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

by dhw, Monday, October 23, 2023, 11:57 (187 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I agree with you that an all-powerful God would do what he wished to do. If he wished to design 99.9 species that had no connection with his one and only purpose, he would do so. If he wished to create a free-for-all, or to experiment to find out the potential of his invention, he would do so. If he wished to experiment in order to find out the best way to create a particular form of life, he would do so. What you “simply accept” is your theory that he wished to use a messy, inefficient method to achieve the purpose you impose on him with your theory, although you can’t understand why. The three alternatives have him achieving his purpose in a completely logical and efficient manner. But “you never understand this point of view.”

DAVID: Your "if God" experiments, uses a free-for-all, but you don't recognize how weak you make your imagined God. An all-powerful God directly creates whatever He wishes directly, not through your very weak methods imposed on Him.

According to you, your God’s one and only wish was to create sapiens plus food, but instead of creating us directly, he created and had to cull 99.9 species out of 100 which had no connection with us. You have called his method messy, cumbersome and inefficient. Now you are calling it weak, but you are telling me that a God who wishes to experiment and to find out the potential of his invention is weak because he experiments and finds out the potential of his invention. Welcome to Wonderland.

Theodicy

dhw: […] perhaps you would tell me your fellow thinkers’ explanation of how an all-powerful, all-knowing first-cause God, who is the creator of all things, can be all-good if he deliberately creates a system he knows will produce evil (which had never existed before he created it), although he either has no control over his invention (despite his all-powerfulness) or he wants to provide humans with a challenge and therefore actually wants to create evil.

DAVID: They really don't. Proportionality is what they point out.

dhw: So you’ll have to think for yourself. I’ll look forward to your response to the above.

DAVID: I had independently arrived at proportionality before reading the theodicy opinions which confirmed my view.

And no doubt you have independently arrived at the conclusion that you had better ignore the above and simply go on pretending that the problem of theodicy is solved by pretending that there is no problem.

dhw: Do you regard inefficiency as less namby-pamby than successful experimentation?

DAVID: Namby-pamby refers to a weak God who gives up direct control and HOPES the process achieves His wished for goal.

dhw: In one of your theodicy theories, your God has no control over the evil “by-products” of the system he has invented. How weak and namby-pamby is that?

Not answered.

dhw: In my free-for-all theory, he does not want control – his purpose is to see what happens if he leaves organisms to design themselves. Why is that weak and namby-pamby? In two of my theories, he doesn’t “hope” he’ll find out the potential of his invention. He knows that what he is doing will reveal the potential. Weak and namby-pamby? Compared to a God who, in one of your own theories, has to create a system which will produce something he hates (evil) but which he is powerless to prevent?

DAVID: You still don't see your God is not all-powerful.

If "my God" wants to experiment or wants to create a free-for-all, and proceeds to experiment or to create a free-for-all, how does that come to mean he is not all-powerful?

DAVID: God created a universe from Himself. Developed the perfect planet for life and then invented life. Then suddenly, in your version, He has to experiment or gives over control to a free-for-all so He can be entertained by unexpected results. Dual/split personalities is the weird result.

No split at all. He doesn’t “have to” experiment in any of my versions. He creates life because he wants to enjoy creating new things through experimenting or through the same free-for-all that you envisage with your out-of-control bugs and your human free will. The only split personality that has emerged from our discussions is your all-powerful God who directly creates what he wants to create, except that he doesn’t, and your first-cause, all-good God who creates evil out of himself.