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

by dhw, Friday, October 20, 2023, 12:03 (398 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: As a believer, my theory makes perfect sense to me or I wouldn't believe in it! Thank you for revealing your muddled way of thinking in this analysis of me.

dhw: You can’t think of any reason why your God would design 99.9 unnecessary species out of 100 etc., but you “don’t need to know his reasons” because this is what you believe. How does your inability to find a reason and your not needing to find a reason come to mean that your theory makes perfect sense to you?

DAVID: Your weird question helps explain the way your mind works, requiring absolute facts to make a decision. Juries are told to make life-taking-decisions based on 'information beyond a reasonable doubt'. It works in thinking about a probable God.

Yet another dodge. We are not discussing your belief in God's existence, but your belief in the absurd theory that your God had only one purpose (us and our food), and therefore specially designed and then had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his one and only purpose. It is this combination of theories which you admit makes no sense to you. Stop dodging!

Theodicy

dhw: Your responses so far have been 1) he is all-good because you only want to think of the good he does and to ignore the evil. 2) Although he is all-powerful, and would therefore only produce a system he wanted to produce, and although he is all-knowing and therefore knew that his system would produce evil, and although as first-cause he is the creator of everything, he had no choice other than knowingly to create a system that would produce evil, over which he has no control. This apparently means he is all-powerful and all-good. 3) Being all-powerful, he deliberately created a system that would produce evil in order to challenge humans, but wanting to produce evil apparently makes him all-good.

DAVID: Your brain is muddied by your overemphasis on the amount of evil.

dhw: There is no overemphasis. Regardless of proportion, evil exists, and the question is how your first-cause God’s production of evil can square with the theory that he is all-good.

DAVID: Our explanations square it to our satisfaction.

Why have you started using the royal “we”? If you can’t defend the three explanations you have offered, then just say so.

dhw: Why are you so opposed to the idea that a God who enjoys and is interested in his creations might have created them because he wants to create something he will enjoy and be interested in?

DAVID: I'm sure God is interested in His own way. But He doesn't create for self-entertainment.

dhw: You were sure that he enjoyed creating. Please stick to “enjoyment”

DAVID: If it is for enjoyment, it is entertaining. Look at the definitions that include pleasure.

More dodging. Entertainment sounds trivial - akin to being amused. I enjoy a performance of “King Lear”, but I do not find it entertaining. Now please explain why a God who enjoys (your word) and is interested (your word) in his creations can’t possibly have created them because he wanted to create something he would enjoy and be interested in.

DAVID ...but your limited imagination seems to allow only allow for that species of God.

dhw: Unlike you, I do not pretend to know your God. I offer alternative theistic theories (experimentation to create one form, experimentation or free-for-all to discover the potential of his invention) to explain life’s history, and although you acknowledge that all of them logically explain the 99.9% which you can’t explain, you reject them because they don’t conform to your preconceived ideas about your God’s nature.

DAVID: I reject them because they define a namby-pamby God who is not all-knowing in how to evolve His purposes.

Would you call experimental scientists and inventors namby-pamby? You prefer a messy, cumbersome and inefficient designer (your description) who, for totally inexplicable reasons, chooses to design and cull 99.9 out of 100 species that have no connection with his one and only purpose.