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

by David Turell , Monday, December 11, 2023, 18:23 (346 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your crazy response is that God should not have evolved us.

dhw: Where on earth have you dredged that idea from? If your God exists, I have no objection whatsoever to his using the process of evolution for whatever his purpose may have been, and I have no objection whatsoever to the fact that this process produced us. I object only to the sheer illogicality of your combined theories, as bolded above, and I’m surprised that you should insist on a theory that makes your God into a messy, inefficient designer.

As usual, you skip this whole section. No, I don’t say God should not have evolved us. My only objection is to your “crazy” theory which makes your God into a messy, inefficient designer.

I skip it because we have two locked positions that don't need constant repetition.

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.

dhw: The 0.1% were not created by the 99.9%!

DAVID: Of course, they were. They are the current survivors.

dhw: They are the current survivors of the 0.1% of species that did not come to a dead end during the history of evolution.

DAVID: Correct!!! 99.9% are simply ancestors of the currently living.

dhw: Wrong. 99.9% were dead ends.

That is not Raup's meaning in any sense. He was describing a cumulative process of disappearance as evolution proceeded to the present. Raup: "extinction provides new opportunities for different organisms that can explore new habitats and modes of life. This process "keeps the pots boiling" and may be necessary to achieve the variety of life forms. past and present." (pg.20)..."Keyfitz estimated in 1966 that about four percent of all the people who had every lived were alive then. Again, newness and population growth". (pg.3)

The last point shows the past loss of 96% of ancestor humans in our direct line of descent. That loss is not the end of a species, as in your interpretation.

DAVID: Not experimentation if purposely designed in a series.

dhw: So now you have an all-powerful, all-knowing God who knowingly designs and then gets rid of a series of inferior organisms in order to design better organisms. Just as messy and inefficient as your first version.

It is the same version.

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.

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

Ignored.

I admit you stated a good point about the value of evil examples.

DAVID: I think all-powerful with limits is a feasible concept.

dhw: If your powers are limited, you cannot be ALL-powerful.

DAVID: Yes, can be. All-powerful in every aspect but one. Inventing biochemical reactions that require freely acting molecules in which tightly restrictive controls won't work.

dhw: All-powerful , then, except when he's not all-powerful. You also harp on about his attempts to provide counter-measures, but still the mistakes continue to have their devastating effects, as you know from your experiences as a physician. We won’t bother to go into the source of other forms of non-human evil, such as the different types of natural disaster which he may or may not control.

See today's entry on molecular reaction rates.