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

by dhw, Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 08:10 (401 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: If evolution occurred, and with God in charge, it is logical to assume God chose this system of creation. Perfectly sensible.

dhw: Of course if he exists, it is logical that he chose evolution for whatever may have been his purpose. That does not mean he chose to design every species individually, or that his one and only purpose was to design us and our food! Stop dodging!

DAVID: But that is the ID theory that God designed all levels of evolution.

That doesn’t alter the fact that IF he designed all levels of evolution, you are left with the unanswerable question why an all-powerful, all-knowing God would deliberately design and then have to cull the unnecessary 99.9 out of 100 species IF his sole purpose was to design us plus food. You admit it makes no sense to you, but you won’t admit that one or other or both these “IFS” might be wrong.

DAVID: It makes perfect sense to me to accept God's choice of action. I don't need to know His reasons, why do you?

For the nth time, you “accept” your own senseless theory of what is your God’s action. It is not a fact that his purpose was us, or that he individually designed every species.

Theodicy

DAVID: His good works came with side effects beyond His controls. As for the system of life, God knew all the 'available' choices He thought of and picked the best.

dhw: Beyond his control = he is not all-powerful. If he is all-powerful, he would have picked the one he wanted, which is the one that produced evil. If he wanted to produce evil (as in your theory that he did so in order to challenge humans), how does that make him all-good?

DAVID: The good God produced far outweighed the secondary appearance of evil.

That does not mean evil doesn’t exist, and it is the existence of evil that is the problem. Once more, if your all-powerful God created the evil in the system as a challenge to us (one of your theories), then clearly he did so deliberately. So please answer the bolded question.

DAVID (under “handling stress”): If cells did not operate at these speeds life would not exist. What is important is to recognize God's goodness in giving us life.

The problem of theodicy is not solved by focusing on God’s goodness. If your all-powerful God could not possibly have invented a mechanism that did not break down and cause suffering, then we can all agree that only puts a question mark against his all-powerfulness and not against his goodness. So let’s focus on the most obvious of all evils, which is those perpetrated by us humans, as above. You suggest he was setting us a challenge, so please answer the bolded question.

DAVID: Understanding the logical point of proportionality answers the criticisms in theodicy.

Of course it doesn’t! Evil exists, regardless of percentages, so stop pretending that war, rape, murder – all of which are products of the system your God invented – aren’t a problem for those who believe him to be all-good.

dhw: An added bonus here concerns your dotty theory of evolution. If your God, for whatever reason, was quite happy to lose control of the system that produced evil, then he might have been happy to lose control of evolution itself (giving life forms the intelligence with which to create their own designs) – a theory which would automatically solve the problem you have created for yourself by making him design 99.9% of species irrelevant to his purpose.

DAVID: So, if the organisms produce their own next species that makeup the 99.9% loss, how does that solve the problem of the loss? They are following God-given plans of design!

dhw: Because if speciation and survival depend on the varying forms and degrees of intelligence of the cell communities(as possibly designed by your God), some will not be able to cope with changing conditions. Over the course of thousands of millions of years, with constant changes in conditions, species will come and go. That is what happened to 99.9% - many of which actually lived for millions of years until new conditions arose under which they could not survive. This means there is no God-given plan of design other than to create a system that would produce an endlessly changing and even unpredictable variety of species which would come and go. Far more interesting than a puppet show, don't you think?

DAVID: Evolution with a purpose is not the theatrical sideshow you describe rudderlessly wandering along. For whose interest is it created?? If you are inferring God, He doesn't need to entertain Himself.

But you believe he enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, and a Garden of Eden would be boring. And under theodicy, you insist that he gave humans the means of “rudderlessly wandering along”, out of his control. Why, if not out of interest in what we might come up with (or how we would meet the challenge)? And why should he not have given the same freedom to speciate for the same reason? If he is interested in his creations, why would he not invent a system which he would find interesting?