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

by David Turell , Tuesday, August 15, 2023, 14:33 (464 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: To reach God's purpose (humans), He chose to evolve us, rather than directly create us, the only two options availabe..

dhw: If he exists, he “chose to evolve” (by which you mean design) every life form that ever existed, and according to you he knowingly chose to design 99 out of 100 life forms that had no connection with his one and only purpose (us and our food). When will you stop dodging the illogical basis of your theory?

Our food is the diversity of life on Earth which must be created by evolving an enormous bush of life supported by the mechanism of diverse, interrelated ecosystems. All of this shows purposes of God's creationism to support human's existence.

DAVID: Your form of God also evolved us by 'experimenting and discovering', describing a new form of a clueless God, which no religion would recognize.

dhw: Please tell me which religion preaches that God is a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer who individually designed 99 out of 100 species that had no connection with his one and only purpose. Why do you describe a God who wants to create “novelties”, i.e. life forms which never existed before, and succeeds in doing so, as “clueless”?

You have failed to answer this question.

Answered above as vital food supply, and both forms of God created novelties as part of advancing evolution. Your clueless God is the one who experiments, noting that experimenting implies no knowledge of the endpoint.

I try not to follow the Bible, but the 'attributes of God' previously presented are a reasonable human starting point of theological discussion. I see my God closer to that list.

dhw: Stop and read what I write. “He did not necessarily use the same evolutionary process”. In my first two theistic theories, the process is the same as yours, except that in neither case were his designs irrelevant to his purpose, but in my third alternative, he did NOT design all species, and instead gave them the wherewithal to do their own designing.

DAVID: The bold interests me. How does your God conduct His purposeful evolution to what current endpoint?

dhw: As usual, you ask a question, I answer it, and so you dodge to another question, the answers to which you already know! Three theories: 1) he experiments in order to create a being like himself; 2) he experiments in order to make new discoveries; 3) he creates a free-for-all in order to make new discoveries. We have no idea what the endpoint might be. In 2) and 3) humans are the latest “discovery”, which you call the “current endpoint”.

To which I make the point, any experimenting being, by definition, cannot know the unexpected endpoints of experimentation.

DAVID: Any view of God is vague. Evolution exists/existed, God created our reality, so evolution is His choice of creating forms of life. Pure logic.

dhw: Yes, yes, yawn, yawn. If God exists, that is pure logic. What is not pure logic is that he chose to design 99 out of 100 forms of life that were irrelevant to what you say was his one and only purpose: to design us and our food. You cannot find any reasons for this absurd theory, and so you keep dodging it.

DAVID: Why can't you accept that is how a creative evolution works?

dhw: How many types of evolution of life do you know? The only one we know has resulted in 99% of species going extinct, and according to you this is because your messy, inefficient designer God, for totally unknown reasons, decided to design them all, knowing full well that they were irrelevant to his purpose.

Your experimenting God strangely created the same results. What my God does is always relevant to the process. He doesn't waste His time. It is your analysis of His works that is irrational. See discussion above of the necessary bush of life.

dhw: I wonder what your fellow theologians would make of your theories.

DAVID: Their articles mirror my theology.[…]

dhw: You have claimed that they support your absurd theory of evolution and your answer to the problem of theodicy, and now you admit that they don’t, so please stop pretending that ID articles “mirror” your theology.

DAVID: My 'absurd' theory of evolution is what they believe. God designed evolution for our appearance.

dhw: You have now admitted that they don’t even discuss your theory of theodicy. Do they believe as you do that in his inefficient, messy, cumbersome way, their all-powerful, all-knowing God deliberately designed 99 out of 100 species irrelevant to his one and only purpose for reasons which only he can know as their theory makes no sense to them?

Please note the repetitions of your theory, which I have now bolded in the hope that you will at last stop ignoring or fudging the issue of its illogicality. (My apologies to any readers who have been patient enough to follow these discussions.)

My 'mirror' of current theology is based on the 'attributes of God' and the teachings of ID.
Your irrational view of God's evolution has to be refuted.