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

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 25, 2023, 19:32 (185 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: 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”?

In your presentation, yes! The bold is a wrong approach in thinking, comparing my emotions to God's. God is not human. As a personage like no other person, we can only infer God's possible emotions. Love, hate, enjoyment and interest in His creations are all possible characteristics but we do not know if God feels He needs any of these.

Theodicy

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

dhw: 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.

If God did not create us this discussion would not exist. Are you happy to be here? I am.

Read: https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/eric-hedin-on-suffering-in-a-designed-world/

"Dr. Hedin discusses the problem of natural evils like earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, and other natural disasters. He reports that in the last century, the human death toll from such tragedies has dropped as we have learned to mitigate the effects of these natural forces in our lives. Hedin also discusses the impact of sickness on our bodies. “Any complex system can break down,” Hedin reminds us, “because we do live in a world where the second law of thermodynamics applies not just to stars and mountainsides and physical systems but also to our own bodies.” But suffering, tragic as it can be for all of us to endure, is not inconsistent with design.

"There’s the other major cause of suffering in life: human evil...Humans have the gift of rational override: “We’re not just vulnerable or defenseless collections of molecules that are completely at the whim of influences,” he says. “We have rational control that we can actually will to do something that is contrary to every influence that is affecting us at that moment.”

"Dr. Hedin argues that our world is not just designed to support human life, it is also designed for morality too. “Because we can determine what we do or decide not to do, we still have moral responsibility.”

Comment: All the same reasoning I use. I have offered the theodicy reasoning accurately. I accept God's works warts and all.