Why would God include carnivory, parasitism, and disease in creation?

[Poseidon]

I’ll have a go at these points anyway, because I still find this thread interesting. I don’t expect anything other than the responses I’ve been getting already though, but hey, no point in not trying, right?

1. God did not design carnivory, parasitism, and disease any more than He designed lechery, nepotism or child abuse.

 

[tonyrey]

I’d assert that silence indicates more that people have lost interest in the thread, not that they agree with you. I’ve argued a lot of these points with you but you simply don’t agree with what I say (while I am clearly right and you are clearly wring from my POV).

It is not people who read the posts who have lost interest in such an important subject but those who have been unable to refute the points I’ve made…

No one has even attempted to refute all of them.

 

[Poseidon]

It is not people who read the posts who have lost interest in such an important subject but those who have been unable to refute the points I’ve made…

No one has even attempted to refute all of them.

Check my last post. I did.

 

[utah_rose]

It is not people who read the posts who have lost interest in such an important subject but those who have been unable to refute the points I’ve made…

No one has even attempted to refute all of them.

Ask Him after you die. Then you will get the whole complete answer, and if this is an excuse for not believing in the goodness of God, no one but Him will be able to give you a good answer. Sorry, not a copout but the truth.

 

[Poseidon]

Ask Him after you die. Then you will get the whole complete answer, and if this is an excuse for not believing in the goodness of God, no one but Him will be able to give you a good answer. Sorry, not a copout but the truth.

Is this directed at me? I know you quoted Tonyrey but I think you may have the wrong guy.

 

[tonyrey]

Check my last post. I did.

Sorry! We posted simultaneously and I went offline without seeing yours!

 

[ReapReason]

Something higher than God? Remember, God is the one who is supposed to have made everything, including the natural laws that you’re trying to use to restrict him, and even the laws of logic.

God created the laws of logic?

I do not understand this statement. Are you trying to put words in peoples mouths? That is not a very nice thing to do.

 

[tonyrey]

1. God did not design carnivory, parasitism, and disease any more than He designed lechery, nepotism or child abuse.

A designer is inevitably constrained by the rules of what is designed. What is the point of making rules if you are constantly going to alter them? The system would become so chaotic and unpredictable it would be impossible for animals to survive by instinct and for persons to lead a rational existence.

There’s another problem with your second point. The universe is obscenely complex to us, but to God it’s as complex as a brick. You seem to be saying that somehow it’s too Complicated for God to keep it all under control. Are we then saying that God isn’t omnipotent and omniscient? Because if he truly was both of these things, he’d have no problem making the universe exactly as he pleased.

The universe is not too complicated for God to control by constant intervention but that would again make it impossible for animals to survive by instinct or for persons to lead a rational existence.

1. The number of microbes that cause disease is a minute proportion of those that exist.

So why do the few harmful ones exist? One would think that a few kinks in the system like that would be really easy for an all-powerful, all-knowing god to work out, especially when he already knows how to get them out, and can do it by snapping his fingers.

The vast number of individuals and the vast number of situations in their constantly changing environment amount to immensely more than “a few kinks”.

1. Viruses are usually more harmful but even they perform useful functions.
   Again, you’re arguing against God’s omnipotence. If he was truly omnipotent then he would be able to do good without creating ebola and AIDS.

They were not created instantly but have emerged gradually in a constantly changing environment.

Malfunctions presuppose functions. Purpose is more basic than the absence of purpose.

Not sure what this means.

Life preceded death, health preceded disease, normality preceded abnormality, success preceded failure.

1. 90% of mutations are disadvantageous but they have promoted rather than prevented the successful development of life.

Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient being is controlling the system. Okay, so why the 90% inefficiency? God’s doing a pretty lousy job if he can’t get his numbers above 10%.

Living organisms were not created instantly but have emerged gradually in a constantly changing environment. The ability to suggest piecemeal improvements is not a valid objection to the overall success of the system. A living organism is so immensely complex it is inevitable that the slightest modification is extremely likely to be disadvantageous.

1. Predation is swifter and more efficient than a system in which animals suffer a lingering death from injury or disease.

It’s also a brutal, miserable system that causes much more suffering than easily imaginable other systems.

Imaginable but not feasible! It is necessary to substantiate the claim by providing an alternative physical means of achieving the same results instead of invoking a deus ex machina intervention which disrupts the whole system.

Before you go off on your “precise mechanisms” tactic realize that I’m going to end any part of the conversation in which you use it, because we’ve talked about it over and over and we both know that it’s an unreasonable thing to say that ends intelligent conversation.

Only unreasonable for those who refuse to consider the full implications. Not even a hint of an explanation…

1. All living organisms are interdependent and cannot exist as isolated individuals.

So many things God can’t do! I thought he was able to do anything he pleased!

A statement that does nothing to further the discussion. Omnipotence does not entail inconsistency - unless chaos is the object of the exercise.

The development of parasites presupposes the development of successful organisms.

Not always. Plenty of things have never been parasites.

Exactly. Parasites presuppose non-parasitic organisms just as negatives presuppose the positives.

1. The occurrence of abnormality is inevitable in a physical system.

Yet another thing outside God’s control!

To seek universal normality in a physical system with an incredibly rich variety of individuals is a futile enterprise.

1. The laws of nature do not take into account individual needs.

Therefore God made them this way, therefore he designed the universe to be as nasty toward life as it is, and designed life to be “red in tooth and claw.” Unless you’re saying that something/someone else made the laws of nature.

To resort to the antiquated “red in tooth and claw” chestnut reveals a lack of originality and insight into nature which is far more beautiful and efficient than any human machine. It also evades the implications of the inability of natural laws to take into account individual needs.

1. The immense value of life far outweighs its drawbacks.

Agreed. But the immense brutality of life does not point to a perfect, benevolent designer. It points to a purposeless struggle for survival.

The recognition that the immense value of life far outweighs its drawbacks is inconsistent with the view that life is merely a purposeless struggle for survival. Value presupposes purpose!

Do you agree with Schopenhauer that it would be better if life had never existed on this planet?

Of course not. There wouldn’t be any concept of “better” if life wasn’t around to make it up.

There could be life with drawbacks that outweigh its value.

Do you regret having been born?

Nope.

Then you have no genuine cause for complaint: you are implicitly admitting that the immense value of life far outweighs its drawbacks.

Do you wish your family and friends had never been born (and would you tell them that’s what you think!) ?

Then you have no genuine cause for complaint…

I fail to see how these questions are relevant. I’m not saying I don’t like life. I’m saying that the real conditions of life are inconsistent with the Christian God as a designer of the universe.

Without providing any valid reasons for your opinion.

 

[_L]

What’s so bad about these things? What is so bad about suffering, pain and death?

Suffering is perhaps the biggest incentive for people to change their lives, it is one of the fuels that powers us to perfection.

Only in a world with suffering, pain, and death can we ever hope to live truly virtuously. To know what it means to love your enemies, to know what it means to forgive and be forgiven, to be courageous in the face of fear, pain, death. To know what it means to persevere, to exemplify determination, to know what it means to honor someone’s memory, to rise when you fall. It’s really quite beautiful if you reflect on it, that there is something in us that acts out in such admirable qualities only in the face of things we see as terrible. In fact, these qualities can only exist for us, in a world full of suffering and death.

Looking back I’m not sure if I was quite right here, what do you guys think? Is there a Church teaching about how virtues are acquired and lived out? I mean it seems to make sense conceptually that being courageous necessitates acting in some fear, but with other virtues, can/does God transmit such virtues to us without any experience. For example, can God make it so that we have the virtue of temperance without actually having knowledge of the corresponding vice? If anyone knows any Church teaching or considered theology on this issue, I’d love to know to get this straightened out.

 

[Linux]

Why would God design some animals to painfully kill and eat others? Why would he design animals to live inside and on other animals and leech their nutrients until they die slowly and painfully? Why would he create killer viruses and bacteria that cause so much death and pain?

God, by creating physical reality, created the potential for these things. But he did not directly manufacture their actual compositions. These things arise in nature because the potential exists as a result of natural physical development. In other words these things exist because that’s how physical reality happened to evolve.

Your question is only relevant to people who choose to reject evolution. However for those theists who don’t reject evolution, the proper question would be "why would God create a physical reality that is allowed to develop according to the potential intrinsic to its nature as we know it?" Those theists will give answers along the lines of proposing that there is an inherent good, value or values, that are realised in creating a universe that is allowed to freely develop or evolve. I would go further and say that it contradicts the nature of a God who is a perfect act of love to prejudicially endow existence to some things and not others even if that thing has the potential to develop into something relatively harmful. Evolution is the only creative model that reflects Gods nature as an eternal act of perfect Love, since only love can be tolerable of imperfection, and being love, God cannot be prejudiced. If God was prejudice, then God would be the only thing that existed, since God is the only being that has a right to exist because perfection and thus existence is intrinsic to his nature. So allowing things to evolve naturally removes the prejudice of what has or does not have the right to exist. So long as the potential for good exists, God will create it or permit its existence to bring some good out of it that was not otherwise possible. Creating the universe also justifies the creation of angels, things that don’t evolve, since they exist to look after Gods creation or serve God to some capacity regarding creation.

 

[Ion]

Looking back I’m not sure if I was quite right here, what do you guys think? Is there a Church teaching about how virtues are acquired and lived out? I mean it seems to make sense conceptually that being courageous necessitates acting in some fear, but with other virtues, can/does God transmit such virtues to us without any experience. For example, can God make it so that we have the virtue of temperance without actually having knowledge of the corresponding vice? If anyone knows any Church teaching or considered theology on this issue, I’d love to know to get this straightened out.

There was no carnivory, parasitism and disease in creation. All were good. I think Adam and Eve were supposed to bring beauty in the Garden.

What do you mean by knowledge? Like you have to eat s___ in order to avoid eating it later?

 

[Ion]

God, by creating physical reality, created the potential for these things…

There was no death. I think there might have been a form of evolution, but without death.
After the sin, death entered the world, there was no “potential” for death in the world.
“Where” did the death come from? I don’t know, may be thats the “potential” that you mention, but was not in the world.

 

[Linux]

There was no death. I think there might have been a form of evolution, but without death.
After the sin, death entered the world, there was no “potential” for death in the world.
“Where” did the death come from? I don’t know, may be thats the “potential” that you mention, but was not in the world.

Spiritual Death entered the world. Its got nothing to do with physical nature. In any case your views are based on a literal interpretation of genesis, which is not necessary.

 

[Ion]

Spiritual Death entered the world. Its got nothing to do with physical nature. In any case your views are based on a literal interpretation of genesis, which is not necessary.

Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all …”

It is totally literally.

 

[aragonjohn1]

Why would God design some animals to painfully kill and eat others? Why would he design animals to live inside and on other animals and leech their nutrients until they die slowly and painfully? Why would he create killer viruses and bacteria that cause so much death and pain?

sin turned much against man.
that could be why God made many things Beautiful since then.

God bless Y’all

 

[ColdComfort]

Why would God design some animals to painfully kill and eat others? Why would he design animals to live inside and on other animals and leech their nutrients until they die slowly and painfully? Why would he create killer viruses and bacteria that cause so much death and pain?

The suffering of animals, who are morally innocent, is a question that left C.S.Lewis wondering. So I’m not going to give any definitive answers.

1. We don’t know what dispensation God has for animals. It has not been revealed to us for the very good reason that this knowledge is not necessary to human salvation.
2. God is immutable. Just as Christ suffered for my sins before I was born the Fall infected nature before our first parents sinned.
3. As most Catholics accept the fact of the half-billion years it took for humans to evolve I think we can only be left wondering about the suffering of animals. The biological past and present does seem a pitiless, Satanic world as well as one that contains great beauty.
4. Job.38…

[4] "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding

 

[tonyrey]

1. As most Catholics accept the fact of the half-billion years it took for humans to evolve I think we can only be left wondering about the suffering of animals. The biological past and present does seem a pitiless, Satanic world as well as one that contains great beauty.

There’s nothing Satanic about the physical world! Life is based on competition as well as co-operation. **How **could it be otherwise?

 

[tonyrey]

How would you design a world? No one has produced a feasible blueprint!

 

[tonyrey]

Spiritual Death entered the world. Its got nothing to do with physical nature. In any case your views are based on a literal interpretation of genesis, which is not necessary.

Jesus told us not to fear those who kill the body…

 

[tonyrey]

God, by creating physical reality, created the potential for these things. But he did not directly manufacture their actual compositions. These things arise in nature because the potential exists as a result of natural physical development. In other words these things exist because that’s how physical reality happened to evolve.

Your question is only relevant to people who choose to reject evolution. However for those theists who don’t reject evolution, the proper question would be "why would God create a physical reality that is allowed to develop according to the potential intrinsic to its nature as we know it?" Those theists will give answers along the lines of proposing that there is an inherent good, value or values, that are realised in creating a universe that is allowed to freely develop or evolve. I would go further and say that it contradicts the nature of a God who is a perfect act of love to prejudicially endow existence to some things and not others even if that thing has the potential to develop into something relatively harmful. Evolution is the only creative model that reflects Gods nature as an eternal act of perfect Love, since only love can be tolerable of imperfection, and being love, God cannot be prejudiced. If God was prejudice, then God would be the only thing that existed, since God is the only being that has a right to exist because perfection and thus existence is intrinsic to his nature. So allowing things to evolve naturally removes the prejudice of what has or does not have the right to exist. So long as the potential for good exists, God will create it or permit its existence to bring some good out of it that was not otherwise possible. Creating the universe also justifies the creation of angels, things that don’t evolve, since they exist to look after Gods creation or serve God to some capacity regarding creation.

Without freedom life would be mechanical…