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

by David Turell , Monday, July 08, 2024, 19:23 (61 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: 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.

The confusion is yours. I am perfectly comfortable with my two distinct approaches.

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.

dhw: o please stop jumping in three directions at once.

But that is exactly what I do. I see God from very distinct intellectual directions as a believer accepting God and as a critical philosopher of religion. I wear two hats while you wear none.

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.

dhw: 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.

Adler teaches we can only approach God using allegorical terms for Him while we use them at our level.

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?

dhw: 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?

My compartmentalization is the perfect solution for me. Your humanized God produces very humanlike results in your very human thinking. My comment that God may have human-like attributes doesn't offer any help for you when I state the words MUST be applied allegorically as the Adler key concept you fight. Adler does not get into any criticisms of God. In his 'Difference of Man" he scrupulously follows Darwin to the T while clearly treating God as in charge of evolution to achieve creating humans.