Evolution And The Traditional Notion Of An All-Loving God Are Incompatible

Thank you to philophile for instigating this debate. His contention is that evolution is incompatible with the traditional notion of God (an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent deity). Statements 1-6 are premises. Statement 7 is the conclusion. Let us examine it to see if it holds up under scrutiny. I could argue either that the argument is invalid or that it is unsound. But the argument does not appear to be invalid, so the target of my criticism will be the premises, and I will show that the argument is unsound.I do not have to show that all the premises are false in order to negate the resolution, but only one actually. But I have raised objections to several of them. The arial font in bold denotes my opponent’s summarized points. The times new roman font denotes my points. Each argument is numbered and is preceded by a tagword. THE ARGUMENT [P1] Necessary Suffering It is impossible to have an evolutionary process unfold without suffering.[P1A] Lack of Foundation Though Pro mentions several times that evolution requires suffering, he offers no argument for it. Until Pro explains why evolution must involve suffering, this premise remains dubious. Maybe by “evolution” he means not just the process by which one species gives rise to another, but rather nature in general. I admit there is a lot of suffering in nature, but none of it is logically necessary, it is just incidental. >>> I have no objections to premise 2. <<<[P3] Soul Required Only things with souls go to Heaven. [P3A] Non-Sequiter If Neanderthals did not have souls, it does not follow that they would not go to Heaven. Concepts of Heaven (and Hell for that matter) usually include things that do not have souls, like trees, flowers, mountains etc. It might be that even soul-less Neanderthals still go to Heaven and are compensated for their suffering. Even animals who are not consciously aware of their suffering may go to Heaven and be compensated for their suffering. [P4] Lack of Souls Neanderthals did not have souls. [P4A] Lack of Foundation Even if Pro is correct that only things with souls can be compensated in Heaven for their suffering, he has given no argument for his contention that Neanderthals did not have souls. How could be know such a thing? Maybe they did have souls. [P5] Utilitarian God knew that evolution would involve conscious suffering. God is just a mere utilitarian who uses millions of other species as a means to his end goal of creating human beings. [P5A] Non-Sequiter Using means to achieve an end does not make on a utilitarian. Everyone, utilitarian and anti-utilitarian alike, uses means/ends reasoning, that does not mean that everyone is a utilitarian. Every person is a means to some end, but that does not mean that they are only a means to an end. As I explained earlier, even soul-less and consciousness-less creatures might go to Heaven and be compensated. They may not be mere instruments for our existence, but ends in themselves. Even humans treat many animals like ends in themselves, such as when pet-owners pamper their pets. God doing so would be no different. [P5B] Omniscience Almost all theists accept that God’s omniscience does not include knowing things that are logically impossible for him to know. Some theists believe that knowledge of the future is logically impossible, since the future does not exist and so statements about the future are neither true nor false so God cannot know them to be either true or false. So God may not have known that evolution would involve suffering. It seems that God would only know that evolution would involve suffering if evolution required suffering, but again, Pro has given no reason for why this is so. [P6] Unwarranted suffering An all-loving God would not create humans through a means that requires suffering. [P6A] Lack of Foundation This is basically a recap of other premise one, and while I agree that a loving God does not want unwarranted suffering, Pro again asserts without argument that evolution requires this suffering and that hominids did not have souls. CONCLUSION The main problem with my opponent’s argument is that he has made assumptions or unsupported assertions. All of his premises except for premise 2 contain highly questionable assumptions that he still needs to defend. The elaborations he offered for his premises only defend an aspect of the premise, not the whole thing. As I said, it appears that Pro’s argument is valid, but because there is no reason to believe most of his premises, it is not sound and hence the resolution has not been proven. He has not demonstrated that the traditional notion of God is incompatible with evolution.