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

by David Turell , Wednesday, July 17, 2024, 18:28 (52 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: God would not have enjoyed watching our development if He knew all of it in advance.

dhw: Thank you. I’m glad you have acknowledged (a) that God might have created life because he wanted to enjoy watching its development, and (b) that he could not have achieved this aim if he was omniscient. We are making progress.

DAVID: I don't accept the 'b' interpretation. I see God as omniscient for His own powers. He creates knowing the endpoint of each evolution: the universe, the Earth, and life, all previously illustrated. But by giving us free will He created an unknown for future time.

So now you are setting limits on his omniscience. But knowing what he wanted and knowing how to get it might be two different things. Hence the possibility that the 99.9% of irrelevant species and the billions of lifeless stars might be the result of experimentation. As regards the creation of life, the question here is why? You have now agreed that one possible reason might be that he created it for his own enjoyment, and part of that enjoyment was to sacrifice control. Let me repeat your own statement: “God would not have enjoyed watching our development if He knew it all in advance.” The same would apply to the theory that he created life as a free-for-all: he would not have enjoyed watching evolution if He knew it all in advance. Hence the unpredictable, exciting range of life forms that have come and gone. Just a theory – but nobody could possibly say that it reveals God as an imperfect, messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer.

DAVID: All your guesses about God MAY be true, but that is all that can be claimed.

dhw: Thank you again. Of course that is all that can be claimed. Nobody, including you, knows the truth – a fact which extends to the actual existence of God. It MAY be true.

DAVID: If I am comfortable with my own beliefs, that is all I require. […]

dhw: You are a dear friend, and my next remark is in no way a criticism of the kind and well-meaning man I know, but your comment is the very essence of certain prejudices which destroy social values and wreck lives. To illustrate the point, I’m sure Hitler was comfortable with his own beliefs, and that was all he required to justify the extermination of six million Jews.

DAVID: This shows your prejudice against set opinions. Mine are all ethical.

dhw: I took great care NOT to equate you with Hitler. I am pointing out that being comfortable with one’s own opinions is not in itself a justification for those opinions. And yes, I am prejudiced against opinions such as those that lead to extermination, racism, persecution of minorities, no matter how comfortable the perpetrators may be with their opinions.

To each his own.

dhw: 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 schizophrenic, and that explains everything.

DAVID: No, I have the split approach to one God.

dhw: Correct. You think he's benevolent but not benevolent etc., i.e. schizophrenic.

DAVID: The honest schizophrenia is I may think God may have certain attributes, but I know He may not.

dhw: Stop playing with language. Yes, you think God may have certain human attributes, but you have also said that he is certainly “not human in any sense”, which means you are certain that he does NOT have any human attributes.

Poor word play. Being not human certainly allows Him to exhibit human attributes. For example, chimps show human attributes.

DAVID: My believing does not release me from accepting that dual approach. All I am certain of is a designer is required. The rest is an attempt to join in religious thought.

dhw: The rest is one direct contradiction after another. For example, if part of you believes God is benevolent, and part of you believes God can’t be benevolent, then the whole of you believes your God is and isn’t benevolent, which can only mean you believe your God is as schizophrenic as you. How does that “join in religious thought”?

I try to start with a Western religion's God. The way I look at God at two levels does not put God at two levels as you try to propose. It is two views of the same God, religious and philosophical.