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

by David Turell , Sunday, October 01, 2023, 16:48 (209 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Faith is not knowing, it is believing. We are not dealing with fact. dhw's problem is he wants 'factual evidence' he cannot have and will never have.

dhw: So long as you believe your nonsensical theory, it apparently becomes a fact, although there is no factual evidence (a) that your God exists, (b) that his one and only purpose was to design us and our food, (c) that he designed every species that ever lived, and (d) that he did so knowing that 99.9% of them were irrelevant to the purpose you impose on him. You are tying yourself in more knots than a weaverbird could ever tie in its nest.

Right. No facts. All beliefs based on the original step to have faith in God's existence. That step was based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the evidence for design. Thus a designer called God. You are right on the cusp, as an agnostic who recognizes design.

DAVID: I, like all believers, view God as all-powerful and selfless.

dhw:[…] And in the past you have expressed certainty that your God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations and probably has thought processes and emotions in common with us. We are fortunately no longer bogged down by the silly argument that these terms are “allegorical” or “metaphorical”, since you agree that we know what they mean and the question is simply whether these descriptions do or do not apply to your God. If you believe that he takes pleasure in creating, how can he possibly do so without a self which is conscious of the enjoyment? If he is all-powerful, how can he possibly be incapable of preventing the evil that apparently he hates?

DAVID: God does not have a physical self. He is immaterial, purely a mental state, that is pure thought.

dhw: Nobody has said he is physical! What is “pure thought” if it has no content? If he exists, the question is whether some of his thought patterns and emotions (as listed earlier) are like ours.

The real question is are our thoughts are in any way comparable to His?

DAVID: The bold is an important realization for you.

dhw: No, it is an important realization for YOU, since you have now realized that terms like enjoyment and interest and all-goodness and selflessness are not “allegorical”, but mean exactly what they say.

NO. We know what those words mean at the human level, nothing more about how they apply to God.

DAVID: To answer the last question, it appears God lets us manage the evil we create.

dhw: If he exists, then obviously he is not intervening. That does not help us to understand why, if he is all-good, all-powerful and therefore only creates what he wants to create, and hates evil – as you believe he does – he created a system which he knew would result in evil, and does nothing to prevent it.

We must assume God does not wish to intervene now.

DAVID: The 'system' is humans with free will. We create our own evil, God doesn't. And I welcome the free will as an important part of how we live.

dhw: Quite apart from the fact that there were floods and famines and diseases long before sapiens appeared on the scene, you believe your God created a system which would produce evil. You believe he is the creator of all life and all systems. How could an all-good God create a system which he knows will produce evil? As regards free will, if we have it, I also welcome it. That is irrelevant to the problem of theodicy, which you keep dodging. (Continued, and sometimes repeated, on the Feser thread.)

I don't dodge. Theodicy is a matter of perceived proportionality. You intensely magnify all teh bad in the world, when it is mostely very good.