Return to David's theory of theodicy;Plantinga & Held (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 24, 2024, 14:27 (34 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: God is person like no other person. God is not a self and does not need a soul.

dhw: Nobody is saying that God is a human being. But even you have agreed that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours. If he wants us to love him, then don’t pretend he is selfless and emotionless.

DAVID: Theologians consider God as simple. We are more complex. Humans caused the Holocaust despite God, and humans stopped it, all because of our God-given free will. You bend your shape of God to fit your disbelief.

dhw: I have no idea what simplicity versus complexity has to do with anything. You support Plantinga’s theory that your God “allowed” evil to happen because he wanted us to love him of our own free will. Being omniscient he knew what would happen. The slaughter of 6 million Jews was not “despite God” if he knew it would happen and made no attempt to stop it because he wanted us to love him of our own free will. It is you who bend your God to fit your belief that he is selfless (and yet wants to be loved), loves us (you accept Pantinga’s theology) and yet is prepared to see us slaughter 6 million Jews so that he can be sure he is loved of our own free will, is all-good and yet designs viruses that will kill us, and for good measure messily, inefficiently and inexplicably designs and culls 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with the only purpose you allow him.

I finished my post with a request:

dhw: Please explain to me in your own words why you think a God who loves us and is selfless would be happy to allow 6 million of us to be slaughtered in order to ensure that we love him of our own free will?

DAVID: Same mistaken criticism.

dhw: You have not answered.

I did answer your criticism by calling it criticism of God. Humans caused the Holocaust through God-given free-will and ended it through the same free-will. God has left us responsible for ourselves, as I've previously noted. It is our brains that allow us to cure illness, develop early warning systems for tornados and Earthquakes, etc.

Current Jewish theology

QUOTE:
A traditional rabbinic story imagines that when God was about to create Adam, the angels split into factions and began to argue. “Kindness said, ‘Let him be created, since he will perform acts of lovingkindness’; Truth said, ‘Let him not be created, since he is all lies.’” How does God respond to the debate? “God took truth and cast it to the earth.” Faced with a choice between love and other competing values, God embraces the former and rebuffs the latter. God risks a lot, and puts up with a lot, all in the name of love—both the love God has for us and the love God hopes that we will embody and bring into the world."

DAVID: Rabbi Shai Held is president of the Hadar Institute. This essay is adapted from his new book, “Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life,” which will be published on March 26 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

This should put to rest dhw's terror of the riginal OT God he learned about as a child long ago. Ancient primitive Jews perhaps needed such a tough God to keep them in line. That guy is not necessary now. The God of the Talmud is today's Jewish God.

dhw: For heaven’s sake! One Jewish rabbi narrates a little allegory, and pretends he knows exactly what his God is thinking and feeling. He has no more knowledge of God than you, me or Plantinga! You have just agreed with Plantinga that your selfless, loving God gave us free will to do as much evil as we like because that was the only way he could ensure that we would love him properly. Shai Held tells us that God chooses love and rejects evil. So why in hell’s name did he create the possibility of evil in the first place?

As for me, I am not terrified of the OT God. I don’t even know if God exists, and I don’t regard the Bible as the Word of God. It’s a book riddled with contradictions. You have summed it up in your comment (bolded). Humans can change the image of God as they see fit. You exemplify the approach: “I first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” You, Plantinga and Held are birds of a feather, and are just as ignorant of the truth as I am.

We like our 'truth' better than yours.