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

by David Turell , Sunday, October 08, 2023, 16:15 (410 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Same weird psychoanalysis of my mind. Creating humans and their food supply by evolution is what happened. Assuming God did it is my belief, which means it makes perfect sense to me if not to you.

dhw: But according to your weird theory, creating humans plus food was his one and only purpose, and so he deliberately created and then had to get rid of 99.9 out of 100 species which had no connection with his one and only purpose. The existence and extinction of what you think were unnecessary species is also “what happened”, and you cannot think of a single reason why he would choose what you call such a messy, cumbersome and inefficient method to achieve his one and only purpose. That is why you simply leave it out of your replies in an endless attempt to dodge the fact that you admit your combination of theories makes no sense even to you.

Same old cook-booked response. Let's move on.

Theodicy
dhw: What you have agreed is that if he is all powerful, he would have wanted to create the system which he knew would produce both good and evil. How does that make him all-good?
And:
dhw: please tell us how your God can conceive of evil and knowingly build it into the system which, as first cause, he created out of himself, and yet be all-good.

DAVID: God is separated from evil. All of it is byproducts of His good works.

dhw: How can your all-powerful, all-knowing God be “separated” from it if as first cause he deliberately created a system which he knew would produce it?
Your other solution to the problem of theodicy is to pretend that the proportion of evil to good is so small that there isn’t a problem. But evil exists, no matter what percentages you like to manufacture. So please answer the bold.

The problem for God is in producing good, evil appears. To quote the old song: you can't have one without the other. I've asked you to supply a satisfactory alternate system and you couldn't

DAVID: Believers in God accept the problem as part of their belief. Their approach is to accept that God's good works allow evil to appear as byproducts. I await your description of a non-evil-causing system.

dhw: Acceptance that there is a problem is not a solution, which is why the debate has continued for centuries. My description is irrelevant to the problem, as it does not explain how your first-cause God can conceive of evil, and deliberately build a system which he knows will cause evil, and yet be “all good”[/b].

DAVID: I'm sorry you don't see it as I do. The fact you cannot offer a solution by your God shows there can only be the current reality.

dhw: Your sorrow does not explain the bold. You asked me to describe an alternative to a world containing evil, and I gave you one. I’m not disputing the reality of our current world with all its evil, and am not even complaining about it. I’m asking the straightforward question posed by theodicy, which is how your first-cause God could create out of himself a system which he knew would produce evil (regardless of all his good works) and yet still be “all good”.

Your so-called alternative was no real answer.