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

by dhw, Saturday, April 10, 2021, 17:10 (1113 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Totally off point: human free will is no part of creating new organisms through a process of evolution Your free-will-evolution is a guideless process of creation.

dhw: Free will is an example of your God deliberately giving up control. And yes, my free-for-all means that your God chose to design a system that would provide unpredictable variety.

DAVID: Total muddle. Free will is what we do as living beings.

If your God gave us free will, it means he deliberately gave up control. If he is prepared to give up control over human behaviour for whatever reason, who is to say that he is not prepared to give up control over evolution for whatever reason?

DAVID[…] God cannot give up evolutionary control if He wants to reach a goal He desires.

Perhaps the goal he desires is an unpredictable history, with his great invention constantly producing amazing and unexpected wonders, including humans with their own almost unlimited capacity for invention. Just a theory. In order to achieve this goal, he can and must give up evolutionary control.

dhw: […] Please get back to issues and tell us at last why it is not humanizing for your God to want only to create humans, to enjoy creating and possibly to want recognition, but it is “very human” for him want to create a free-for-all and to create BECAUSE he enjoys creating.

DAVID: IT ALL DEPENDS ON ONE'S VIEW OF GOD'S PERSONALITY. YOURS IS NOT MINE. WE CAN'T KNOW IF HE ENJOYS CREATING, AND HE MAY NOT DO IT FOR HIS OWN ENJOYMENT. HE MAY SIMPLY DO IT TO DO IT, NOTHING MORE. I WILL NOT APPLY HUMAN THOUGHT TO HIM, AS IT IS ALL GUESS WORK.

Then there is no point in proposing or discussing any theories – yours or mine – since they are all “guess work” and we can’t know the truth.

DAVID: And allegory is important in thinking of God's motives. His 'enjoyment' of creating is understood allegorically, since we theists don't think of God as creating solely for His own enjoyment or doing it for a sense of required enjoyment.

dhw: What is the allegory? You believe he enjoys creating, but you don’t believe he creates because he wants to enjoy creating. There is no allegory here!

DAVID: You still don't get it. All of God's thoughts must be considered from an allegorical viewpoint and interpretation.

No, I don’t get it. An allegory represents something. For instance in Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian has two very nice companions whose names are Faithful and Hopeful, and they encounter some nasty characters like Lord Hategood and Giant Despair. That is an allegory. When you tell us that you are sure God enjoys creating, what does his enjoyment of creating symbolize?

DAVID: A free-for-all is rudderless.

dhw: Correct. […] How does this come to mean that he didn’t want a free-for-all?

DAVID: Of course an all-powerful God is capable of doing that if He wished, but why would a purposeful God wish that, losing control?

dhw: Because maybe your purposeful God wanted to create something he would enjoy, and there is more enjoyment to be had from watching the unpredictable than from watching the predictable. And before you cry: “humanizing”, why is that more “humanizing” than a God who enjoys exercising total control as he pulls the puppets’ strings? And for good measure, let us not forget your claim that he enjoys creating, in which case why would he enjoy creating the bad bugs and viruses?

DAVID: How do you know God 'needs' enjoyment? The bold was a possibility I suggested but not ever sure of.

I did not say he needed it, but I proposed that maybe he wanted it. Just a theory, tying in with your statement on Sunday March 6th, when you wrote on this thread: “I’m sure God enjoys his work at creating”, which you confirmed on Monday March 8: “God is in the business of creation and enjoys doing it or I think he would stop.” Good reasoning.

DAVID: You pounce on every possible morsel in finding me agreeing with you about your distorted humanized view of God.

In our search for logical explanations of life’s mysteries, we both present theories and we test them. I don’t know why you object to my quoting you when you agree with my logic. My proposal is no more and no less humanized than your own, and what possible grounds can you have for saying it is distorted when nobody knows the truth? I only ask for your acceptance that the theory is possible. The fact that nobody knows the truth does not make my theory impossible.

DAVID: God may not have any human attributes as a personage like no other human person. God is not you or any of us in some ethereal form.

Very true. God may not even exist at all, but that never stopped you from proposing theories about him.