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

by David Turell , Thursday, October 26, 2023, 17:31 (184 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Of course an eternal, immaterial being that can create a universe is not a human being, and of course we can only infer his emotions (if he exists). We are not talking of “needs” but of the possibility that he has these emotions. You agree that the above characteristics are possible, and therefore your original certainty that he enjoys and is interested in his creations makes it perfectly feasible that he could have created life because he wanted to create something to enjoy and be interested in.

Our problem is that we do not know what drives God to do anything. In my view God creates with set purposes in mind and any form of enjoyments or interests are secondary events, not primary purposes.

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.

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

dhw: I am happy to be here, God or no God. That has absolutely nothing to do with the question of why and how your first cause God, creator of all things, can create out of himself a system which he knows will produce evil, and yet be all-good. The same applies to the article you have quoted:

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

QUOTE: But suffering, tragic as it can be for all of us to endure, is not inconsistent with design.

The problem of theodicy is not the existence of a designer, but the question bolded above.

QUOTE: There’s the other major cause of suffering in life: human evil... "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.”

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

dhw: The question of theodicy has nothing to do with our moral responsibility, and nothing to do with whether you kindly accept God’s works. The fact that you kindly accept God’s “warts”, which in this case entail the deliberate creation of evil (as in your challenge theory) or his inability to prevent the evil he has created (despite his being all-powerful) does not answer the question bolded above. How can a first-cause God, who knowingly creates out of himself a world that contains evil, be all-good?

The evils are byproducts of His good works, which means He is responsible for His good works, which affect us, but we and God have to accept evil that secondarily results and work to mitigate the evil. I agree with you God knew this would happen. Yes, warts and all.