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

by dhw, Friday, December 08, 2023, 11:49 (141 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] the question which you simply go on dodging is why your God, whose one and only aim according to you was the remaining 0.1%, should have deliberately designed and then had to cull the 99.9%. This messy, inefficient way makes no sense even to you, but it is your fixed belief.

DAVID: Same wrong question. Evolution is solid history. If God is posited as in charge He did it. Makes perfect sense to me. Sorry you are so confused.

You are utterly determined to exclude your theory from these discussions. I agree that evolution is solid history, and if God exists, he set it up. What is not history is the theory that (a) his one and only goal was us plus food, and (b) he fulfilled his goal by deliberately designing 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his goal. And you have admitted that you don’t know why he would use such a messy, inefficient method. Your dodging technique is becoming a parody of itself.

DAVID: What is here now is in great part out food supply.

dhw: Of course what is here now is mainly our food. And what was here in the past was mainly not us or our food!

DAVID:Your confusion. The past became the present. Evolution was purpose driven.

According to you, only 0.1% of the past became the present. And you have no idea why your God would have specially designed the other 99.9%. Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe his purpose was not the purpose you have imposed on him.

DAVID: You totally redefine evolution. The 99.9% have to be gone in the process.

Where on earth did you find a definition of evolution which specifies that God’s one and only goal was us plus food, and in order to achieve his goal, he had to design and then cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with it? You know it makes no sense!

dhw: Messiness, cumbersomeness and inefficiency are hardly “god-like”. […]

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

dhw: […] your messy, inefficient designer is no less human than a highly successful experimental scientist.

DAVID: "A highly successful experimental scientist" is a humanized God, you are stuck with.

It’s just one of three alternative theories which provide a logical explanation for the vast variety of species extinct and extant. Why do you regard your blundering, messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer as less human than a successful scientist?

Theodicy
DAVID: [Theodicy] 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.

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

dhw: You were trying to defend your non-answer of proportionality! Yes, Goff’s answer is reasonable, and it presents us with a God who is not all-powerful, though in order to defend your own prejudiced view of God, you have tried to define all-powerful as meaning with limited powers!

DAVID: Makes sense to me. God knows exactly how to proceed within rigid limits.

At least you’ve now realized that proportionality does not answer the theodicy question. God having limited powers provides a feasible answer to that question. What is not feasible is a definition of “all-powerful” as “having limited powers.” Likewise, God wanting to create the mixture of good and bad because the latter brings out the full value of the former would also be a feasible explanation for evil, but that doesn’t solve the problem of how he can be called all-good.