Why would God create?

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Hey guys, I’ve been asked a question by a friend and I figured I’d get some perspectives here before answering him. This is the question: -
what would be God’s purpose in creating us - i.e: of what use are we to Him?
To me, taking the definitions of God that we commonly encounter (i.e: Infinite, Omiscient etc) then what reason would God have for making us in the first place? If He was omniscient, then he would know by default that Adam was going to eat the apple, and set us up.
If the whole God/worshipper thing is true, then He’s a cosmic narcissist, setting his toys up in a room and having an imaginary coversation with them. A lonely God that has created a race of arbitrary beings purely to reflect Himself in.
With that in mind, a pantheistic definition of God makes more sense, in that we are an expression of God (i.e: the Universe), but are not His subjects, and thus are not susceptible to damnation or judgment. The Universe “made” us, but had no clue it was doing so, and had no desire for us to exist or not.
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Maybe He’s lonely.

There can be any number of reasons.

But in Genesis it says He created us to toil in the Garden of eden, that is to take care of His garden.

But I often wonder how he came to exist as well. Sure, he may exist out of time (even though there’s nothing at all in the bible to support that), he still had to come into existence somehow and in someway.Doesn’t mean that time had anything to do with His coming into being though, but when one thinks of it, His existence is extremely difficult for humans to understand.
 
A universe that could “make” us but have no clue that or why it did so, wouldn’t qualify as God anyway. And I think the argument limits God. I believe we’re barely capable of knowing just how great a creature-how near to Him-God could be capable of creating, even though that creature would always be inferior to Him. I think we have no clue how great we are-or potentially are-with His help. We’re also limiting our concept of the depth and vastness of His love. If God is love, why wouldn’t He want to express and share Himself with beings capable of appreciating it-that’s the nature of love. Narcissim doesn’t apply because love is about self-giving while narcissim is about selfiness and the greatest good in the universe that can be given is God Himself, Who who happens to be infinite goodness.

This quote from the CCC applies in part:
412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ’s inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon’s envy had taken away."307 And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature’s being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, ‘Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more’; and the Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer"
 
Starwynd said:
Maybe He’s lonely.
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There can be any number of reasons.

But in Genesis it says He created us to toil in the Garden of eden, that is to take care of His garden.

But I often wonder how he came to exist as well. Sure, he may exist out of time (even though there’s nothing at all in the bible to support that), he still had to come into existence somehow and in someway.Doesn’t mean that time had anything to do with His coming into being though, but when one thinks of it, His existence is extremely difficult for humans to understand.

No, God was not created- he has always been. The answer can be considered in the context of our own desire to create social communities, children, friendships etc. I wanted to provoke some intelligent discussion around these ideas here to help me think of a good answer!
🙂
 
Starwynd said:
But I often wonder how he came to exist as well. Sure, he may exist out of time (even though there’s nothing at all in the bible to support that), he still had to come into existence somehow and in someway.Doesn’t mean that time had anything to do with His coming into being though, but when one thinks of it, His existence is extremely difficult for humans to understand.
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I find that we humans are stuck trying to define God in our own terms. We have a physical beginning and a physical end, so we assume that everything else must, including God. God is so much “bigger” than we can even imagine. Trying to describe God for us is far more difficult than a someone blind from birth trying to describe color.

God was not created and He did not begin. He couldn’t have because there would then have to be a “cause” greater than Him. He is the uncaused cause. God simply is.

As to the OP’s question, there is no answer that will likely satisfy your friend because it sounds like your friend is simply trying to justify his/her pantheistic belief system, which is rooted in not wanting to accept personal responsibility for anything. I find that this is the root of many belief systems that reject the Christian concept of God - “I want to do what I want to do and not be told that it’s wrong.” In the absence of an Omnipotent Creator, we can make up our own morality.

The whole dilemma of God’s Omniscience coupled with us being given absolute free will is a great mystery. He did not create us as robots or toys, but created us to love Him. The problem is that in order to receive our free love, He had to risk that if we were given absolute free will, some would choose not to love Him and would choose to be separated from Him forever. That makes some of us narcists in that we’d rather have our way and spend eternity with ourselves, then sacrifice our own selfish desires to be united to God.
 
As for a one word reason: either boredom or hobby seems pretty shallow to me.I really like the idea that we were created out of God’s desire to love.

The whys may escape us,
The hows overwhelm us,
The Who is Our Lord Jesus.

The when is always,
The where is everywhere,
The Who is Jesus Our Lord…

The love of God is a person
Not a feeling,
Not an emotion,
His name is Counselor, Advocate, Mighty God, Savior
Jesus.

(That’s original, hope you like it)
 
Ted_in_Charlott said:
As for a one word reason: either boredom or hobby seems pretty shallow to me.I really like the idea that we were created out of God’s desire to love.

The whys may escape us,
The hows overwhelm us,
The Who is Our Lord Jesus.

The when is always,
The where is everywhere,
The Who is Jesus Our Lord…

The love of God is a person
Not a feeling,
Not an emotion,
His name is Counselor, Advocate, Mighty God, Savior
Jesus.

(That’s original, hope you like it)
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I like it. God did not have to create anything, let alone us. God is a lover and as anyone knows someone truly in love, loves everyone. The trinity are truly in love with each other and we are the everyones.🙂
 
Does God need a reason? Would we understand the reason?

On the other hand, comic relief is as good an answer as any.

Matthew
 
Attitude toward God is a choice.

We can go through life blaming God for all our problems.
Or we can go through life thanking God for all our blessings.

So, applying our attitude toward God in trying to “humanize” his reason to create, we can pretty much choose whatever reason which best serves our attitude.

Only Love makes sense when you look at what He did after Creation. What greater love than to die for your friends.
 
God is love.

Love is a relationship between persons, it has no meaning for an individual in isolation.

The Trinity reveals to us God’s love - where the Father eternally begets/loves the Son, who reflects that self giving love perfectly to the Father, and the love that flows between them is the Holy Spirit.

God has so much love that he wishes to share it with even more persons.

So he created mankind, ultimately to love and be loved in Heaven.

And our task on Earth is to love each other in a spirit of total self giving, and in the case of marriage, to co-create with God even more persons which can love and be loved.

IMHO.
 
ricmat said:
God is love.

Love is a relationship between persons, it has no meaning for an individual in isolation.

The Trinity reveals to us God’s love - where the Father eternally begets/loves the Son, who reflects that self giving love perfectly to the Father, and the love that flows between them is the Holy Spirit.

God has so much love that he wishes to share it with even more persons.

So he created mankind, ultimately to love and be loved in Heaven.

And our task on Earth is to love each other in a spirit of total self giving, and in the case of marriage, to co-create with God even more persons which can love and be loved.

IMHO.
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ricmat has nailed it. This is the supreme reason. To love.

God is present to every instant of existence. The fall of the angels was irrevocable because they possessed the fullness of what would be Catholic knowledge.

But humanity was not fully culpable historically in their fall. Humanity has opportunity to progressively grow in knowledge as they are redeemed.

The notion of one who starts out good, then becomes bad, but is redeemed in the end is more beautiful and profound than if the person had never become bad to begin with.

God willed sin neither as an end nor as a means, but he FORESAW it in order that He might have mercy.

Ricmat nailed it.

thanks, ricmat, you are wise, you truly understand our religion.
 
Why would God create?

so that we may know,love and serve Him.

No God is not lonely.

There are a lot of people who love to create new things just for the sake of creating. Why not God?
 
A theist might respond to these objections in a number of ways. Theistic philosophers have offered these examples as to why God creates:
  1. Out of inscrutable will (this position occurs particularly in Islam)
  2. Out of a generous sharing of the goodness of his nature, which he freely communicates to creatures out of his love (Aquinas)
  3. By necessity from the infinity and infinite richness of the divine nature (Eriugena, Eckhart, and to an extent Spinoza).
Theists, believing in a personal God, prefer to place God’s creativity in his will rather than from necessity arising from some property of the divine nature or essence.
 
Thanks for that Greg- can you help me to understand how if all things *originate *in God - then that includes all emotion, purpose (INCLUDING HIS OWN) etc. God has created the board and the pieces, yetit seems He is playing *Himself *at the game of Creation.

If you are infinite in time and space, omniscient, omnipresent - then how can you percieve a separate race of beings, a creation “outside” of yourself? What does *outside *even mean to a being like that?

How do we get around that?
 
what would be God’s purpose in creating us - i.e: of what use are we to Him?
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That we may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. I.e. He created us for our sake, not for His.
To me, taking the definitions of God that we commonly encounter (i.e: Infinite, Omiscient etc) then what reason would God have for making us in the first place? If He was omniscient, then he would know by default that Adam was going to eat the apple, and set us up.
Click to expand...
Yes, Adam ate the apple but everything is still going according to plan. We can still be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
If the whole God/worshipper thing is true, then He’s a cosmic narcissist, setting his toys up in a room and having an imaginary coversation with them. A lonely God that has created a race of arbitrary beings purely to reflect Himself in.
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First off, a perfect God (such as the one we Christians believe in) doesn’t **need **anything or anybody. When we say “God is perfect” it means “God lacks nothing.” You wouldn’t say a circle is perfect if it **needs ** more roundness, nor would you say that a perfect meal **needs **more salt. To **need **is to be imperfect, incomplete and flawed – or, to put it bluntly: to need is to be NOT God.

Secondly, your use of the word “Narcisism” is a bit off. Narcisus fell in love with himself and ignored everything around himself. This **selfish **trait ultimately caused Echo to kill herself in typical Greek pathos. But God is the opposite of Narcisism. Instead of **selfishly **focusing on Himself, God **generously **gives Himself to us "so that we can be supremely Happy with Him Forever."
With that in mind, a pantheistic definition of God makes more sense, in that we are an expression of God (i.e: the Universe), but are not His subjects, and thus are not susceptible to damnation or judgment. The Universe “made” us, but had no clue it was doing so, and had no desire for us to exist or not.
Click to expand...
I agree that the Universe is neither our Creator nor our Judge. I also agree that the Universe is not God but I humbly suggest that the reverse is true as well – God is not the Universe.
 
Everything God created was good, and He did not create anything that was not good, and those things either do not exist therefore or their creation was done in sin. Because He created everything that was good, everything that was created was pleasing to Him

Creation was an act of love. God loved everything He created, and it was for that reason He created it. It delighted Him that what He made should exist and it was for that reason it does exist.

God did not create the universe so that He could love it, but rather He created it because He loved it, and for that reason He needed to make it exist.

Wisdom 11:24-25 For thou lovest all things that exist, and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made, for thou woudst not have made anything if thou hadst hated it. How would anything have endured if thou hadst not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by thee have been preserved?
 
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