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

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 06, 2023, 17:32 (143 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Evolution is a process which has resulted in the disappearance of 99.9 out of 100 species. It is your proposal that there is an all-powerful God who only wished to create one species plus its food, and therefore knowingly designed and culled 99.9 species that had no connection with his purpose. As this is an absurdly illogical thing to do, you continually edit your theory to leave out the dislocated thinking, or you blame God for using such a messy, cumbersome, inefficient method, rather than face the possibility that part or all of your theory might be wrong.

Nothing is left out. Your correct proportion of 99.9 out of 100 creates a wrong impression of reality. Many billions disappeared while the 0.1 percent remaining i also in the billions.

DAVID: What is present now are humans running the entire Earth to their benefit. And enough food is a major issue.

dhw: Correct. And what was present in the past was lots of other life forms that had no connection with humans and our food.

Wrong. What is here now is in great part out food supply.

DAVID: Humans were God's final goal, and you won't accept that point.

dhw: Nobody knows how it will all end, but even if humans really were your God’s “final goal”, it wouldn’t explain why, according to you, he had to design and cull 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with his one and only goal.

You condemn God for evolving us. I accept it as His goal.

DAVID: Don't distort what is presented here. I have constantly presented God's brilliant designs.

dhw: We are both right, but we are talking on two different levels. If you commissioned an architect to design a bungalow for you, and he designed a magnificent five-storey house but then had to remove four of the five storeys from his design, you could argue that he is brilliant but also inefficient. But you are obviously quite happy to call your all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God inefficient, rather than acknowledge that it is your theory that makes him inefficient, and that it is possible your theory is wrong.

Wrong analogy. In real evolution the five storys are still here in the surviving 0.1%. What is lost in the past is really here in the present. You misconstrue Raup's point.

dhw: Messiness, cumbersomeness and inefficiency are hardly “god-like”. Nobody knows what God is like – or even if he exists – so please stop pretending you know. (But see Part One of “More Miscellany", in which you kindly explain the reason for your prejudice.)

DAVID: I have my own God-personality view. My belief stems from that view of a highly purposeful God.

dhw: The “experimental scientist” is just an alternative proposal, but why do you consider wanting to try new things, making discoveries, getting new ideas as a “low” purpose or no purpose at all? Ah, but your belief springs from prejudices formed when you were a boy (see “More Miscellany, Part One”), so of course you think your view must be right.

I can only conceive a God as highly purposeful, who needs no experimentation, unlioke your humanized form.

Theodicy

DAVID: The theodicy answers point out proportionality.

dhw: Question: how can a first-cause, all-good God be the creator of evil? Your answer: by creating 90% good and only creating 10% evil. (Use whatever percentage you like, and then go and stand in the corner for giving such a silly answer.

DAVID: Depends on a glass half full or half empty. You concentrate on the empty. God's good works far outweigh the small bad side effects. 'Dayenu' is the way I think.

dhw: You really don’t get it, do you? Evil exists! Theodicy does not ask what is the percentage of good and bad, or tell us how happy we should be because warmongers, murders and rapists are only a small minority! It asks how the one and only, all-powerful, all-knowing, first-cause creator of all things could have created a system which he knew would result in evil, and yet himself be all-good.

I sure do get it. I started this stream of discussion. Goff's limited God is a reasonable answer.