Return to David's theory of evolution, purpose & theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, July 08, 2024, 09:34 (136 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: An omniscient God must know our meaning, but He may not view it as we do.

dhw: Under “microbes in trees”, you referred to the nasty microbiomes whose presence we must accept, and you commented “A benevolent God did this, fully understanding the consequences.” You did not mean that YOU thought he might not be kind and caring. It was simply another instance of your Jekyll (Mr Nice Guy) telling your Mr Hyde (Mr Nasty Guy) that God is nice, which somehow exonerates him from deliberately and knowingly designing nasty bugs.

DAVID: Theodicy answer: all the good outweighs the bad side effects.

The context here is not theodicy but your Jekyll and Hyde acceptance and rejection of your own concepts of your God. Benevolence (like malevolence) is a human-like attribute. Your Jekyll believes in a benevolent God, and your Hyde tells you that your God is certainly not human in any way and therefore cannot be benevolent. And to add to your confusion, your mentor Adler tells you there is a 50/50 chance that your God cares for us, and you agree with him, just as you agree with Jekyll and with Hyde. Hence total confusion.

DAVID: That is the conundrum'. You are arguing at our human level of understanding.

dhw: That is the only level we want to know! Does he or doesn’t he care? Is he or is he not benevolent? Does he or does he not want us to worship him? All in our sense of the words.

DAVID: The answers may be what we wish. It is all up to God.

So please stop jumping in three directions at once.

DAVID: We have no way of knowing if God views our wishes consistent with His thoughts or even cares (Adler: 50/50).

dhw: Correct. If he exists, we do not and cannot know what he wants or what he is like. There is no “allegory” and the problem is perfectly straightforward until we start to formulate theories. In your case, the theories lead to blatant contradictions, as exemplifed above and below, because you "first choose a form of God [you] wish to believe in. The rest follows."

DAVID: You have perfectly described the problem: " we do not and cannot know what he wants or what he is like." Thus the allegorical use.

There is no “allegory”. We invented words like “benevolence”,”caring”, “love”,”worship”; they have no “moral or hidden meaning” (your definition of “allegory”), and what we want to know is whether they do or do not apply to your God. You have agreed, so why do you persist in using a word which, as you have defined it, has absolutely no relevance.

DAVID: [...] We know my dichotomy.

dhw: Only too well, and I would have thought that the absurd contradictions resulting from your “dichotomy” would make you at least open your mind to the possibility that something might be wrong with your theories, and there might be other explanations of the history of life that do not entail such absurdities. For instance, you were once certain that your God enjoyed creating. Why then is it not possible that at least one purpose behind his creation of the great variety of creatures extant and extinct was the enjoyment of creating them? But no, not for you: he certainly enjoys creating, and "of course he may have human-like attributes", but he is certainly not human in any way and therefore he can’t have any human-like attributes.

DAVID: Your clear discussion of my two different approaches.

Different, confused, and full of contradictions.

DAVID: You invent humanized God's whose approach to evolution allows less control and more free-for-alls or try experimentation instead of tight controls toward purpose. Strange for an all-powerful, omniscient 'God'. What sort of God do you start with, as I do?

Firstly, I start with an open mind as regards your God’s very existence. Secondly, I don’t start with any preconceptions as you do, for instance by assuming that your God is all-powerful and omniscient. I start with the history of life as we know it and, leaving aside the atheist theory (since our discussion focuses on your God), I try to extrapolate feasible explanations. A free-for-all, or experiments, as means of enhancing enjoyment or making new discoveries or searching for a particular formula, would all logically explain the comings and goings. Your silly dismissal of such alternatives as being “humanized” is demolished by your own agreement that “of course He may have human-like attributes”, although at the same time you contradict yourself by telling us that he is certainly not human in any way. Since there is no way of knowing the truth, why cling to a theory that ridicules your omnipotent, omnniscient and perfect God (Dr Jekyll) by calling him imperfect and inefficient (Mr Hyde), and is also apparently unsupported by your mentor?