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

by dhw, Saturday, December 02, 2023, 11:37 (147 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I meld together many authorities’ opinions to create my theology.

dhw: And the result is a composite theory that your all-powerful God’s one and only purpose was to design us and our food, and therefore he wanted or had to design and cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with us and our food. You cannot think of any reason why he would act in what you call this messy, cumbersome, inefficient way […]

DAVID: The bolded is an irrational analysis.

dhw: It is not an analysis. It is a summary of your theory of evolution.

DAVID: What is irrational is that we exist now as 0.1%, which includes us and everything else on Earth which is here for our use including food. I don't care why God did it this way. 99.9% is just an historical fact of God's work.

There is nothing irrational about the existence of ourselves and our food as the survivors of life’s past history. That is simply a known fact, not a theory, as is the disappearance of the vast majority of life forms that preceded us. The existence of God is not a fact, but as we do not have an atheist contributing to these discussions, I am challenging your theistic interpretation of life’s history, and it is NOT a fact that even if your God exists, (a) his one and only purpose was to produce us, and b) he designed every species individually. The combination of these two theories makes no sense, as it has your all-powerful, all-purposeful God individually designing and then culling 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his one and only purpose. But you don’t care if it makes no sense. You simply assume that your illogical theory is the only possible truth, and you leave it to God to explain the mess you have imposed on him.

DAVID: I don't need God's reasoning for His use of an evolutionary system. The imperfections are really in our weak human reasoning about God's intentions and methods.

Please speak for yourself. It is your own weak human reasoning that has conjured up the messy imperfections. The evolutionary system we both acknowledge can be explained in a manner that relieves God of the messy, cumbersome, inefficient image you impose on him.

DAVID: Amazing, I accept God, warts and all.

I’m sure your God will feel honoured by your acceptance of the warts you have planted on him (though I seem to remember you also talking of him being “perfect”, but perhaps my memory is at fault).

Theodicy

dhw: If God exists, I am all in favour of us gratefully accepting his good works, and I have no trouble accepting that the bad is the price which has to be paid. Just like you, I love life (goody, goody) but accept the fact that one day I must die (baddy, baddy). But this does not offer even one syllable to explain how your God can create evil either deliberately, yet be all-good, or reluctantly, yet be all-powerful.

DAVID: Goff's limits on all-powerful is a reasonable view.

I agree. But I don’t agree with your belief that all-powerful can be defined as power with limits.