Why would a perfect God create the universe?
Why would a God who is perfect, who lacks nothing, create humans?
It's true that God is completely happy in Himself, and there is nothing that can add to His happiness, including the creation of humans. But a reality where only God is perfectly happy has objectively less joy in it than a reality where God and billions of other beings are happy. So God created us purely so that we could be happy as well, as an act of kindness. But this act of kindness doesn't fill any lack in God's happiness, it's purely an act of kindness to creatures that haven't been made yet.
But then you could object that God doesn't do a very good job of making us happy...
The answer to this is that bearing the image of God is a great gift, but it needs to 'work' a certain way for that image-of-God to be happy. Much like if you make a car to run on petrol then you cannot give it fruit juice to run on. If we make choices that God wouldn't make in our position, namely, to sin, then our image of God doesn't 'work properly'. When the image of God is 'working' it's connected to God and feels the happiness of God. But when we sin, God is cut-off from the image of God (our soul) and that brings about suffering (Rom 5:12-14). So instead of being a wonderful gift, being a sinner makes bearing the image of God a terrible burden, because you must live life with your image of God cut-off from God and that means persistent suffering.
It's true that God is completely happy in Himself, and there is nothing that can add to His happiness, including the creation of humans. But a reality where only God is perfectly happy has objectively less joy in it than a reality where God and billions of other beings are happy. So God created us purely so that we could be happy as well, as an act of kindness. But this act of kindness doesn't fill any lack in God's happiness, it's purely an act of kindness to creatures that haven't been made yet.
But then you could object that God doesn't do a very good job of making us happy...
The answer to this is that bearing the image of God is a great gift, but it needs to 'work' a certain way for that image-of-God to be happy. Much like if you make a car to run on petrol then you cannot give it fruit juice to run on. If we make choices that God wouldn't make in our position, namely, to sin, then our image of God doesn't 'work properly'. When the image of God is 'working' it's connected to God and feels the happiness of God. But when we sin, God is cut-off from the image of God (our soul) and that brings about suffering (Rom 5:12-14). So instead of being a wonderful gift, being a sinner makes bearing the image of God a terrible burden, because you must live life with your image of God cut-off from God and that means persistent suffering.
Labels: nature of God
posted by Will G | Friday, July 10, 2009
2 Comments:
Hi Will.
I like this text (though I would change metaphor of the car as not too environmental-friendly but anyway) it explains the idea of being happy very well.
Thanks Asia!
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