gad-fly wrote: ↑June 8th, 2021, 5:43 pm
Yours is among the best replies I have received so far.
The answer to a question depends on its premises. Agreed. I could have posed the question as: "Assuming God has created the universe, why did he do it?" On the other hand, if I ask why, the premises should be taken a priori. I am in no position to defend the premises even if some has found it offensive. I can also understand why some are awe-struck when we ponder on the motivation of a super being. "You can never understand him, or Big Brother, or Dear Leader. Who do you think you are?" Fine. But I can try.
Thank you, I'm glad you find my post of value.
I do think it is worthwhile to try. While it may be true that we can never completely know or understand a being that is so infinitely greater than ourselves, we can begin to know God, and grow in that knowledge - and in most faith traditions it's understood that it is intended that we do exactly that.
gad-fly wrote: ↑June 8th, 2021, 5:43 pm
"The short answer in scripture is that God created the universe for his greater glory." If so, my question is reductant, though I would be grateful if you can enlighten me in this respect by quoting the Bible. The purpose of creation is vain self-glorification? Surely it must be more noble than that.
I was going to try to answer this myself, but in the process of looking for the references from scripture I came across these articles which I think say it better than I could, and include the quotes that you've asked for:
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/ ... s-glory--2
https://ses.edu/why-did-god-create-anything/
I think the first writer puts it well that what's referred to as God's 'glory' is not vanity or need for flattery, but rather the 'the infinite beauty and greatness of God’s manifold perfections' - it's a recognition of God's great goodness and worth for what He is. That's very different from human vanity, which is the desire to have others see you as something more than you are.
gad-fly wrote: ↑June 8th, 2021, 5:43 pm
My suggestion to God's enjoyment as the reason trivializes it? I don't think so. human creates toy and keep pets. Why not God for the same reason? At this juncture le me bring in the reason of curiosity and interest in the product of creation. Loneliness and companionship may be among the reasons too. Imagine God being all alone for ever. Companionship would conform with your suggestion that God need to communicate goodness and love.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a fun-loving, humanitarian, and sensual creator, with the capacity to be sad, disappointed, and challenged, rather than a stone wall?
As I see it, you're describing God here in human terms - forming an idea about God with descriptions based on human experiences - enjoyment, loneliness, sadness, disappointment, and so forth. It's natural to do this since that is what we know, and we all do it, but I think that doing so is only useful in a sort of allegorical and non-literal way.
It's important to remember that in this faith, God is not created in our image - we are created in God's image. The challenge to us is not to figure out what God
is like based on who we are, but to
know God for what He actually is, and thereby come to better know ourselves as we were created to be. In other words, not to think
about God, but to get to know God directly and recognize Him as a living being. And we do this by opening ourselves to Him and recognizing His goodness - the Truth, Beauty and Love - that is in us and all around us.
In my experience, it's in doing this that we can begin to understand some of the 'why' questions like yours. But with something that is so much greater than ourselves, a part of it remains beyond the ability of our small minds to completely grasp, and beyond the limits of language to completely capture. I don't know if that makes any sense, and hopefully doesn't sound like I'm preaching, but maybe I've been able to show some of my perspective.