Back to theodicy and David's theories (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Tuesday, February 23, 2021, 12:35 (1151 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID I can admit God may have feeling of emotions that resembles ours, but 'may have' does not mean it has to be true.

dhw: None of our theories have “to be true” – including the theory that your God exists. We can only offer possibilities, and test their logic against whatever facts we have. “May have” acknowledges that it is possible (compared to your earlier “probable”) that he has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours, and if it is possible, then it should not be dismissed simply because we don’t and can’t know the truth.

DAVID: I'm not dismissing anything, only pointing out what we can know about God and his personality by looking at what He has created. Your God personality creation relies on very human emotions and intentions. I try not to introduce that degree of humanizing, and stick to looking at purpose.

With my theist hat on, I look at what he has created, and I assume as you do that he had a purpose. But I have no idea why, although you are certain that he is interested in his creations and possibly or even probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours, you regard the desire to create something interesting as beyond the “degree of humanizing” that is acceptable to you. I also wait to hear what purpose for life including humans you would regard as being within the degree of humanization acceptable to you.

DAVID: My theories come from my analysis of the science.

Your analysis of the science has led you to believe that your God’s only purpose in creating life was to design H. sapiens, and therefore he designed millions of life forms, 99% of which had no connection with humans. And you have no idea why he would have done so. This is not science. However, there has been a sudden volte face:

DAVID: He seems to me full of purposeful activity to create what He desires to create with no other motive than the creations themselves.

dhw: This is a sensational new development in your thinking. Until now you have been adamant that every creation was “part of the goal of evolving humans”, which makes no sense since 99% of extinct life forms (plus food supplies) had no connection with humans. Now apparently he simply desires to create whatever he creates, with no other motive.

DAVID: You keep straining for a change in my thinking. I always view that His final step was humans.

Nobody is going to deny that so far humans are the last species to have emerged. But what about all the other species unconnected with humans? Please explain what you meant by him having “no other motive than the creations themselves”.

DAVID: Evolution from bacteria to humans with the necessary huge living bush for food energy, as we know it, makes perfect sense with God in charge.

Yes it does make sense. What doesn’t make sense is that you believe he directly designed the 99% of life forms and food supplies that had no connection with humans. But if he created them because he desired to create them (as opposed to creating them as "part of the goal of evolving humans") it makes perfect sense. I just wonder why his human-type desire to create all these life forms, and his human-type interest in them, cannot mean that he had a human-type desire to create something that he could have a human-type interest in.

DAVID: The 99% extinct forms are simply a record of the passage of time in the development from 3.8 bya of small populations now becoming large present populations.

So your God had to directly design millions of irrelevant life forms to show that it took 3.8 billion years for him to design the only life form he wanted to design (plus food supply), and to show that all the irrelevant life forms made up smaller populations of irrelevant organisms than the larger populations of relevant organisms that we have today. Well, at least this makes a change from him having to design millions of generations of food supplies for humans to eat even though they weren’t there at the time.

DAVID: Your distortions of the required history make your humanizing approach unacceptable. Inconceivable, but conceivable, yes, if we make God quite human.

What distortions? History tells us that there were millions of life forms, now extinct, that had no connection with humans. You have no idea why your God would have designed them if his only purpose was to design humans. They did not provide a food supply for humans, but now you tell us that he had no other motive than the creations themselves. And it makes perfect sense - if we accept your belief that he is/was interested in them - that he might have designed them because he wanted to design something that would interest him, even if that makes him “quite human”. Better than trying to explain why he designed them even though they had no connection with what he wanted to design!