But here is the big question:Why did God create us?

[Jac3510]

To your first question, I would say the only thing God is bound to is morals.

And that's the category error I was getting at earlier. God is not bound by morals. I'm not saying that God is free to be immoral. I'm saying the words "God is bound by morals" makes about as much sense as "How much does blue weigh?" Do a search for "Euthyphro Dilemma" on this board and/or go read Making Divine Simplicity Simpleto see why.

I think it is biblically correct to say that God can not do anything unmoral. Other than that I would also say no to the first question. To your second question, can we really know if God does or doesn't desire something outside Himself? It is a hard question to answer. After all His ways are above our ways, and His thoughts above our thoughts. We cannot claim to know for sure about all of God's thought's and desires.

Again, it is not a hard question to answer. You and I have a different understanding of what God is. God is perfect, which means, by definition, He could not want anything outside of Himself. To desire something means tat you want to obtain something that you do not have, and that means that you lack something. If you lack something, you are not perfect. But God is perfect, ergo God lacks nothing, ergo God cannot receive anything, ergo God cannot desire anything. To suggest that He can is to suggest that He is not perfect.

As to the His ways and His thoughts verse, really, go read the book I wrote. I have a whole chapter on that whole issue (chapter five, if you want to skip right to it).

-----------------

Now, if you answer yes to the first and imply a yes is possible to the second, then I will go further than your OP. I will state that God is evil and therefore not God. If you can answer "yes" to either of my questions, then I respond that theism itself is incoherent and that we may as well be atheists. Perhaps there is some superman type being out there that is masquerading as a god, but he is no such thing, and to claim to be God would you are not is evil. So even such a being would be evil. In that case, there is no such thing as morality at all. Perhaps such a being rules by the golden rule (he who has the gold makes the rules), but I, frankly, have no reason to think such a being exists, nor am I interested in such a one.

If, on the other hand, you answer both with "no" as you must to be consistent, then Paul's question is pretty easily answered: there is no "why" that God created, nor can there be. He created simply because He chose to. In the old language of the Church, He created because it was fitting. But there is no reason, nor could there be, for such would imply that God was compelled by some set of circumstances to act, and therefore God is not free (and therefore, again, not God). He created for our benefit, to love us, to manifest His goodness (and that for our benefit, not His). He created to allow us to enjoy and share in the eternal, unchangeable, untouchable happiness that is His Existence. He did this, again, not out of some desire to do so, as if He gains something by doing good, but simply out of grace. And that, to me, is a profound that: creation itself is a matter of grace. He does even that for us, not for Himself. We are the beneficiaries of all that He is. He gains absolutely nothing from us, from our praise, or even from doing good for us. He does it all simply because He sovereignly and graciously choose to bless.

So I would answer Paul's question with one last: why does God choose to bless us at all? The answer to that question is the same answer as why He created us in the first place. Because He freely wills it.

[abelcainsbrother]

God created us to have fellowship with him because we choose to out of our own free-will.Adam walked with God before he sinned.Sin separated us from God and so Christ came to break that separation and now it is through him that we can be sin free so that we can again have fellowship with our Father God without sin and guilt.

[1over137]

http://www.openbible.info/topics/why_god_created_man just throwing verses here

[Silvertusk]

Thank you for the replies everyone.
To Silvertusk, I would like to believe in annihilationism also, but I find scriptures like Matthew 25:46 to disprove that theology, though it would seem that such a theology would affirm God's power and mercy. However, I don't see how it is amazing that God knew humans would sin but created us anyway so we could just end up sinning.
To Kurieuo, I do not believe that a holy God should accept anyone nor that He should take away our freewill. I believe it is puzzling that He knew that our freewill would lead to our making ourselves unholy but created us anyways.
To PaulSacramento, I understand where your coming from with your analogy, but you are oversimplifying God's actions by comparing it to a human action. For example, if you were given the knowledge (before you had children) that one or more of your children would go to Hell if you had them, would you still choose to have them born? If you did, what does that say about your decision? Yes, they are responsible for their own actions, but if you and let them be born anyways, are you not in some way a part of them going to Hell? It would seem better to choose to not have the children. On a grander, this is essentially what God did. The Bible says God wishes that none would perish, and yet He made an entire race of beings in which hundreds upon hundreds of millions of them would and will perish. Yes, many will go to heaven, but I still stand by what I said earlier about nonexistence. If God has an entire heavenly kingdom (a third of which He still had to banish) with angels worshiping Him continually, why would he create a race of beings in which many of them would end up destroying themselves? How much worship does He need? He has other angelic beings to give love to, so I don't comprehend why he would make more beings that were even inferior to angels to try to give love to.
Thank you again for the replies, and I hope this remains a constructive conversation.

I would argue that annihilation is eternal punishment - because there is no coming back from it. Also have you ever noticed that eternal life throughout all of scripture seems to be something you have to earn (through salvation) or inherit. I think there is scope to take it both ways. I just conclude to the one that sits more coherently with an all-loving God. I know many who agree with me and there is a lot of material out there - but also of course many who disagree with me and that is fine.

You know what, I'll look more into that. Maybe there are some scriptures that I haven't noticed concerning that line of thought.

Here a place to start: https://www.biblicalperspectives.com/bo ... tion/6.htm

There is an organization called rethinking hell as well which has some interesting perspectives - http://rethinkinghell.com/

Like I said there are two camps to this so read the material and draw your own conclusions. Either way - what you think about hell does not affect your salvation.

[ConfusedMan]

To your first question, I would say the only thing God is bound to is morals.

And that's the category error I was getting at earlier. God is not bound by morals. I'm not saying that God is free to be immoral. I'm saying the words "God is bound by morals" makes about as much sense as "How much does blue weigh?" Do a search for "Euthyphro Dilemma" on this board and/or go read Making Divine Simplicity Simpleto see why.

I think it is biblically correct to say that God can not do anything unmoral. Other than that I would also say no to the first question. To your second question, can we really know if God does or doesn't desire something outside Himself? It is a hard question to answer. After all His ways are above our ways, and His thoughts above our thoughts. We cannot claim to know for sure about all of God's thought's and desires.

Again, it is not a hard question to answer. You and I have a different understanding of what God is. God is perfect, which means, by definition, He could not want anything outside of Himself. To desire something means tat you want to obtain something that you do not have, and that means that you lack something. If you lack something, you are not perfect. But God is perfect, ergo God lacks nothing, ergo God cannot receive anything, ergo God cannot desire anything. To suggest that He can is to suggest that He is not perfect.

As to the His ways and His thoughts verse, really, go read the book I wrote. I have a whole chapter on that whole issue (chapter five, if you want to skip right to it).

-----------------

Now, if you answer yes to the first and imply a yes is possible to the second, then I will go further than your OP. I will state that God is evil and therefore not God. If you can answer "yes" to either of my questions, then I respond that theism itself is incoherent and that we may as well be atheists. Perhaps there is some superman type being out there that is masquerading as a god, but he is no such thing, and to claim to be God would you are not is evil. So even such a being would be evil. In that case, there is no such thing as morality at all. Perhaps such a being rules by the golden rule (he who has the gold makes the rules), but I, frankly, have no reason to think such a being exists, nor am I interested in such a one.

If, on the other hand, you answer both with "no" as you must to be consistent, then Paul's question is pretty easily answered: there is no "why" that God created, nor can there be. He created simply because He chose to. In the old language of the Church, He created because it was fitting. But there is no reason, nor could there be, for such would imply that God was compelled by some set of circumstances to act, and therefore God is not free (and therefore, again, not God). He created for our benefit, to love us, to manifest His goodness (and that for our benefit, not His). He created to allow us to enjoy and share in the eternal, unchangeable, untouchable happiness that is His Existence. He did this, again, not out of some desire to do so, as if He gains something by doing good, but simply out of grace. And that, to me, is a profound that: creation itself is a matter of grace. He does even that for us, not for Himself. We are the beneficiaries of all that He is. He gains absolutely nothing from us, from our praise, or even from doing good for us. He does it all simply because He sovereignly and graciously choose to bless.

So I would answer Paul's question with one last: why does God choose to bless us at all? The answer to that question is the same answer as why He created us in the first place. Because He freely wills it.

I still have to do some thinking about your first question, though I am starting to see what you are saying, and I do agree with you on the second premise now. Thank you for the clarification.

[melanie]

Hmmm not going to be too popular here, but my intention is not to criticise but to be honest through my own lens of what I see to be true.
Does that mean I have the monopoly on truth?
Far from it!
None of us do. Outside of what is made abundantly clear in scripture. The type of info that saves souls. It is just my interpretation and understanding.
Jac, I am troubled by the certainty that you claim to know and/or understand the nature of the Almighty. Understanding that which is beyond comprehension.
The reality is here that some things are beyond us. Due to the pathetic ness of us in comparison to God. Mere man understanding God. Not likely. We can speculate, hypothesis, gain as much insight as possible but we are aint even close to cutting it. Not by a long shot. My feelings here are not reserved primarily for you personally but for many who claim a knowledge outside of their level of expertise. That being human.

My point is that we can do our very best, with the very best intention to understand our existence and its meaning but I find it troubling to insert said 'understanding' as a explanation for Gods magnificence and reasoning for doing anything. Which brings our points very closely aligned inasmuch as 'because he wills it'. Which I agree absolutely with you. We look for meaning which makes sense to us, using human reasoning but God is not bound by such.
Making it impossible to use our 'reasoning' limited by the very nature of being human to even begin to speculate on the 'reasoning' of God.
The best tool we have, outside of theology or philosophy is scripture.
This tells us God does everything out of love. He is love. His perfectness doesn't require as far as I see it anything outside of the continuation and creation and projection of love.
The question was not why does God create. That answer is answerable in of itself.
Why does a creator create?
By His very nature.
But why did God create 'us'.
Because He loves us. He loved us before we were created.

Jac said

perhaps we should stop thinking God cares so much

I think not.
I think the exact opposite.
Perhaps we should start thinking that God is incapable of anything but caring about His creation with anything but perfect care and love.
Anything that contradicts seemingly does so not by His nature but by our restrictive nature and understanding.

Perfect love that is most beautifully and perfectly exhibited, felt and continued not by self saught glory and praise but by expression. We are just part of an expression of love.

[Jac3510]

I don't take it personally, mel, and I don't think there's any worry about being popular. I appreciate what you are trying to say, but I just don't think it holds water in the end. In the first place, there's nothing in Scripture to condemn reasoning (and the verses usually cited are taken very much out of context--again, I have a whole chapter on that in my book on DS). Just the opposite, Scripture upholds it. It's one of the ways we love God, after all.

Second, while your intentions are certainly pious (and that in the best sense, nothing derogatory intended there), your argument is self-refuting. Do you not see that you are trying make an argument--which necessarily is to use reason--to show that reason isn't applicable? Why, if your argument is correct, then it disproves itself, because the very reasoning you appeal to in order to prove your argument is, by your argument, invalid.

If you have a problem with what I've suggested, with God as I have painted Him, then might I suggest one of two paths forward?

1. Consider the possibility that the picture I've painted is actually correct, and your objections are actually misplaced; or
2. Grapple with the reasoning I've provided and point out where you think I have gone off track.

Either of those are fine with me and make for good discussion. And if you're objections are correct and I have said something about God that is not true, then my arguments must be invalid somewhere. You would, then, do me (or others who are reading me) a double favor in showing those flaws: one, to prevent me (them) from speaking falsely about God, and two, to demonstrate for me (them) where the arguments I've put forward are incorrect so that I (they) no longer rely on them. But a well intentioned blanket condemnation of reason (when applied to God) is not acceptable and is, may I very gently submit, actually an unbiblical attitude.

[Philip]

To say that God created ANYTHING because He needed more of something He previously lacked is to ignore the unchangeableness of God. He never changes and He can never be more or less than He has ALWAYS been. He is complete as He is - He needs nothing/lacks nothing - us or anything else He creates. Now, He can love something He creates, but that is not to say He actually needs it. You can't make God dependent upon anything outside of Himself - that is impossible! That would be an oxymoron!

[Kurieuo]

If God did not create us then would God be who God is?
God's character, presumably could be this or that. But, God is who God is: "I AM WHO I AM".

SO then, because God being God just happens to be <insert attribute> then does God's <attribute> necessarily bind God to such?
(substitute in "loving", "gracious", "sovereign", "judge" or what-have-you).

Sometimes questions should not be answered.
This last question of mine is actually built upon unsound premises.
So if you answered "yes" or "no" then you're actually answering a nonsense question.
The reason being God simply is who He is in virtue of who He is and so cannot bind Himself to this or that.

I consider Mel right to expect God to be this or that way (i.e., loving) based upon what He has revealed about Himself to us.
And Jac and phil are also right to point out that God is not bound to loving us or the like --
although the revealed facts of the matter are that God as who God is does give a damn about us (at least, that is the Christian message).

[Jac3510]

In fairness, when I talked about God not caring, it was with reference to not caring "so much [about our sins or good works]." Anyway, there is no contradiction between saying that God loves us and that God is completely unaffected by us in any and every sense such that He neither gains or loses anything, even in our salvation or condemnation. Both are truths, should be affirmed as such, and are, frankly, much easier to reconcile than some other sets (i.e., God is sovereign/man has free will).

[Kurieuo]

@Jac,

Hopefully you can follow my further reflections here as I'd be interested in any of your own thoughts.

Re: God's sovereignty versus our free will -- there's an interesting correlation that I see to what's just been said.
As you put it, working with an "easier reconciliation" of God's loving us with God being completely unaffected by us...
why couldn't something similar be said of God's gift of free will?

To re-phrase in the words of my last post: God is who God is in loving us. Similarly, God is who God is in creating free beings.
God as God need not have done either, need not explain Himself, need not have created, etc -- but God's actions shows us who God is.
And then we try apply this and that label to God, with boxes of different attributes that we recognise. When in actually, it is just God being Himself as the brute fact that counts.

Take the following logical dilemma...
To say God could truly create free beings, seems to impinge upon God's sovereign power to be in control of our choices and like.
And yet, to say God could not create truly free beings, also impinges upon God's sovereign power since God now seems restrained by His very own "sovereign power".
= Contradiction.

Yet, the issue is similar to what I just described in my previous post re: God being loving.
Some may believe God as God necessarily has to love us. But no. God being loving is actually just WHO God is, even if God isn't necessarily obligated to love.
Similarly, some may believe God's sovereignty necessitates that God has to be sovereign in every way. This attribute is being separated out from God, as though it is some external part of God, RATHER THAN just allowing God to be WHO God is and DO as God in fact pleases within Himself.

When we separate an attribute from God, whether it is God's love or God's sovereignty, such an attribute actually becomes "binding" upon God.
This logically limits what God can/cannot do -- and so we run into the logical dilemma and apparent contradiction above re: God's sovereign power.

The only resolution I see is to be found in reconciling what we recongise as God's attributes in WHO God is.
In fact, Divine Simplicity necessitates something like this, so this argues favourably for DS.

All attributes are really just attributes we recognise in WHO God is, rather than actually being attributes in and of themselves which would render them "parts" of God.
We talk of this or that attribute only so that we can carry on a meaningful discussion about such things.
BUT, it is us who cause such distinctions in God, when in fact God is just who He is and there are no such distinctions.

God's response in Exodus 3:14 couldn't present a more foundationally accurate (and "simple") view of God: "I AM WHO I AM."

[PaulSacramento]

While I agree Jac, this here;" God is absolutely, perfectly complete and happy in and of Himself." begs the question of, "If so, why create?"

Sure, but before I could really address that, I'd ask two simple questions:

1. Is God bound by anything? That is, is there any external principle that binds God to necessarily do this or necessarily not do that?
2. Does God lack anything? That is, is there anything that God could desire outside of Himself that He would somehow profit by obtaining?

I think it is self-evident that the answer to both is necessarily, "no." What say you?

God is bound by His very nature, if "bound" is even the right word.
God can't do anything that is not of His nature to do OR that is a "logical" inconsistency.
God does NOT lack anything of course

[PaulSacramento]

So I would answer Paul's question with one last: why does God choose to bless us at all? The answer to that question is the same answer as why He created us in the first place. Because He freely wills it.

NO offence, while that is truly the only answer there is, it is still a "cop-out" since it doesn't really answer the question.
Of course we simply do NOT know why God chose to create, other than what we can deem by His greatest revelation of Himself, His Son Jesus Christ.
Why did the Son of God become Man?
He didn't have to, He didn't need to, He chose to, He freely willed it be so, but WHY?

The many passages attest to the why, but perhaps this one says it best because it says it simply:
For God so Loved the World...

[Jac3510]

K, I think I can agree with your comments 100%. The sheer freedom of God not only to do what He wants be to be "what" He wants--since He is what He does--is astounding. As you put it, it ultimately becomes a brute fact, and that probably lies at the heart of these paradoxes we struggle with. We are often trying to find underlying reasons for that for which there is no reason but for which is actually the reason of everything else. Really profound stuff, I think . .

Paul, I don't think it is appropiate to say that God is "bound" by His nature. As you suggest, "bound" would be the wrong word anyway, but more to the point, such language suggests that God's nature is something that He has (like you have your human nature). But that's just not the case with God. God doesn't have a nature. He is His nature, so you can't say that He is bound by it, as if they are two distinct things, where the latter has some governing function over the former. And the reason God can't do that which is logically self-contradictory is not because He is incapable of such, but because such is nothing at all. When we say that God can do anything, then presumption is there is a thing to be done. But a square triangle is no more a thing than a asowiehfnweohiasdhf. And so it is with all sorts of "things" we say God "can't" do because they violate "His nature." God, for instance, "can't lie," but that's not really because He is too holy to do such a thing (although such language would not be too inappropriate) but simply because having "God" as the subject of the verb "to lie" is a self-contradiction no less than having "God" as the subject of the verb "does not exist." We need to remember that just because we can string words together and think they have meaning, it doesn't mean that they do. Colorless dreams do not, as it turns out, sleep furiously.

In light of that (and I take no offense at your comments), my answer is not a cop-out. I would like to suggest that you have either misunderstood or have not taken seriously the sheer weight of the claim that God is Existence Itself. There literally is no reason. To put things more technically, the principle of sufficient reason must terminate in something that is its own reason, something for which there is no other reason whatsoever. Note that the PSR does not terminiate in something for which there is no reason, but in something for which there is no other reason other than itself. To suggset otherwise is to either have what amounts to something coming into existence from nothing or else create an infinite regression of essential causes, both of which are absurd. Now, if the PSR terminates in something that is its own reason, then the "reason" must be simply that it is. And so it is in this case. Does does not create for any reason, for that necessarily entails that something external to God compels Him to do what He did (that is what a reason is, after all). So we must say that God Himself is the reason He created. Since we cannot distinguish between God's nature, God's existence, and God's will--since they are all exactly identcal--then it follows that God's free choice to create just is God. And why? Because God so chose it. And why? Because that is what God is. And why is that what God is? Do you see the impossible circle here? If you try to assign a reason, it is inescapable.

The ultimate answer is that God is what God is because God has willed to be what He is; He has willed Himself, and that necessarily so. And in willing Himself, He has willed to create, not out of any necessity nor for any reason, but simply because that is what God has willed to be. That, of course, is for our benefit (not for His, I cannot stress that enough). He gains nothing from that willing. It is just what He does, and we call that grace. We call that love. So it isn't true that God being His own reason--the brute fact that is Him plus His absolute perfection--means that He doesn't love us. It just means that His love (even in creation) is so perfect and pure that it has absolutely nothing to do with what He gets or doesn't get out of it (which is something we just can't fathom because it isn't in our experience). It's so pure that it is totally about us, and there is no reason for that whatsoever other than this: God is.

That's not a cop out. That's just good theology.

[PaulSacramento]

One can argue that is getting into Deist territory Jac.