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

by dhw, Wednesday, October 25, 2023, 11:48 (185 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: A really powerful all-knowing purposeful God has no need for experimentation as He knows full well how to achieve His purposes.

You also wrote: “An all-powerful God directly creates whatever he wishes directly, not through your very weak methods imposed on him.”

dhw: If your all-powerful, all-knowing, purposeful God would “directly create whatever he wishes directly”, and his only purpose was to design us and our food, why would he directly design and then have to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his one and only purpose? Do you call that ”direct” creation? Welcome to Wonderland.

DAVID: The all-powerful God examines all choices of method and chooses the best one to achieve His goals.

Agreed. I note your plural goals, in contrast to your theory which allows him only one goal: to design us and our food, and I have pointed out that your theory, as bolded above, is the very opposite of direct creation. Since he would “directly create whatever he wishes directly” in order to achieve his goal(s), either your goal theory or your method theory or both of them must therefore be wrong.

dhw: You keep agreeing that you have no idea why your God would use your messy, cumbersome, inefficient and now “weak” method to achieve the purpose you impose on him. And yet you continue to argue that this version is really powerful, whereas a God who does precisely what he wants to do (experiment, discover, enjoy new creations) is weak. I guess part of being in Wonderland is not believing you’re in Wonderland!

DAVID: Comparing my view above with this description, it is a direct antithesis of my view. God has no need to experiment, discover, or create for enjoyment. Yours is entirely humanized. It is amazing you can't see that.

I do not see him as needy. If you enjoy something, does that make you needy? You have said you are certain he enjoys creating (why else would he do it?) and is interested in his creations. Why, all of a sudden, do you reject your own opinion? What is wrong with enjoyment and interest? You think he hates evil, and I suspect that if he can hate, he can also love. Also well-known human characteristics, but do they make him “entirely humanized”?

Theodicy

DAVID: Do you remember what you read? I raised the theodicy issue years ago specifically to discuss the problem.

dhw: How does that justify your pretence that the problem is solved by pretending there is no problem?

DAVID: Of course, there is a problem!!! We live with evil.

How does the fact that we live with evil justify your pretence that the problem is solved by pretending there is no problem?

DAVID: God has accepted the byproducts of His good works as necessaary.

You wrote: “Namby-pamby refers to a weak God who gives up direct control and HOPES the process achieves his wished for goal"

dhw: So your all-powerful God has accepted that he must give up direct control (= weak). And since according to you he hates evil, presumably (since he has given us free will) part of his goal is to eliminate the evil he hates – i.e. he HOPES the process will achieve his wished-for goal. Congratulations, your God has now achieved namby-pamby status, as bolded above.

DAVID: God has created a powerful form of life, the one we have. I've fully explained how free-to- act bacteria must exist, and unfortunately cause trouble. Free-to-act humans are the same.

So your God had to give up control etc., thereby fulfilling your criteria for namby-pambiness, although “an all-powerful God directly creates whatever he wishes”, which ought to mean that he wished to give up control. More of your Wonderland logic.

dhw: Please understand that I’m not accusing God of waging war or committing murder or rape. I’m merely pointing out that your first-cause designer who created all life out of himself, and who deliberately designed a life form which he knew would wage war, or commit murder or rape – none of which ever existed before he designed the life form – can hardly be all-good.

DAVID: The usual distorted view of an all-good God. The answer: Evil is our fault not God's

Do you deny that as first cause he would have created everything out of himself, and knowingly created a system which he knew would produce evil, which had never existed before he designed the system? This is not a “distorted view of an all-good God”. It poses the question of how God can be all-good if he and he alone knowingly created a being who would commit evil.