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

by dhw, Sunday, November 26, 2023, 08:45 (361 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Adler used Darwin theory as it made Adler's point.

dhw: And you reject Darwin theory, which makes my point that you are not Adler in your thinking.

DAVID: I am an autodidact taking ideas from various sources as I accept them. Adler accepted Darwin's form of evolution.

dhw: And you don’t.

DAVID: Your point?

You wrote “I’m Adler in our thinking. So I’m not just a nut in the wilderness.” The only theory of yours that Adler supports is that the uniqueness of humans is evidence for God’s existence. Everything else you have proposed on this thread is unsupported by Adler, including your rejection of Darwin’s theory. You are, to use your own words, the only “nut in the wilderness”.

DAVID: I see the need for a designer from ID material. So, I just logically melded the two. God ran evolution and humans were His final process.

dhw: You have, as usual, left out that part of your theory which Adler does not share and which renders your “melded” theories illogical and incomprehensible even to you: namely, since you keep forgetting it, that your God's only purpose was to design us plus food, and so he individually designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species which had no connection with what you think was his one and only purpose.

DAVID: You are daft. I forget nothing. I assume after all these years you know my theories about religion and God, the designer.

In all your replies, you leave out the crucial part of your theory which renders it so absurd. The need for a designer, God ran evolution, and humans were his “final process” are all feasible theistic statements. You deliberately omit the theory bolded above, which is the totally illogical subject of this whole discussion.

Defining evolution

DAVID: The history of evolution is filled with anthropologies' secret gaps, per Gould, "“All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.”

dhw: More dodging. The dispute between us is not over the existence of gaps, but the fact that you keep referring to evolution but now say that God created evolution as an imitation of evolution! Since he’s supposed to be first cause of everything, what does that mean? He invented evolution, but his evolution was an imitation of his evolution? Or God imitated Darwin? You constantly emphasize the gaps, you categorically state that every gap means separate creation “de novo”, unlike Adler you reject Darwin’s theory, you have your God individually designing not only every species but also every lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc. , and you had no problem when I pointed out that your beliefs amounted to Creationism, which is the opposite of evolution.

DAVID: I agree with your view of my thinking. My creator God designed an evolutionary process to produce us. A meld of Adler and IC theory.

You say Adler accepted Darwin’s theory, which is that all species are descended from earlier ancestors. You say the history of life is filled with gaps, and every gap denotes de novo design, which is the direct opposite of evolution. IC theory is that certain things are so irreducibly complex that they must have been designed. That does not mean all species were separately designed by God, as opposed to their having descended from earlier ancestors. You agree that you are a Creationist, and not an evolutionist. So be it. You can of course believe whatever you want, but please don’t tell us separate creation is synonymous with evolution.

Theodicy

DAVID: My God is all-powerful within some limits.

dhw: Same daft definition as before: sorry, but you can’t be all-powerful if your powers are limited.

DAVID: I don't believe God can invent a workable system of life other than this one. He fine-tuned the universe with rigid limits. The living biochemistry of life is fluid not rigid and cannot proceed in function with rigidity.

dhw: I’m perfectly happy to accept that the existence of life proves that this system has produced life. And I am even perfectly happy to accept that this system of life has produced so-called “natural” evils (diseases, disasters etc.) and human-made evils (wars, murder, rape etc.). And I can accept that God would create what he wishes to create (I believe you proposed that he could actually have invented evil deliberately in order to set humans the task of correcting it). But theodicy asks how a first-cause, all-knowing God, who created everything out of himself, could conceive of, let alone deliberately produce evil, and yet be all-good. Then you have added your theory that his powers are limited (you have told us he couldn’t prevent the evil, though he did sometimes try), but you insist that all-powerful means with limited powers. [Addition: And most of the time, all you want us to focus on is the good and we should ignore the bad.] In brief, your solution to the problem of theodicy is to avoid it.

DAVID: I've never found an essay on theodicy that is any different in approach.

Then why don’t you try thinking for yourself? Alternatively, accept the fact that there is no basis for such assumptions as God being all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing etc.