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

by dhw, Thursday, August 15, 2024, 11:48 (32 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: In my view a perfect God used an evolutionary system I view as imperfect.

dhw: And so you view your perfect God as being an imperfect designer. A fine example of your schizophrenic thinking.

DAVID: From God's standpoint His use of evolution is perfect, as His chosen system of creation.

dhw: You are in no position to tell us your God’s standpoint. If you think he invented an imperfect system, then you think he is an imperfect designer, regardless of what he thinks (which you can never know).

DAVID: A perfect God who uses a system I think is imperfect does not make God imperfect. Your comment makes no sense

My comment makes perfect sense, as does your own! Your derogatory view of your God as an imperfect designer does not mean that he IS an imperfect designer (your view may be wrong), and it conflicts with your view of him being perfect. Your view that your perfect God may be imperfect is what you have diagnosed as your schizophrenic way of thinking about God.

DAVID: Human level vs. God level of reasoning, and you conflate them although they are totally different. Note we are discussing God! Surprise?

dhw: We have no idea what level of reasoning your God has. We can only discuss YOUR reasoning, which ridicules him. I can offer you a different interpretation of his use of evolution, which is perfect if his purpose was to create a free-for-all and to make new discoveries. You reject that because although your Dr Jekyll thinks it is possible that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations and may have human attributes, your Mr Hyde refuses to believe that your God can enjoy anything because that would mean he has human attributes and he doesn’t have any.

DAVID: The point you have distorted is God, as an unhuman, may not have any human tributes. I don't ridicule God as you interpret it. God is perfect.

You have repeated this answer throughout the rest of your post.
1) If you believe that the method you impose on your God for achieving the purpose you impose on him is “imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient” (your own description), you are ridiculing him as well as contradicting your belief that your God is “perfect”. Hence your schizophrenic approach to God.

2) Of course if God exists he is not human. The possibility that he may have endowed humans with some of his own attributes does not make him human.

In discussing his possible nature and his possible reasons for creating all life forms including our own, we can only theorize. It is not unreasonable to suppose that your God would have had a reason for creating life, as is confirmed by your belief that he is purposeful. You believe that his one and only purpose for creating life was to design humans and all the species that humans make use of. And so in addition to the imperfect method you impose on him, you have offered your own theories concerning his possible reasons for wanting to design life and us in particular, as follows:

3) Theoretically it is possible that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations; that he wants us to recognize his work and to worship him; that he cares about us (you used the word benevolent). However, you also think he is selfless, which means that he cannot do anything because he enjoys doing it, and he cannot want us to recognize and worship him. And so your own theories are schizophrenically self-contradictory.

4)You believe your God is responsible for various forms of evil. In today’s post you tell us that “tumors are mistakes in God’s systems”; the same would apply to all the viruses and bacteria he knew would kill us, and to the so-called natural disasters that would do the same. Being omniscient, he also knew in advance about all the evil we humans would commit, and either allowed it to happen, or was powerless to stop it. But as all this conflicts with your wish for a “perfect” God (= a God who in your eyes has no faults), we should ignore the evil and only focus on the good. More schizophrenic, self-contradictory theories.

You have confessed that you “first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” And you have diagnosed your self-contradictory views of God as “schizophrenic”. I can hardly offer a more devastating criticism of your approach to your God than your own! Nobody knows whether God exists, but if he does, nobody knows his thoughts, character or purposes. I have offered alternatives to your own schizophrenic, self-contradictory theories. You have acknowledged that they provide logical explanations for the history of life as we know it, and your only objection is that they entail human attributes, which he may or he may not have. That means my alternatives may or may not be true. But none of them start out from any subjective "wishes" that shape what follows, and none of them are schizophrenically self-contradictory.