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

by dhw, Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 08:51 (39 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] if Plantinga wants to use the Bible as a reference book to prove how much God loves us, he cannot ignore other sections of the Bible which illustrate God’s devastating vengefulness against those who do not love or recognize him.

DAVID: You have forgotten my reminder to you: current Rabbinical interpretation of the OT has a very softened God compatible with modern thinking. You are still frightened by your childhood memories of religious teachings. I was never frightened that way.

Just like you, theologians “first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” For some reason, you have overlooked the horrifying implications of Plantinga’s justfication of evil, which equally horrifyingly meets with your approval. Let’s start again:

dhw: Plantinga gives us one reason and one reason only for evil: God gave us free will because “even though free will entails the possibility that they might choose evil; relationships grounded in real love are not possible unless both parties enter into them willingly.” And you agree! He wants us to love him (and elsewhere you have him wanting us to recognize and worship him). But you think your God is selfless!!! And who cares if the evil that God deliberately "allows" causes untold misery to millions of humans, whether they love God or not? Obviously your all-good God doesn’t, or he would never have created the concept in the first place. This is what you are proud to accept!

Under “experimentation”

DAVID: You will never understand how theists think and are comfortable with their feelings. It is proportionality, as expressed before. All you see is evil, which to me is a very small part of our reality.

dhw: Acknowledging all the good does not make all the evil disappear, and if you think it is a very small part of our reality, you are living in cloud-cuckoo land. But you are right, I will never understand how any theist can believe that their God wants to be recognized, worshipped and loved but has no self-interest; and I will never understand how any theist can be comfortable with the belief that their God doesn’t care what suffering he has caused through his knowingly “allowing” evil (e.g. war, genocide, tyranny, famine, flood, disease etc.) so long as some people freely choose to love him.

DAVID: Yep, lots of folks have the pure freedom to love Him. For me it feels good.

One “very small part” of our reality was the Holocaust, in which approx. 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. If you and I had been living in Germany at the time, we would have been among them. I would imagine some of those Jews, including you, would have loved God of their own free will. And your omniscient God would have known that this would happen, but that was the price he was willing to pay, in order to ensure that he was loved in the proper way. And for you this feels good. Both you and your God would have been happy as you made your way to the gas chamber, because you had chosen to love him of your own free will, and the Holocaust was just one “very small part” of reality.