When I did my original “List of Nine Items” for Ian Chambers, this was the first item on the list. I don’t know why I placed it first. It was not necessarily because I thought that it was the most important. It was just the first one that came into my head.
One could argue for ever about whether one belief is more important than another. However, as they are all part of the “Nine Items”, they are equally important. As “The Existence and Nature of God” came first, this one is second, merely as an arithmetical necessity.
Before we go on, I should mention that to get this far, you should have read Part 1 (link).
http://colinhawkersother.blogspot.com/2011/09/existence-and-nature-of-god.html
If you find that blog offensive and disagree with it violently, then you will enjoy this even less, and you should probably do something else.
Prayers are often phrased in the following way. They are requests to God to do something for us, our friends, our country perhaps, or the world as a whole. I do not make this statement to criticise it. My view at this point is largely neutral. However, it is my starting point that we are concerned largely with ourselves, even in our Religion.
All this is very natural. It is often good and right as well.
How does this sit with the fact that it was God who made man (and time, the earth and the Universe etc) and not the other way around (despite what some may say*)?
I could pose the question in a different way: “Did God create me for my benefit?” or “Did God create me for His benefit?" My original hypothesis is that we start by believing the former, i.e. that our creation was for our benefit. This universe is about me.
The theme in the Bible of God’s chosen people (whether the people of Israel in the Old Testament or the Church of the New Testament) places great emphasis on the importance of “us”. It also places even greater emphasis on God’s dealings with us, of what he requires from us.
God’s dealings with us also point us in the same direction. Life is not a trouble free existence and God is not a Father Christmas, bringing us endless presents. But I am only telling you this stuff now that you already know.
Why God should go to what seems to have been a great deal of trouble is not clear. The Westminster Shorter Catechism has a stab at this and says: “Man’s chief end is to know him and glorify him forever”. This is quite a leap.
So what is that purpose? This is a sensible question. The central point is that God made all this, everything that we see, touch, hear, think etc. for his pleasure and purpose. What my thoughts, ideas and speculation on what this purpose might be, will have to be saved for another day.
* For a heavyweight rebuttal of some of the arguments that God does not exist, you could worse than read: http://www.brainwaves.org.uk/reports/lion_bw_report_018.shtml
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