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

by dhw, Sunday, April 14, 2024, 13:25 (15 days ago) @ David Turell

Plantinga

DAVID: [..] 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: I keep pointing out what I see as the implications of YOUR arguments. These are not expressions of any beliefs on my part. Here are the points you miss: 1) You: “If God says it is moral, it is moral.” That means he can set any standard he wishes. 2) You say he told us not to murder or rape. No he didn’t. You think it was Moses who told us. So how do you know our standards of morality are what God would wish? 3) Why would your all-knowing, all-purposeful God, who as first cause created everything out of himself, give us free will (in itself a controversial subject), knowing that we would use it to commit murder and rape and a holocaust? We both reject Plantinga’s reason (to ensure that we love God properly) as being appallingly self-centred....

DAVID: We know God's moral standards.

No we don’t. In defending your messy, inefficient theory of evolution, you frequently tell us we cannot know God’s reasons. Nor can we know his moral standards (if he exists). You wrote: “If God says it is it is moral, it is moral.” But nobody knows what God says. You claimed that he’d told us, but later agreed that the laws in the OT were written by Moses.

DAVID: The free-will challenge is simple: we humans must keep to strict morality. When we fail evil appears.

All societies have rules designed to protect them. You have referred to Moses’ code. Nobody knows God’s code. But if God’s code is the same as ours, you still can’t explain why he allowed murder, rape and the holocaust in the first place.

DAVID: Are you suggesting God should have kept us as puppets?

No. If God exists, I have even suggested that one explanation for the 99.9% of “irrelevant” species was that he created life as one vast free-for-all, right through from speciation to human machinations. This would also give you a logical explanation for human evil, which would have its roots in the egocentric battle for survival. (Think of carnivorousness as a forerunner.) And I’m sure you’ll agree that your God, who you believe is interested in his creations, would find puppets pretty boring.

DAVID: Of course, I can't know God's reason for His creative results, but producing us is His obvious intention with all the manifestations.

Producing the vast variety of species unconnected with us would also have been his obvious intention with all the different manifestations. Why do you keep forgetting the 3.X billion years of history which you have dismissed as your God’s messy, cumbersome and inefficient way of designing us plus food?

DAVID: Despite your argument I want MY free will. It allows me to debate you.

dhw: We are not arguing against free will. We are discussing why a supposedly all-knowing, all-good God would knowingly design humans who will commit evil as well as the bugs and other natural evils for which you actually blame him. The subject is theodicy ....

DAVID: That God did not want a boring Garden of Eden for us, is a reasonable guess. Yes, we are debating free-will as a major source of evil.

So he wanted evil to prevent us from getting bored. Or to prevent himself from getting bored? Either way, being omniscient, he knew that murder, rape and the holocaust would be the result, but he allowed it in order to prevent boredom. My guess is that you have never done an evil deed in your life. It’s true that you devoted your medical career to try and counter the natural evils for which you blame your God, but why do you think boredom can only be avoided if millions of people suffer the effects of the evil that your God has created or allowed? (See also under "Giant viruses" on "More Miscellany".)

Double standards

DAVID: Most of what you have shown is a matter of reasonable choices.

dhw: Not if you reject a choice because it violates a standard and then defend your own choice although it violates the same standard (e.g. down with deism because it’s not mainstream, and up with panenthesism, although it’s not mainstream.)

DAVID: Exactly! I make choices while you pontificate. I have a right to reject deism, and can believe in panentheism. Study and choose with free will.
And:
Two sides of an issue can allow choice without invented double standards. I can choose what I like based on reason.

Of course you have the right. But if you reject deism because it is not mainstream, and you accept panentheism, although it is not mainstream, you are guilty of double standards. I have no idea why you have added “based on reason” after admitting that you begin with what you wish God to be, that your belief in the God you wish for is based on irrational faith, and that we can’t know God’s reasons.

(I’ve moved “Contradictions” etc. to the other evolution thread.)