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

by dhw, Saturday, August 26, 2023, 08:19 (245 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Why do you think he would deliberately have designed 99% of “novelties” (strange forms) that had no connection with us if his only purpose was to design the 1% that would lead to us?***

You admit that you have no idea, as follows:
DAVID: The only answer I do not have is why God chose this method of creation. (dhw's bold)

dhw: Precisely […]

DAVID: Makes perfect sense as a believer. God knows what He is doing and I trust He chose the right/appropriate method of creation.

dhw: You can’t think of a single reason why he would use such an illogical method, which you yourself ridicule as being messy, cumbersome and inefficient, but it “makes perfect sense”! Yes, I’m sure that God, if he exists, knows what he is doing, and I suggest to you that there might be different theistic explanations for the history that do make perfect sense.

DAVID: Your substitute God is mostly human in His decision making. Unrecognizable for me.

The fact that you don’t like the idea of your God experimenting or creating a free-for-all does not provide the slightest defence of your own illogical theory, which you admit makes no sense to you.

DAVID: Humans are an obvious goal.[…].

dhw: The fact that if God exists he directly or indirectly created every life form that ever existed means that every life form that ever existed must have had a goal, and it is abundantly clear that since 99.9% had no connection with humans plus food his one and only goal could not possibly have been to design humans plus food.[/b]***

DAVID: The food is a giant bush of life created by God's method of evolutionary creation. We are at the current end point.

If God exists, this is perfectly logical. It does not answer question ***.

DAVID: It is my contention and Adler's that humans are so unusual only a special creation by God could have produced them.

It is also your contention that all life is so complex that only a special creation by God could have produced it. This does not answer the question ***.

DAVID: The giant food supply, provided by God, is barely sufficient, as shown by starvation on the world. Your *** is specious reasoning.

No one would deny the problem of starvation. It has nothing to do with the question ***. You have now resorted to a liturgy of non sequiturs, some of which contain obvious truths, as if somehow they would cancel out your own admission that you have no answer to question ***, which means your theory does not make any sense to you. Please stop this silly game. You believe in a bit of non-sense, and refuse to consider any logical alternatives.

Theodicy

dhw: How do you know that your all-powerful God was incapable of creating a Garden of Eden?

DAVID: He wasn't incapable. He chose differently. Eden without competition was a dead end.

dhw: Since when was “competition” synonymous with “evil”? Do you think the world would come to an end if we didn’t have war, murder, rape, famine, flood, disease?

DAVID: Wrong interpretation. Competition provided for survival of the fittest according to Darwin and created evolution.

Lovely to see you finally supporting Darwin, although you’ve forgotten that symbiosis/cooperation also provided for survival and evolution. But we are not arguing about the facts of evolution! The problem is why an all-good God would even have thought of a system which resulted in the evils of war, murder, rape, famine, flood, disease etc., let alone gone ahead with it knowing the suffering these events would cause. You have given us two possible answers, as follows:
dhw: (1) forget about evil, which is only a minor matter, or (2) despite being all-powerful, he had no choice. You also conveniently forget your own belief that your God would have created what he wanted to create. So we have two puzzles now: Why would an all-good God want to create evil, and why would an all-powerful God be powerless to prevent evil?
And all you can come up with is:

DAVID: My answer is in a new article posed here about phages and bacteria and all the necessary good they do to support all life on Earth.

dhw: Yes, that is your answer No. 1. Forget about evil and focus only on good.

DAVID: It is simple. Yes, there is evil but the good overwhelms it.

Yet again: the problem of theodicy is why/how an all-good God could create evil, and it is not solved by saying there is more good than evil so let’s ignore evil.