Return to David's theory of evolution, purpose & theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 09:00 (39 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw:[..] I am critical of the messy, cumbersome and inefficient method of achieving the purpose you impose on your God in your derogatory and illogical theory of evolution. Stop denying it!

DAVID: Fascinating! You continue to defend my God from my criticisms of Him. I have to continuously remind you it was your early objection to the round-about-way evolution works compared to direct creation that I agreed with, causing the current disagreement. Evolution is not a straight-forward method!

dhw: More silly twisting of the argument. Assuming your God exists, if he had only wanted to design us plus food, then of course direct creation would have been the obvious way for an all-powerful, all-knowing God to do it! But he did not create us directly, which can only mean one or more of these theistic alternatives: 1) he is not all-powerful; 2) he is not all-knowing; 3) his purpose was not confined to designing us and our food; 4) he did not design every individual species (but instead designed Shapiro’s autonomous cellular intelligence, or left speciation to Darwin’s random mutations and natural selection); 5) he is the messy, cumbersome, inefficient, illogical designer you say he is.

DAVID: Interesting listing of your muddled approach. All I can slightly agree with is #5 and change it to: God chose to use the process of evolution for His own reasons, a system we can view as messy and cumbersome, but successful. We are here, an extremely unusual result if Darwin theory is used a guideline.

Nothing muddled. I have simply listed different theories to explain the 99.9% of extinct species that did not lead to humans plus food. I am not denying that we are here, or that we evolved, or that God, if he exists, had his own reasons for using the process of evolution. The theory you have chosen is one for which you can find no logical justification – hence your criticism of it. But you refuse to consider any alternative. For example, under “experimentation”:

dhw: Not complicated if your God’s purpose was to enjoy and learn from the invention of something he endowed with the freedom to do its own designing (humans included). Perfectly logical by comparison with the messy, inefficient combination of purpose and method you impose on him..

DAVID: Back to your wish for an overly human God.

dhw: This is no more “overly human” than Plantinga’s view – which you say you support - of a self-centred God who wants us humans to love him of our own free will, even if this means untold suffering through the evil that free will allows (not to mention the nasty bugs and the natural disasters that he either creates or allows in his love for us). See the Plantinga thread.

Not answered here, and also ignored on the Plantinga thread.