you were an authority on the nature of God. You do not know any more than I do about your possible God, so why do you keep dodging even your own statements about his “human” attributes?

DAVID: His attributes are never dodged. You demand repeating. Comparisons to God are always allegorical. I do not know more about God than you, as you note. But I know the answers theologians prefer and have offered them.

dhw: Enjoyment means enjoyment. How can this be an “allegory”?

How God enjoys is not the same as how we enjoy. Thus allegorical.

dhw: Your theoretical, all-knowing God knew in advance that by creating people and bacteria he was creating war, murder, rape, as well as countless diseases and other forms of suffering. Theodicy asks how his creation of evil can be equated with the theory that God is all-good. Your answer is once more to put on your blinkers and pretend evil is too minor to even think about.

DAVID: You ignore the needed good and concentrate on the side effects. Free will allows people to be evil. Necessary free-living bacteria cannot be controlled by God to only do good.
And under “Vaginal birth”:
DAVID: we have to have useful bacteria despite the bad side effects.

Your attribute 4: God is Omnipotent – He is All Powerful.
Your attribute 5: God is Omniscient – He is All-Knowing.
Your attribute 7: God is wise – He is full of perfect, Unchanging Wisdom
(DAVID: This is religious teaching which I accept.)

dhw: So your all-knowing God knew in advance that his creations would produce the evils listed above, and in his perfect wisdom he must have wanted the evil “allowed” by free will, and despite his omnipotence he had no control over the evils committed by bacteria. Is this what your theologians tell you?

Theodicy articles I've reviewed all take my approach, which you abhor. God asks us not to sin, i.e., create evil. God knew necessary free-living bacteria cannot be controlled but are absolutely required for us to live properly.

Parasites can produce good outcomes

DAVID: All living organisms have freedom of action which means God cannot control their activities which can be bad for us.

dhw: So your new solution to the problem of theodicy is that your God created a free-for-all. But since he is omnipotent, we can only assume that a free-for-all is what he wanted. And if a free-for-all explains the existence of evil, why would it not also explain the history of evolution itself? You simply cannot understand why your God would design 99 out of 100 organisms that had no connection with what you believe to have been his one and only purpose (sapiens plus food). Maybe he didn’t design them all, and that was not his purpose. In his omnipotence, and with his decision to create “freedom of action”, perhaps he also decided to create freedom of speciation (though he could dabble if he wanted to). After all,
ATTRIBUTE 3: God is Self-Sufficient – He Has No Needs.
He doesn’t need us, so why would he bother to create us, let alone the other 99% that had no connection with us? And one more question: why do you think he bothered to create life in the first place?

God did those things because He wanted to. He did not need to, because He has no needs. Your free-for-all is our term for the dog-eat-dog world where all life has to eat to survive. If God could have created a life without energy needs, He would have.

On the other hand, your so-called God needs enjoyment from directionless free-for-alls, needs to experiment since he has no goals in mind, and is innocent of His mistakes because He is blissfully unaware of His unforeseen consequences of His blundering actions.