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

by dhw, Monday, July 15, 2024, 11:25 (55 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: From your God's viewpoint He enjoyed watching our development.

dhw: You’re halfway there. Do YOU think he might have enjoyed watching our development? And can you think of any other reason why your God might have sacrificed control over humans?

No answer
You went on to complain that God’s possible enjoyment “is like no other theology in existence”. I responded:

dhw: Re other theologies, you have forgotten that deism proposes a God who sacrifices control, and process theology allows for a learning God.

No answer.

dhw: I do not know of any existing theology that proposes a benevolent God who can't be benevolent, a God who enjoys creating but can’t enjoy creating, who is perfectly efficient but is imperfect and inefficient, wants to be worshipped but can’t possibly want to be worshipped etc. But you claim to be in sync with "mainstream" theology while you are proud not to conform to "mainstream" theology.

DAVID: I don't conform, but my God is their God. I do look at Him differently than they do.

dhw: Then your God is not their God. And a God who is but can’t be benevolent etc. etc. is “like no other theology in existence”.

DAVID: My belief in God is not the same as my philosophy of God and religion. All discussed before.

Agreed. You believe that God exists, and so do all monotheistic religions. But your view of God’s purpose, method and nature, which is riddled with the contradictory beliefs of your Jekyll and your Hyde, is not like any other theology in existence – unlike my alternatives, as above.

DAVID: That He must experiment show us a God who is middling along and is not all-knowing.

dhw: There is no reason to assume that your God is all-knowing.

DAVID: Anyone who invented a universe must be all-knowing.

dhw: So even before he invented the universe, he knew all about motor cars, sang Beethoven’s 9th to himself, enjoyed a strawberry ice cream, and was painfully aware that one David Turell would one day call him an imperfect, messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer.

DAVID: Likely!!

dhw: He had no control, but so far the only reason you have given us for his sacrifice of control is that from my viewpoint he enjoyed watching our development, even though it is likely that what he was watching was a re-run of what he had already seen before it even happened. And you think enjoyment of new discoveries is a just-so story!

DAVID: We are dealing with a subject with no factual material at its basis. Just as you have invented your humanized God, I start with a Bible-described God.

And you finish with a Jekyll and Hyde God unlike any God ever invented. Meanwhile, do you believe your God already knew Beethoven’s 9th symphony when he designed the first cells. Yes or no?

DAVID: The wonder of belief you can't accept. God picked the perfect system to produce us. It may appear inefficient to us, but it was His all-knowing perfect choice. There is my reason as you ask for it.

dhw: I can’t accept the wonder of your belief in a system which you regard as imperfect, and which makes your all-powerful, all-knowing God look ridiculous in your eyes, but which you think must have been perfect in his eyes, though you have no idea why.

DAVID: You pound on 'no idea why' when I have told you I don't need to know why!

You have a fixed idea about your God’s purpose, method and nature, and the fact that one of you ridicules him as being imperfect and inefficient doesn’t matter, because the other part of your schizophrenic self says he’s perfect. Similarly, your Jekyll says God is benevolent and your Hyde says he can’t be benevolent. I get it now. The two of you together think God is schizoprenic, and that explains everything.