God uses Evolution

[StralockJenkins]

All right, so I have an idea that I'd like a religious perspective on. First, I would like to clarify for the purposes of this argument that I am taking the following viewpoints:

1. The earth is over 4 billion years old.
2. God is not completely omnipotent, but is very close. (If he were omnipotent it would have taken Him an instant to create everything, not a week)
3. God is omniscient

Also, please be sure you know what evolution is before replying. I will ignore any comments about cats giving birth to dogs, life in peanut butter, crocoducks, etc.

Now, I'm good with computers. When I have a repetitive task, for example, finding the first 12 prime numbers over one million, I will write a program to do it for me instead of calculating them over and over.

So, let's take God. He's obviously a very intelligent person. And any intelligent person will naturally find a way to reduce the amount of work they had to do. So, God decides to make a planet. Millions of species. And every single one needs to be designed, tested, reworked, retested, etc.

So why do it all by hand?

God knows the butterfly effect. So, why not create evolution, a system which will create all the species he wants with minimal effort? He can tell that by placing cell 0 in the right place that it will spawn the human race and all the horses, trees, chinchillas, etc. he needs! Sure, it will take a few billion years, but God is eternal. A billion years can't be very long to Him.

He knows that if he uses Evolution, he will end up with the smartest dolphins, the cutest kittens, and the strongest humans.

Personally, it doesn't seem very smart to create all those things one by one. And God would know that.

Is this a decent compromise?

 

[Gracchus]

All right, so I have an idea that I'd like a religious perspective on. First, I would like to clarify for the purposes of this argument that I am taking the following viewpoints:

1. The earth is over 4 billion years old.

OK

2. God is not completely omnipotent, but is very close. (If he were omnipotent it would have taken Him an instant to create everything, not a week)

So he is very powerful, but not omnipotent. (There is no "almost omnipotent" just as there is no "almost infinite".

3. God is omniscient.

Or maybe not. Maybe he makes universes and varies the rules to find out how they differ. Maybe he tries to make them all the same and they all turn out different, and he is trying to figure out why.

 

[StralockJenkins]

All right, very powerful. But theoretically, if God is not omniscient, he couldn't have a grand universal plan, and would create life not knowing what the outcome would be, so the argument works, just God does not know how the evolution will progress. Now could you respond to the argument and not just the premises?

 

[BobW188]

I think we could work a compromise out of this; but you need to check a premis.

An omnipotent god could create everything in an instant; but "omnipotent" means s/he could do it by any possible process and over any period of time.

A potential fallacy: Do we know we have the smartest dolphins? The cutest kittens?
Might not smart dolphins have been selected out in favor of better swimmers? The cutest possible kittens by the better hunters? If it's physical strength you're referring to, I question that we of the 21st Century stand at any acme of evolution.

I will say that your compromise in many ways reflects my private thoughts.

 

[Gracchus]

Now, I'm good with computers. When I have a repetitive task, for example, finding the first 12 prime numbers over one million, I will write a program to do it for me instead of calculating them over and over.

And if you are clever, you can write a program to systematically or randomly vary a parameter and observe the different outcomes. Or maybe, because of the sensitivity to initial conditions implicit in Chaos Theory, he doesn't even have to change a parameter, the change being implicit in the system.

So, let's take God. He's obviously a very intelligent person.

"Very intelligent" is relative.

And any intelligent person will naturally find a way to reduce the amount of work they had to do.

Unless that person enjoys work. Some people do, surprising as that may seem to you. "Ars gratia artis", and all that!

My mother was fond of gardening. It was a lot of work, and she got from it vegetables that she could have obtained much easier from the store. My grandfather liked to fish. He could have gotten fish from the market without the waste of time, bait, and tackle.

So, God decides to make a planet. Millions of species. And every single one needs to be designed, tested, reworked, retested, etc.

So why do it all by hand?

Again, maybe because he enjoys it. Or maybe it's just something to do while waiting, and God makes universes just to pass the time like Grant whittling sticks during a battle or a prisoner twiddling his thumbs in solitary confinement.

God knows the butterfly effect. So, why not create evolution, a system which will create all the species he wants with minimal effort?

The point of the "Butterfly Effect" (sensitivity to initial conditions) is that you don't know what the result will be with certainty.

He can tell that by placing cell 0 in the right place that it will spawn the human race and all the horses, trees, chinchillas, etc. he needs!

Needs? Why would he need them?

Sure, it will take a few billion years, but God is eternal. A billion years can't be very long to Him.

He knows that if he uses Evolution, he will end up with the smartest dolphins, the cutest kittens, and the strongest humans.

But if he is experimenting he might not know what he will end up with!

Personally, it doesn't seem very smart to create all those things one by one.

Unless he likes doing it that way! Not everyone wants to churn out predictable exact replicas. Not everyone wants to set up a production line.

And God would know that.

But he might not be lazy or unimaginative.

Is this a decent compromise?

Compromise with who? And why should he compromise? God, by the accounts that I have read, doesn't compromise much. He likes to have it all his own way. (See for instance: Job & Jonah)

You were probably expecting a creationist to respond to your OP. I doubt any will bite. And those who might will respond neither to evidence or reason.

My question is: Will you?

 

[StralockJenkins]

We can't trust any human evolution over the last few thousand years. We nurture the sick and weak, which is against natural selection. And that is mostly a cultural change, not a genetic one.

A potential fallacy: Do we know we have the smartest dolphins? The cutest kittens?
Might not smart dolphins have been selected out in favor of better swimmers? The cutest possible kittens by the better hunters? If it's physical strength you're referring to, I question that we of the 21st Century stand at any acme of evolution.

This fallacy is negligible. For both sides:
If a God started it, and if God has any sense, kittens are definitely as cute as possible, as an omniscient God could have known how to do it.
Otherwise, they probably aren't, which is irrelevant in terms of evolution.

 

[StralockJenkins]

"Very intelligent" is relative.

I am assuming omniscience.

Unless that person enjoys work. Some people do, surprising as that may seem to you. "Ars gratia artis", and all that!

My mother was fond of gardening. It was a lot of work, and she got from it vegetables that she could have obtained much easier from the store. My grandfather liked to fish. He could have gotten fish from the market without the waste of time, bait, and tackle.

That may be true, but I know I enjoy setting up a system and watching it run. For example, the game of life. (With a grid of digits, not lightly coloured pegs in a small van). It's interesting to set it up and then watch it change. I'm not creating those patterns myself, I'm simply watching them come about.

The point of the "Butterfly Effect" (sensitivity to initial conditions) is that you don't know what the result will be with certainty.

I mean in the sense that a very tiny change now can result in massive changes in a few billion years.

Needs? Why would he need them?

Even an omnipotent being has needs. Needs that can be fulfilled easily, of course, but I am presuming he still needs them.

But if he is experimenting he might not know what he will end up with!

He's omniscient. Experimentation is technically impossible.

Unless he likes doing it that way! Not everyone wants to churn out predictable exact replicas. Not everyone wants to set up a production line.

Evolution is the opposite of a product line with exact copies.

Compromise with who? And why should he compromise? God, by the accounts that I have read, doesn't compromise much. He likes to have it all his own way. (See for instance: Job & Jonah)

You were probably expecting a creationist to respond to your OP. I doubt any will bite. And those who might will respond neither to evidence or reason.

My question is: Will you?

I'll be honest, I have been thinking about this, and decided to get any information about holes in the idea. The internet seemed the best place to go, and I opted for this site over youtube. I will respond to evidence and reason, if it is presented.

 

[plindboe]

Playing God's advocate....

2. God is not completely omnipotent, but is very close. (If he were omnipotent it would have taken Him an instant to create everything, not a week)

If this being is outside of time (whatever that means), what's the hurry? Just because it created in a certain time frame doesn't mean it couldn't have created in another time frame, or in no time frame at all. Some say it created in 6 days and rested on 1 day to establish the 7-day work week we now employ in much of the world.

And any intelligent person will naturally find a way to reduce the amount of work they had to do.

Not an omnipotent being. If you have infinite power, and time is of no consequence, there's no reason to cut corners. Humans have limited time and limited power though, so we're forced to try to be as efficient as possible.

You can also think of God as an artist. Perhaps he enjoyed the creation process. In any case, no amount of work would be an effort to an infinitely powerful being. Creating one species or a billion species would both require 0% of his effort.

So, God decides to make a planet. Millions of species. And every single one needs to be designed, tested, reworked, retested, etc.

An omnipotent, omniscient being would only need to design. There wouldn't be any unforseen errors, so there's no reason to test and rework.

God knows the butterfly effect. So, why not create evolution, a system which will create all the species he wants with minimal effort? He can tell that by placing cell 0 in the right place that it will spawn the human race and all the horses, trees, chinchillas, etc. he needs! Sure, it will take a few billion years, but God is eternal. A billion years can't be very long to Him.

Evolution is a rather crude process though, requiring countless deaths and suffering, and it will result in imperfect organisms. If the being is benevolent and perfect, this doesn't seem like the way to create, unless you use the "God works in mysterious ways" line. That said, beings are obviously imperfect and nature is filled with death, so this isn't really the best counter.

Peter

 

[chris4243]

All right, very powerful. But theoretically, if God is not omniscient, he couldn't have a grand universal plan, and would create life not knowing what the outcome would be, so the argument works, just God does not know how the evolution will progress. Now could you respond to the argument and not just the premises?

Perhaps, perhaps not. Although most people claim evolution is directionless, there seems to be some reason to think otherwise. For example, the evolution of evolvability seems to be a likely result. And by controlling the environment to a certain extent, the outcome of evolution can more or less be controlled as to the type of trait that will evolve (even without knowing the specifics of how it is accomplished).

It may be that intelligence would be an inevitable outcome of evolution (once you get large multicellular creatures anyways), or that it might be ensured by a specific type of environment. Presumably, God would know the answer to these questions.

 

[StralockJenkins]

Playing God's advocate....



If this being is outside of time (whatever that means), what's the hurry? Just because it created in a certain time frame doesn't mean it couldn't have created in another time frame, or in no time frame at all. Some say it created in 6 days and rested on 1 day to establish the 7-day work week we now employ in much of the world.




Not an omnipotent being. If you have infinite power, and time is of no consequence, there's no reason to cut corners. Humans have limited time and limited power though, so we're forced to try to be as efficient as possible.

You can also think of God as an artist. Perhaps he enjoyed the creation process. In any case, no amount of work would be an effort to an infinitely powerful being. Creating one species or a billion species would both require 0% of his effort.




An omnipotent, omniscient being would only need to design. There wouldn't be any unforseen errors, so there's no reason to test and rework.



Evolution is a rather crude process though, requiring countless deaths and suffering, and it will result in imperfect organisms. If the being is benevolent and perfect, this doesn't seem like the way to create, unless you use the "God works in mysterious ways" line. That said, beings are obviously imperfect and nature is filled with death, so this isn't really the best counter.

Peter

1. I am assuming He/She/It/They is/are not omnipotent, he exists within time. (For the rest of this thread, I'm going to go with He, as it is the most widely accepted stance)
2. Yah, "works in mysterious ways", to me personally, is not a very convincing statement. The natural world is cruel, so I can see the being that rules over it as being fine with evolution.

 

[plindboe]

1. I am assuming He/She/It/They is/are not omnipotent, he exists within time.

These assumptions won't be in line with the beliefs of the vast majority of christians though. If you don't agree on the basic assumptions, the rest of the argument will be of no consequence.

But even if we're granting those premises, you haven't succesfully addressed the 'God enjoys to work' scenario. In your reply to Gracchus, where he made this point, you appealed to your own preferences ("I enjoy setting up a system and watching it run"). Unless you are God, that doesn't address Gracchus' point.

2. Yah, "works in mysterious ways", to me personally, is not a very convincing statement.

Indeed, it's basically "I don't know" dressed up as a positive answer. Some people are too prideful to use the words "I don't know".

Peter

 

[driewerf]

Is this a decent compromise?

No.
There is simply no god.

 

[BobW188]

Seconding plindboe.

 

[Drathnor]

2. God is not completely omnipotent, but is very close. (If he were omnipotent it would have taken Him an instant to create everything, not a week)

Perhaps he just invented procrastination at the same time