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

by David Turell , Saturday, October 28, 2023, 18:57 (182 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: In my view God creates with set purposes in mind...

DAVID: Our problem is I do not see your illogicalities. I find them as inventions of your mind. So I am really happy with my theory of God and His goals. I think He has achieved them.

dhw: This is a very severe case of amnesia. Year after year you have acknowledged that you have no idea why your all-powerful God, whose only goal (no plural) you believe to have been us and our food, would have designed and had to cull 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with his purpose. Earlier this week, you told us that an all-powerful God “directly creates whatever he wishes directly”, and “We do not know why God chose to evolve us. dhw is correct. Why not direct creation?” You have also repeatedly informed us that you do not need to know God’s reasons, thus confirming that you haven’t a clue why he would use the method you impose on him in order to fulfil the purpose you impose on him. By all means remain happy, but please stop pretending you can’t see the illogicality of the combination of theories which you admit you can’t explain.

What you wish explained cannot be explained! The reasons in God's mind are hidden to us. We can only analyze what God produced. He produced us! We conjecture why. We see only two ways to create us, evolve or direct creation. Obviously, God chose evolution which by analysis resulted in a required 99.9% loss rate. You turn all of this on its head and complain about the necessarily lost forms. And then state I am illogical!!! We are here. God succeeded in His intentions!

DAVID: ...any form of enjoyments or interests are secondary events, not primary purposes.

dhw: What is that supposed to mean? Enjoyment and interest are not “events”, and if you do something because you enjoy doing it and you want to create something interesting to watch, then enjoyment and interest are a purpose. You believe he designed and then culled 99.9 out of 100 species in order to design us and our food. Please tell us his “primary purpose” in designing the unnecessary 99.9 species, and his “primary purpose” for designing us and our food. And while you’re at it, following up one of your theories, please tell us his primary purpose for deliberately creating evil as a challenge for us humans.

DAVID: Humans were His primary purpose. Our free will allows us to create evil, not God's fault. God created a complex system of biochemistry at such high speeds error occur. Not God's fault. God created bacteria and viruses to help our living system. With freedom of action, they sometimes cause disease. Not God's fault. God knew it would happen and we have immune systems.

You have ignored every single point and request that I have made in the paragraph above, which concerned your God’s possible purposes: 1) for designing 99.9 species irrelevant to his purpose of designing us; 2) for designing us and our food; 3) for deliberately creating evil as a challenge to us humans. Your non-response merely repeats your belief that your first-cause, all-powerful God, who would only create what he wished to create, is not responsible for creating out of himself a system which he knew would produce evil, and that means he is all-good. See below. Now please tell us what you think are the “primary purposes” for the three actions you attribute to your God, as listed above.

I've answered above about your irrational analysis of evolution as invented by God. You've raised theodicy issues before we've reached that discussion. Let's look below.

Theodicy

DAVID: I accept God's works warts and all. […]

dhw: I don’t understand why an all-powerful God, who according to youb“directly creates whatever he wishes directly”, has to accept the evil which he hates, and which as first cause he and he alone has produced, whether directly (as a challenge to us humans) or indirectly (because he was powerless to prevent it). Warts are blemishes or imperfections. How can a designer deliberately or accidentally produce evil imperfections but still be regarded as all-powerful, all-good and perfect?

DAVID: As above evil is the result of mistakes or from human free will, which I am delighted to have.

dhw: More dodging. How can an all-powerful, all-knowing God make mistakes, and how can a first-cause God create out of himself a system which he knows will produce evil, and yet be all-good?

I've answered before; the good greatly outweighs the secondary evil which results. Translated: you can't have one without the other.