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

by dhw, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 12:56 (32 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You have totally ignored my point. The Holocaust was forged by humans and ended by humans. We are fully in charge of ourselves. God is here, but we are in charge of ourselves. God now acts at the individual level in small strokes. He gave the Earth with all its bountiful resources for us to use and the brains to know how. That is God's contract with us. It is up to each individual to form a response. Yours is a sort of rejection, mine acceptance.

You presented us with Plantinga’s view of theodicy, and have chosen to totally ignore it and all my questions. You make a mockery of discussion. Plantinga’s explanation for evil is that God wants us to love him. This contradicts your own belief that God is selfless. Plantinga says that the love can only be genuine if it comes from freedom of will, and so he gave us free will, knowing (in his omniscience) that this would lead to all the evil which causes so much suffering. Plantinga’s God allows the suffering (for example, the Holocaust) as it is secondary to his desire to be freely loved. And yet Plantinga thinks God loves us. I find that a strange way of demonstrating his love for us, but you agreed with Plantinga’s explanation of theodicy, and so I asked you to “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?” What you have written above confirms that we have free will, but it is not an answer to my question.

Current Jewish theology

You quoted Rabbi Shai Held, who says that God chooses love and “rebuffs” evil, loves us, and hopes that we will “embody” love and “bring it into the world.” He doesn’t tell us why his God created the possibility of evil in the first place. Your comment was:

DAVID (re the OT): Ancient primitive Jews perhaps needed such a tough God to keep them in line. That guy is not necessary now.

I pointed out that this vividly illustrates the fact that your fellow theologians do exactly the same as you: ““I first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows." And I added: I seem to remember you telling us that your mentor Adler says we cannot know whether God loves us or not. But you sway in whatever theological wind is blowing, so long as you think it might blow you towards the fulfilment of your wishes.

DAVID: I am not as wishy-washy as you pretend. I have a firm belief in a purposeful God, knowing exactly what He wishes and does it.

If God exists, I agree with you 100%. That does not mean he does what you wish him to do, and is what you wish him to be, and it does not explain how a God who loves us knowingly allows evil because his one and only concern is that we should love him of our own free will although, according to you, he is selfless, i.e. has no self-interest.

DAVID: I posted an answer above to all your repetitious points. You don't understand that each of us has a personal relationship with God. That what makes a deism-like appearance, not that. Many millions of personal relationships persist, evaluating the role of your arguments as quite secondary to a final descision for faith.

This is news to me. Apparently we can now ignore all the arguments above, the absurdity of your illogical theory of evolution, all beliefs that are different from yours, Adler, Plantinga, Held, and all the contradictions in your own theology (e.g. a selfless God who enjoys creating and wants to be loved and regards human suffering as secondary to his need for freely given love) because you have your own personal relationship with God. Out of interest, have you explained to him why his use of evolution was so inefficient?