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

by David Turell , Thursday, November 02, 2023, 22:51 (176 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Not “had to” but “must”! If your God is first cause, he designed evolution – it didn’t tell him what to do! You tell us he “directly creates what he wishes directly”, and you tell us he only wished to design us and our food. But instead he designed 99.9 out of 100 species which then had to be culled. You don’t know why, and so you cry: “We do not know why God chose to evolve us. dhw is correct. Why not direct creation?” And you have no answer.
Your next dodge is to perform a complete volte face:

DAVID: Raup's analysis of God's evolution revealed 99.9% were ancestors of the 0.1% alive today. […] View evolution as an upside-down triangle: Archaea are the original tip and the present survivors represented by the line of the hypotenuse. The area of the triangle is Raup's loss. (dhw's bold)

dhw: The line of the hypotenuse is the line from archaea to us and current species (our food). The rest of the triangle (the loss) is all the species that evolved away from that line and did not lead to us. Hence the 99.9% (the area of the triangle) that did not lead to us and our food.

They had to be lost to get to us by culling.

DAVID: I've never accepted the 99.9% were unconnected to God's purpose. All of evolution is connected to the past. The food is the entire bush of life.

dhw: Your acceptance that 99.9% of species did not lead to us and our food (your God’s one and only purpose) has been the subject of this dispute for years, and your triangle confirms the point. Of course if all life forms evolved from the first life forms, they are all connected to the original past tip, but that does not mean that all life forms led to us and our food! (We are confined to the line of the hypotenuse.) This is your silliest dodge so far.

The hypotenuse is us and our food.

DAVID: God's choice of evolving us makes perfect sense. He chose direct design where He wished as shown in the Cambrian.

dhw: So he wished to design and then cull 99.9 unnecessary species, although he could have directly created us if he had wished to. You do not know why, but it makes perfect sense, although you can’t make sense of it. […]In your own words: We do not know why God chose to evolve us. dhw is correct. Why not direct creation?”

DAVID: We do not know why is correct.

dhw: So how can you claim that your theory makes perfect sense if you can’t think of any reason for such a messy, cumbersome and inefficient method (your own description)?

You have never understood God's works need no explanation for me.

Theodicy

dhw: Your all-powerful, all-knowing God was powerless to prevent evil, and yet he “directly creates what he wishes to create”, and in one of your theories he even invents evil as a challenge to humans. As first cause, he created everything out of himself, so how could he “allow evil to appear” if he was nothing but good?

dhw: And still you ignore the bold.

DAVID: Not ignored. God chose to evolve us.

You chose to leave the bold out of your response. Here it is again. Nothing to do with your God’s choice to evolve us.

Theodicy: the ‘good’ view of bacteria

DAVID: note the need for friendly bacteria in the uterus and the gut. These same bacteria, accidently in the wrong place, can be unfriendly. That is not God's fault.

dhw: Your all-powerful, all-knowing designer designs bacteria. Sometimes they do good, and sometimes they do bad. Apparently that means he is responsible for the good but he is not responsible for the bad. And you think that’s logical. The builders build your house and part of the roof falls in. Do you congratulate them because the walls are still standing?

DAVID: God knew the secondhand problem. There are editing systems everywhere.

dhw: Your all-powerful, all-knowing God knew that his bacteria and his humans would produce evil as well as good. (Is the good “secondhand”?) He creates what he wishes to create, remember? Editing systems? Even if he did create such systems, the evil consists in those “bads” which despite his alleged hatred of evil and his all-powerfulness, he was powerless to prevent – though according to one of your theories he actually invented the “bads” as a challenge to us humans. What a mess!

Your view of a mess, not mine. Proportionality is the right view.

DAVID: The roof fell in because a meteorite hit it is a true comparison to the problem.

dhw: According to you, your God designed the bacteria with the freedom to do their dirty deeds, and he knew they would do them. The responsibility for the design is his. There was no unexpected intervention from outside what he had designed.

God knew secondhand evil would happen, and knew the good outweighed it.