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

by dhw, Saturday, December 09, 2023, 12:16 (140 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Your dodging technique is becoming a parody of itself.

DAVID: I'm not dodging. Your contorted criticism of the way God evolved us is not answerable. Adler and I and I'm sure many others feel humans were God's intended goal. You won't accept that goal concept for unknown reasons on your part. So please explain your position.

You never stop dodging. Your technique is always to leave out one part of your theory, and it is getting tiresome. There is nothing illogical in the theory that humans were your God’s intended goal. What is illogical is the combination of this theory with the theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God also deliberately designed and then had to get rid of 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with this goal. Why would he do that? You have no idea. You simply call it a messy, cumbersome, inefficient design, and try to forget about it.

DAVID: […] 0.1% is the present created by a necessary 99.9% eliminated in the evolution process in which better organisms are created by design.

The 0.1% were not created by the 99.9%! According to you, your God created the 100% and then had to cull the 99.9% which had no connection with his goal. But you have accidentally hit upon ONE of my theories, by having him “creating better organisms by design”. If he consciously designed and got rid of inferior organisms in his quest to create a being like himself (humans), he was clearly experimenting. But you won’t even consider that idea, although you’ve just suggested it yourself.

DAVID: Whatever God wanted, He purposely created. Your lack of vision about a purposeful God confuses you about God's actions.

If he exists, of course he would have purposely created what he wanted to create. And instead of ridiculing your God as having created a messy, cumbersome and inefficient design, I have offered you three alternative explanations, all of which have him purposely and efficiently creating what he wanted to create.

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

dhw: 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!

DAVID: No sense only to you since you cannot conceive of a purposeful God.

All my alternatives involve a purposeful God, but you cannot conceive of any purpose or any method other than those which you wish to impose on him.

dhw: [Experimentation is] 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?

DAVID: Another humanizing allusion.

And your blundering, messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer is less human and more godlike than my designer who does precisely what he wants to do?

Theodicy

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

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Using evil as a measuring aspect of the good is a reasonable approach. That is the proportionality argument.

There is no measuring involved in the second theory. Stop twisting.

DAVID: Sorry you don't like the limited powers aspect.

I do like it. Why don’t you read what I write? I find it feasible. But if you believe it is correct, you will have to stop your ridiculous distortion of language, pretending that “all-powerful” means “with limited powers”.