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

by David Turell , Friday, April 12, 2024, 20:35 (17 days ago) @ dhw

Plantinga

dhw: How do you know that God has told us not to murder or rape, if you didn’t get that message from the Bible? Did God tell you so himself?

DAVID: From the Ten Commandments, which I think Moses wrote himself.

dhw: So it was Moses in the Bible, and not God, who told you not to murder and rape. Back we go. You wrote: “If God says it is moral, it is moral.” That means one answer to the problem of theodicy would be that God has different standards of morality from ours, and the Holocaust, rape and murder are good. Is that your theological thinking?

No, we are back to the byproducts concept. WE have free will, a good, which allows humans to commit all the atrocities you list. NOT GOD'S fault!!!! Our standards of morality are what God would wish. As usual you extrapolate human evil to a concept it is God's fault.

dhw: The statement is: “a morally perfect, omnipotent being can allow evil to exist if, in his perfect omniscience he has a morally sufficient reason for doing so.” Perfectly “reasonable”, just as the Holocaust would be perfectly reasonable if Hitler had a morally sufficient reason for it. But if you can’t think of one, then that is no defence of the evil!

I can't speak for Hitler and you are twisting the discussion into knots of confusion. God's gift of free will allowed for a Hitler to create a holocaust. Despite your argument I want MY free will. It allows me to debate you.

Double standards

DAVID: I have known you all these years and suddenly I learn how you defend Agnosticism. What you label as double standards by your rigid rules, I accept as judgement calls of choice.

dhw: Nothing whatsoever to do with agnosticism. Stop dodging. A “judgement call of choice” only involves double standards if it conflicts with the standards you have used to reject any alternative, as illustrated above.

Most of what you have shown is a matter of reasonable choices. Your problem is picking a choice from reasonable thought re evidence.

David’s contradictions

dhw: […] you have just contradicted yourself by telling us that your beliefs are rational, but they depend on faith which does not require rationality.]…]

DAVID: Stop blaming me for not knowing God's rationales!

dhw: I don’t. […] The fact is that nobody can know your God’s purpose, methods or nature, and your faith in your theories is based purely on your wishful thinking: “I first choose a God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.”

dhw: You say your beliefs are rational, but they depend on irrational faith because you can't know God's reasons. Not a contradiction?

No. I can see and analyze what reality presents and by injecting the concept of 'purpose' can easily conceive of 'reasons'. God's probable reasons.

DAVID: That evolution ended by producing us is fact, open to interpretation.

dhw: Correct.

DAVID: Your is, to avoid God, we are not that special. Isn't that an example of your wishful thinking?

dhw: Totally wrong, and the most unethical of all your dodges. I have always acknowledged that we are special, and that life’s complexities can be used as evidence of God’s existence. I never avoid God, and all these discussions concern THEISTIC interpretations of evolution and the possible purposes, methods and nature of your God. You can’t find any explanation for your interpretation of evolution, and you admit that your views on God’s nature are based on your wishes. Please stop dodging, and please stop pretending that any view of your God that you dislike is a way of avoiding God! It's just one more contradiction!

If I had your 'search' ability, I'd show you your pattern of downgrading humans.

THEODICY

dhw: […] what do you think was the purpose for which your God allowed such human evil as the Holocaust, and deliberately designed such evil as all the natural disasters (including bugs) for which you blame him? And please tell us why you blame him?

DAVID: First, God did not allow the Holocaust. The Holocaust is not a part of theology. It is pure human history.

dhw: The Holocaust is an example of evil, and theodicy is a major problem for theologians. Your omniscient, omnipotent God must have given humans the wherewithal to commit evil, and must have known what evil would entail, but he allowed it to happen.

Again, you want no free will!!! God knows, and we know, it is our responsibility to behave. Plantinga's concept of God's morally sufficient reasons fits right here. It is our responsibility to behave.

DAVID: As for the natural disasters, plate tectonics, vulcanism, etc. were necessary to form the hospitable Earth we have. We know how to identify quake zones and create proper building codes, as examples of protection our big God-given brains give us.

dhw: You’ve left out the bugs, and you haven’t explained why you blame your God for the suffering caused by them and by other natural disasters that are no longer necessary to form the hospitable Earth we have.

I didn't cover all the protective responses our brains create. Natural disasters cannot stop.