Why did God create man?

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Eric_Hyom said:
Does God love each and every one of us as he loves himself?

What purpose can be so great, that it would compel God to create the universe and life, knowing in advance the suffering of mankind and that his son would die?

Challenge your mind to find a greatest good purpose for creation; by searching for answers to three questions.

What greatest thing can God create?
…
Does the greatest thing that God creates, depend on the relationship that he can have with them?

What greatest purpose can God have to create children in his own image?
Could love be the greatest reason for God to create children?
…
When you ask the question; why did Christ say they are the greatest commandment, can it possibly be because they are greatest for God also?

To find a greatest purpose for all God’s children.
What greatest purpose could God set for humanity? Would it be for everyone to turn to His kind of religion and pray the way that he stipulates, or would it be to banish poverty, gain intellectual superiority, conquer sickness and death, and subdue the universe or is there more?
If the greatest reason God could have to create mankind, is to love us, as he loves himself, then God could create mankind, with the freedom to return God’s love
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He wants us to love each other as we love ourselves, despite our differences.
Could the greatest commandments be a Greatest and Ultimate Truth?

John 15 – As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

If our greatest purpose for creation is to live by the greatest commandments, then this freedom to love also gives us the choice to do both good and evil. Are the greatest commandments powerful enough, to compel God to create the universe and life, knowing in advance the costs involved?
…

Blessings

Eric
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Hi, thanks for the challenging post!
You have a way of raising questions in the reader
that stimulates discourse. The highlighted phrase
sums up the climax of your post, right on.
 
oldcelt said:
Perhaps we are just an accident of the greater creation process and the various world religions are trying to assign us importance that we don’t really have.
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In daily life no one behaves as if life is an accident. The best test of any theory is whether it works…
 
babylonfalling said:
As a tool with which to manifest Himself into the material world?

Why would a God who knows all things in all ages create a being so troubled as man?

First of all, God did not create a troubled being such as man, for in Gn 1:31 one finds God looking at his creation and saying it is very good. Moreover, the Catechism explains "Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original ‘state of holiness and justice.’ This grace of original holiness was ‘to share in divine life (IV Man in Paradise 375).’ If one was sharing in the divine life the same way Adam and Eve were, this world would be a place of resounding holiness and communion with God; the reverberation of God’s voice would be manifested upon each and every heart to the full extent of our earthly being.

Our violence against one another, our greed and our history of inhumanity to man are enough that we can be repulsive even to ourselves so how much more repulsive to God must our fallen civilization be?

What does this question have to do with why God created man? You’re just subjectively demonstrating why humanity, in your view, is corrupted.

Why would an all knowing God create such a beast as man?

We are not beasts. Humans are the perfection of God’s creation, the great imago dei. It is a rational decision by man to fecundate his image and emanate the love God has placed in the heart of mankind.

God created mankind to share in a personal familial relationship, Scott Hahn talks about this in his book “First Comes Love.” We aren’t test puppies, beasts, experiments; humans are the imago perfecta of Gods creation and one can see this most clearly in Jesus’s passion. By following Jesus’ imitation humanity can be perfect as our Heavenly Father is Perfect; humanity can be compassionate as our Heavenly Father is Compassionate; humanity can be loving as our Heavenly Father is all Loving (Mt 5:48).
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tonyrey said:
In daily life no one behaves as if life is an accident. The best test of any theory is whether it works…
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Just how would one behave if their life was an accident? Sorry Tony, but that just doesn’t cut it.
 
oldcelt said:
And have for millennia…which proves nothing
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It proves that the best test of any theory is whether it works… It is asking for trouble to worship Chance - and inconsistent with Deism unless one agrees that God is a “blind Watchmaker”.
 
tonyrey said:
It proves that the best test of any theory is whether it works… It is asking for trouble to worship Chance - and inconsistent with Deism unless one agrees that God is a “blind Watchmaker”.
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Who is worshiping chance? I just don’t see why one’s life becomes purposeless because they don’t have some god’s stamp on them. We each need to find our own purpose.
 
oldcelt said:
Who is worshiping chance? I just don’t see why one’s life becomes purposeless because they don’t have some god’s stamp on them.
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“we are just an accident” implies that Chance is the fundamental cause of all life, the most powerful factor that exists and dominates the whole of reality, i.e. “the Blind Watchmaker”.
We each need to find our own purpose.
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“find” presupposes the existence of purposes. In your scheme of things a more appropriate term would be “invent”… 😉
 
oldcelt said:
. . . I just don’t see why one’s life becomes purposeless because they don’t have some god’s stamp on them. We each need to find our own purpose.
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Through prayer, contemplation of sacred teachings and texts, and participation in the Church we try, as best we can, to live a life that has God’s stamp on it.
Some people actively oppose doing God’s will, and there are clear consequences in this life.
It is meaningless to live a life without His stamp, in the sense that it is off the Path, and continuing in that direction does not get one to the promised fulfillment of one’s life.
What makes us happy is what God wants for us. Acting in opposition to love and appropriating something that belongs to God (eg: truth) cannot make us truly happy.
We do have free will: one then chooses one’s destiny ultimately.

As Tony notes above “find our own purpose”, implies that there is a purpose.
I can’t just make the purpose of my life the refilling of the toner in my printer (for a weird example); I will not be fulfilled, although temporarily happy that I can print.
That purpose is determined by God and is fundamental to this being that I am, from the time I was brought into creation.
 
Aloysium said:
Through prayer, contemplation of sacred teachings and texts, and participation in the Church we try, as best we can, to live a life that has God’s stamp on it.
Some people actively oppose doing God’s will, and there are clear consequences in this life.
It is meaningless to live a life without His stamp, in the sense that it is off the Path, and continuing in that direction does not get one to the promised fulfillment of one’s life.
What makes us happy is what God wants for us. Acting in opposition to love and appropriating something that belongs to God (eg: truth) cannot make us truly happy.
We do have free will: one then chooses one’s destiny ultimately.

As Tony notes above “find our own purpose”, implies that there is a purpose.
I can’t just make the purpose of my life the refilling of the toner in my printer (for a weird example); I will not be fulfilled, although temporarily happy that I can print.
That purpose is determined by God and is fundamental to this being that I am, from the time I was brought into creation.
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As I have said numerous times on this board, I’m glad that your belief system works for you. All I can say with certainty, is that mine works for me, because it makes sense to me. I’m a happier, better person and far more hopeful for our collective futures.
 
MatthewMckibben said:
babylonfalling;12006593:
As a tool with which to manifest Himself into the material world?

Why would a God who knows all things in all ages create a being so troubled as man?

First of all, God did not create a troubled being such as man, for in Gn 1:31 one finds God looking at his creation and saying it is very good. Moreover, the Catechism explains "Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original ‘state of holiness and justice.’ This grace of original holiness was ‘to share in divine life (IV Man in Paradise 375).’ If one was sharing in the divine life the same way Adam and Eve were, this world would be a place of resounding holiness and communion with God; the reverberation of God’s voice would be manifested upon each and every heart to the full extent of our earthly being.

Our violence against one another, our greed and our history of inhumanity to man are enough that we can be repulsive even to ourselves so how much more repulsive to God must our fallen civilization be?

What does this question have to do with why God created man? You’re just subjectively demonstrating why humanity, in your view, is corrupted.

Why would an all knowing God create such a beast as man?

We are not beasts. Humans are the perfection of God’s creation, the great imago dei. It is a rational decision by man to fecundate his image and emanate the love God has placed in the heart of mankind.

God created mankind to share in a personal familial relationship, Scott Hahn talks about this in his book “First Comes Love.” We aren’t test puppies, beasts, experiments; humans are the imago perfecta of Gods creation and one can see this most clearly in Jesus’s passion. By following Jesus’ imitation humanity can be perfect as our Heavenly Father is Perfect; humanity can be compassionate as our Heavenly Father is Compassionate; humanity can be loving as our Heavenly Father is all Loving (Mt 5:48).
Click to expand...
If you want to rephrase the question to read, “Why did God create a being that he knew in advance would become troubled?”, I’m fine with that. I suspect you knew what I was talking about though
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