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

by dhw, Saturday, September 30, 2023, 08:39 (210 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Rabbis present the word of God.

dhw: How do you know it’s the word of God?

See later for the significance of this question.

dhw: As first cause, he created a system which he knew would give rise to evil. So did he, in his all-powerfulness, create something he didn’t want to create? Why do you “presume” he hates it? What evidence do you have for such a presumption? Rabbis telling you so? Have they told you why he deliberately created a system he knew would give rise to war, murder and rape?

DAVID: Not a God system!! All a human system. Human free will allows us to create our current civilization with its good and bad parts. All human creations, not God's.

But your God is all-knowing, so he knew that by giving humans free will, he would enable them to produce all the evils which never existed until he created life out of himself. If he is all-powerful, does it not stand to reason that he would only create what he wanted to create? So did he or did not want to create a system which would produce evil?

DAVID: If God created, it is what God wanted to create, no reasons given. We humans assume God had reasons. Perhaps God is simply reasonless purpose.

So your God wanted to create evil, but although you never cease to tell us how purposeful he is, he may have had a purposeless purpose for doing so.

DAVID: Your search for 'evidence' pollutes your thinking. The only evidence is our reality. God, as a theoretical personage, is in the eye of the beholder. In that context God hates evil, as I do.

A theoretical personage whose nature is “in the eye of the beholder” leaves it open to all of us to load him with whatever characteristics we like, and so neither you nor Adler nor the rabbis nor the theologians have any authority to tell us how to think about him. But we can also test the reasonableness of different views. For instance, as above: if he’s all-powerful, he must have created what he wanted to create, so why did he want to create a world of good and evil if he hates evil? Or if he is the first cause of all things, and created a system which would result in evil as well as good, how can he be all-good?

DAVID: Same answer. Proportionality in one's view. Yours is very dark, while mine is very light.

I love life just as much as you do, and the question why and how an all-good God can create evil has absolutely nothing to do with dark and light. Stop dodging.

DAVID: Evil is a human concept.

Then so is good. How come your all-knowing God knew nothing about good and evil before he designed the humans who produced both?

DAVID: Our giant brain recognizes good and evil, no God required. In God's creation of humans, He knew what would happen, and left it all up to us.

How could he possibly have known in advance that we would commit evil if there was no such concept as evil before we arrived on the scene?

dhw: I’d like to return to your rabbis and the so-called word of God. What is their source? In particular, I’m interested in your belief that your God is “selfless”, since my alternative theories concerning experimentation and enjoyment are bound up with the concept of God as a being who, in your own words, has thought patterns and emotions like ours.

DAVID: Rabbis believe in God as I do, and we have the same God theologically and theoretically. God has no self as we view our selves.

Your rabbis’ source – what you call the “Word of God” - is the Pentateuch. I quote: Exodus 20: “I am the Lord thy God […] Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God” – in a modern translation this has changed to: “I am a God exacting exclusive devotion”. Deuteronomy 12: “Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods…” Any prophet who turns to any other god “shall be put to death” (Chapter 13), and anyone else you know who turns to other gods should be killed: “stone him with stones”. Selfless?

DAVID: God is immaterial, not a being. As pure mind He thinks logically, like us. But emotions are our attributes and may not be part of God's attributes.

Yet again: How can he be all-good and think logically and know everything, and enjoy creating, and be interested in what he creates, and yet have no self? How can he hate evil and yet have no self? Once upon a time you even thought he might want us to admire his work. You and your rabbis and Feser can endow him with whatever attributes you like, but don’t pretend your imaginings have any authenticity.