Reason for Creation

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If God is fully content in Himself, with no capacity to increase in Beatitude, what motivated Him to create? God has no unfulfilled desires, not even the joy of a proud father is lacking in Him.
 
How beyond comprehension is God’s love, that He loves what does not exist and thereby brings it into existence!
 
And all the more beyond comprehension that His love for creatures does not increase His love in the slightest.
 
I think todays reading gives us a clue…

Reading 1 Wisdom 2:23–3:9
God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made them.

If God were to love each and everyone of us as he loves himself, then he has given us the greatest commandments to do likewise.
 
Amen. I think of how vast aleph-null is, and yet 1 is a greater part of the set of all integers than the set of all integers is of the set of all real numbers. Yet vast as the transfinite numbers are, each infinitely greater than the one before them such that 1/(aleph-n)>(aleph-n)/(aleph-n+1), and though the set of all transfinite numbers is itself infinite in extent, none of them can describe God fully.
 
That’s what I was trying to get at: According to standard Catholic theology, God can’t “want” anything, which makes this matter nigh incomprehensible.
 
I think you’ll find that God does very much ‘want’ a good many things.

A God who doesn’t want to see mankind returned home, to see them understand the weight of sin and so much more besides, would have never sent his son so long ago, to highlight that fact.

It may just be me but over complexity to the point of redundancy is far too prevalent at times.

To the laymen. To the mere mortal. To the humble baker.

Does God want you to return to where it all began. Before sin and change. Yes of course.

That God ‘wants’ they may say is a ‘humanisation’. Yes indeed it is. But we stand in his image forevermore and that counts for more, than many think or say.
 
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mythbuster1 said:
If God is fully content in Himself, with no capacity to increase in Beatitude, what motivated Him to create?
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Because He can. It would be a waste of all that ability and talent if he didn’t, don’t you think? If God is fully actualized with no potentially in him for change, then by his nature He is that which actualizes everything else. Nothing else would exist without him as the unactualized actualizer. And thus at least part of the answer is it is his nature to create everything else. Just like it is in his nature to be perfect love. Or his nature to be omnipresent. To analyze God with human descriptions is inadequate. Desire, wants, needs, or even love are inadequate terms to describe God. This is why Aquinas said we can only describe God in terms of analogy. We say that God is love. But our human understanding of love is not an adequate description of God’s love. For his ways are above our ways as Scripture says as high as heaven is above the earth.

Just because God doesn’t need anything like humans do doesn’t mean he isn’t something that acts according to his own divine nature. Do not humans act according to their nature? Do you think God should act according to some ‘silly’ little human nature like need? Or should the God not act according to a higher purpose? A divine purpose?

If God is fully actualized and has that ability to bring into existence everything else then it would have been a trajedy if he had not done so, don’t you think? That is if you think existence is a good thing. He keeps everything in existence at each moment. If He chose to he could allow everything to go out of existence. But He is not the author of a trajedy, rather quite the opposite. He created everything and saw that it was good.

Many see the highest purpose is love. St Paul himself writes that the greatest gift of all is love. If the highest purpose is love and since God is described as being love then couldn’t we ascribe that to the purpose of creation? However, just what are we talking about when we talk about love? As I said before we have to understand that our understanding of love is not the same as God’s love. It is only an anology to God since He is so above us. And His love is unfathomable to us. Yet we do see a glimpse of it through the expression of His Son who died for us.
 
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For His own good pleasure, out of Love.
To say He can’t want is to limit Him.
 
This would imply Gods love were lacking something…something to Love perhaps?
 
setarcos said:
This would imply Gods love were lacking something…something to Love perhaps?
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Before Creation God is already three Persons. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit love each other with perfect and eternal love.
God did not create us because He lacked someone to love. He created us because He wanted to.
 
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The problem as I see it here is in a lack of our conceptual understanding of the Godhead. Since the Father, Son, and Holy spirit have perfect and eternal love it would be complete in itself, lacking nothing. To want something is to lack what is wanted. God being complete within itself, lacking nothing would necessarily lack wanting anything. The answer must lie somewhere else. Any other ideas?
 
To say God wants anything is to say God is not complete within himself. Are you limiting Gods perfection in his completion?
 
fisherman_carl said:
Because He can. It would be a waste of all that ability and talent if he didn’t, don’t you think? If God is fully actualized with no potentially in him for change, then by his nature He is that which actualizes everything else. Nothing else would exist without him as the unactualized actualizer. And thus at least part of the answer is it is his nature to create everything else. Just like it is in his nature to be perfect love. Or his nature to be omnipresent. To analyze God with human descriptions is inadequate. Desire, wants, needs, or even love are inadequate terms to describe God. This is why Aquinas said we can only describe God in terms of analogy. We say that God is love. But our human understanding of love is not an adequate description of God’s love. For his ways are above our ways as Scripture says as high as heaven is above the earth.
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The problem here is, in order to keep his status as a being with no potential, everything that could be created by God either must have eternal existence with God or be eternally impossible to be created. You cannot have it both ways, either everything God is capable of doing has always been done or God has potential. Which do you prefer? Then of course we must ask, if God has created, why cant he uncreate? God lacking any potential would necessarily have to have created and uncreated simultaneously as a part of his eternal nature. Are we even here?!! Thoughts?
fisherman_carl said:
Just because God doesn’t need anything like humans do doesn’t mean he isn’t something that acts according to his own divine nature. Do not humans act according to their nature? Do you think God should act according to some ‘silly’ little human nature like need? Or should the God not act according to a higher purpose? A divine purpose?
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Not only doesn’t God “need” anything he cannot need anything because his divine nature would be such that all that is, could be, or would be, IS a necessary part of his nature…being the source of anything that can be. This being our twisted attempt at conceptualizing Gods nature dictates that Gods actions from our perspective is a delusion. God does not act, God simply IS.
 
fisherman_carl said:
If God is fully actualized and has that ability to bring into existence everything else then it would have been a trajedy if he had not done so, don’t you think? That is if you think existence is a good thing. He keeps everything in existence at each moment. If He chose to he could allow everything to go out of existence. But He is not the author of a trajedy, rather quite the opposite. He created everything and saw that it was good.
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To be fully actualized eliminates further “ability” to act. Your thinking in humanistic potential ideas. People want to corral God so they may tame him with human ideas and it only leads to absurdities. God may no more cause something that is, to not be than he can cause something that wasn’t, to be…unless you give him potential. Which do you want? A God with potential or a God who simply IS whose creation and uncreation of anything that can be exists and always has as a part of his “IS” ness for all of eternity?
fisherman_carl said:
Many see the highest purpose is love. St Paul himself writes that the greatest gift of all is love. If the highest purpose is love and since God is described as being love then couldn’t we ascribe that to the purpose of creation? However, just what are we talking about when we talk about love? As I said before we have to understand that our understanding of love is not the same as God’s love. It is only an anology to God since He is so above us. And His love is unfathomable to us. Yet we do see a glimpse of it through the expression of His Son who died for us.
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I personally believe Love is a grace given to men whose sustaining source is God. Like the light and radiant heat one feels whose source isthe sun. Consequently I do not believe Love is merely an act of volition. It is not a choice we make. It simply is, sustained in us by God as a grace whose existence is reflected in the “actions” we take from our perspective.
May the living God bless those who seek him.
 
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No, to say He can’t desire anything is limiting Him. To desire is not to lack.
 
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I’m saying his desire would be eternally satisfied. No matter what you wish were true of God he must be limited in being unable to exist in contradiction.There is nothing to act upon that hasn’t been. You either agree that God has no potential…a standard defining characteristic of God, or you agree that God has the potential to act. You cannot have it both ways they are mutually exclusive and even God cannot contradict itself in such a way.
I don’t mean to mince words here but how is it that you can desire what you do not lack? I at times desire to eat but having ate haven’t the desire any more. In acquiring what I desire I negate my desire to acquire it. I go from one state to another. God by definition cannot change states, I think even the Roman Church would agree with this quality of God.
 
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