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

by dhw, Tuesday, April 02, 2024, 12:12 (27 days ago) @ David Turell

Plantinga

DAVID: Once again you have avoided my thought: it is God who has a "morally sufficient reason" to allow evil.

dhw: But you can’t think of any, and you reject Plantinga’s.

DAVID: Wrong!!! To repeat: Plantinga's point was God had His own morally sufficient reason for evil. How can we know it!!! You don't recognize trust in God's wisdom as part of faith.

You have rejected Plantinga’s theory that God’s “morally sufficient reason” was that God allowed evil because he wanted us to love God of our own free will. And you can’t think of any other morally sufficient reason yourself. What part of my statement is “wrong!!!”? Of course it is purely a matter of blind, irrational faith to believe that your God must have had a good reason for allowing such evil as the Holocaust! You would rightly say the same of atheists who believe that chance could design all the complexities of life: pure irrational faith. But you would ridicule them for their blind, irrational faith. Another example of your double standards. (See below.)

THEODICY

DAVID: Humans create human evils, and God never stops us. God expects us to correct them.
And:
DAVID: I view it this way: God giving us free will sets up a challenge that we must meet, which is not to do evil, or correct it on our own.

dhw: And what in heaven’s name do you think is the purpose of that? […]

DAVID: Remember Garden of Eden? I expect life to offer interesting challenges, don't you, because those challenges make you grow.

dhw: I’m sure all the victims of the Holocaust, war, rape, murder, famine, flood, disease etc. would raise their hats to you and to God for allowing them to be part of this interesting challenge. Must interesting challenges be evil?

DAVID: You know evil and not-evil challenges both exist with God's created reality. Again it is a matter of proportion.
And later:
dhw: Meanwhile, since you know all about the evils, please stop pretending that the problem of theodicy is solved by ignoring them.

DAVID: Not 'ignore'. Put it all in a proper perspective of proportionality.

Yes, they both exist. No it’s not a matter of proportion. It’s a matter of why an all-good God would allow the evil which you know is real. Stop trying to gloss over the horrors that your version of God has allowed.

Held , wishful thinking and double standards

dhw: You clearly approve of Held’s argument that "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: Held meant only one thing to me: soften the OT God image. See your own admission:

dhw: But you disagree with his focus on love, and your own statement leads to the following:
dhw: 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.

DAVID: We like our 'truth' better than yours.

dhw: Yes, you make your God what you wish to make him.

DAVID: Of course we do.

And so all your theories are figments predetermined by your wishes. See the other evolution thread for your totally absurd claim that your theories are based on “neutrality”! How can they possibly be neutral when they are based on what you wish for?

Next comes your dismissal of deism and process theology on the grounds that they are not “mainstream”, and your defence of your own theology which you admit is not mainstream. This is a clear example of double standards, and you then accused me of the same fault.

DAVID: Your fault is you must always accept two differing points. Choice never appears.

I neither accept nor rejectthem! That is why I don’t choose! I am an agnostic! I don’t know if God exists. If he does, I don’t know what his nature might be, and I don’t know the origin of life or whether we have free will. Double standards mean an argument that someone else’s X is unacceptable because it requires Y, but your own X is acceptable although it requires Y. That’s you, not me.