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

by dhw, Monday, December 04, 2023, 11:23 (145 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: From my side it makes perfect sense. I simply view a designing God who wished to produce humans, a perfect fit with the historical result of evolution.

dhw: But you don’t keep it simple. You insist that [his one and only purpose was to design humans plus food, and so], he designed and then had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with humans (plus food), and you cannot think of a single reason why he would have done so. Stop dodging![/i] (Square brackets added for clarity)

DAVID: Old cookbook repeat. You are simply describing the process of evolution and then complaining about it. God's choice, and I don't need to know why. If I didn't consider humans God's goal you would stop complaining. I won't change.

Old cookbook dodge, dodge, dodge. I accept the process of evolution. I do not accept the totally illogical theory bolded above. Either you’ve got the wrong purpose, or you’ve got the wrong method, or both, or your all-powerful, all-knowing God is a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer. You opt for the latter, and refuse to consider any other possibility.

DAVID: I still feel evolution was a messy way to produce us.

dhw: So why do you refuse to consider the possibility that instead of your God being a messy and inefficient designer, he is - for instance - a highly efficient experimental scientist, trying new things, eager to make new discoveries, or to give himself new ideas?

DAVID: More God humanizing. My God is purposeful, knows exactly what He wishes to do and does it.

The God I have described above is purposeful, knows exactly what he wishes to do, and does it. And this alternative removes the humanizing image of an inefficient God who actually knows what a mess he’s making in pursuit of his one and only goal. (See also “More miscellany, Part One.)

Theodicy

dhw: […] I don’t agree with your belief that all-powerful can be defined as power with limits.

DAVID: Well Goff can, so I can.

dhw: His preference for a God with limited powers does not mean that he defines all-powerful as meaning with limited powers!

No response.

DAVID (under "microbiomes in vaginas”): You see the bugs are good. The reality we live in includes bad bugs.

dhw: I’ve never denied that there are good and bad things. Theodicy asks how the bad can mean that your first-cause Creator of everything that exists can be all-good.

DAVID: The theodicy answers point out proportionality.

dhw: Theodicy does not ask what is the percentage of good versus bad. It asks how the bad…. etc. as above.

No response.

DAVID: […] I feel you can't have natural processes and God working together, in which God is not also in charge of the natural side. Natural might not give Him the results He wants.

dhw: That depends on what results he wants. Since the history of life is one of an ever changing variety of life forms, may I suggest that he wanted an ever-changing variety of life forms. If he wanted to create a being in his own image, may I suggest that the large variety of life forms leading to the wide variety of hominins and homos, which in turn led to us and our food, might be the work of a God experimenting in order to find the best formula. Or maybe he wanted a free-for-all (best achieved by giving autonomy to his invention of the intelligent cell) but allowed himself to dabble – humans figuring as an idea that occurred to him late on in the process.

DAVID: I think God prefers to evolve everything He created. He had the universe evolve, the current Earth evolve, and life evolve, all under His guidance.

Everything I have suggested above has your God using evolution as his method of achieving his goal(s). The only difference between us is the completely illogical theory bolded at the start of this post, which makes God a messy, inefficient designer.

Bechly: “This does not necessarily mean that “God diddit,” but it also means that nothing has been refuted and we should not a priori exclude alternative explanations like intelligent agency. […] For this reason, I currently and provisionally still think that the total evidence of all lines of data favors common descent as the most parsimonious and most elegant explanation. However, I definitely remain open (and now more sympathetic) to alternatives like progressive creation combined with other explanations for the pattern of biological similarities..."

dhw: All agreed. It's a good "agnostic" approach. But I’m surprised that he doesn’t mention Shapiro’s alternative “intelligent agency”, namely the intelligent cell, which allows for both Nature diddit and God diddit.

DAVID: Not many scientists follow Shapiro closely as you do. You are narrowly wedded to his ideas.

My own approach is not “narrowly wedded”. Like Bechly, I favour one theory but remain open to others. For instance, the view of your God experimenting in order to find the right formula to create a being like himself has nothing to do with Shapiro. Why don’t you follow Bechly’s example and open that closed mind of yours? (See “More Miscellany, Part One” for your astonishing confession.)