He is a Creating and Sharing God

After a brief detour around the Book of Nahum, it is back to my “Eight Things that I Believe”. Remember – You are only allowed a maximum of twelve beliefs.

We are on to my Number Three. In number two, my “Belief” was that God made Man for his pleasure and purposes. I successfully evaded the question of what that purpose might be. Evasion is one of my core competencies. (“I’ll deal with that question at the end, if I may.”)

I am starting to have something of a problem. As I work through this list of eight items, or think ahead, I come across other important beliefs that warrant a place in the list. I am alright so far, as I am only up to ten (only you don’t know what they are yet).

“Belief Number Three” was originally to have been God’s purpose in making man. This is a pretty crucial subject, but I tripped myself on the question of why God embarked on this journey at all. Therefore, I am just going to have to add this to my list and see if I can deal with this now.

God’s overall purpose in starting the whole story (as per Genesis 1, for example) is not, as far as I can tell, set out anywhere. I am very happy to be contradicted on this point, and feel that I must be wrong and have missed something. (Who am I kidding? I will probably be very miffed when someone shows me the errors of my ways.)

I don’t know what theories people have and this is unusual for me. I normally undertake an informal survey, but not on this occasion. People must get fed up with me asking intrusive questions about religion and God. Even my second source, the 39 articles, has nothing to say on this subject. As a result, I will list some of the sillier ideas that have been put forward, without making any comment.

He was lonely and wanted some company
He likes to show off
He wants to be loved (a bit like the first one really)
He was bored

There is always the possibility that He didn’t have a purpose. He did it one moment, just to see what would happen. However, if that were the case, this blog would be totally undermined, and that is not fair.

It is time for me to get off the fence, and state my views on why God created the Universe and Man.

He likes to creates things
He wants to share himself

I carried out a Google Search on “Why did God create the Universe?” Nine of the first ten hits answered the question “Did God create the Universe?” and other one “Why did God NOT create the universe?” I am not sure what conclusions I should draw about Google from this. Perhaps the question “Why” is too difficult or just not asked very often.

The first serious hit on the Google search was about number 55, by Stafford Betty, a professor of religious studies. Stafford Betty puts forward the idea that God created the universe because he that is what he does. He is a creating God. (In my first blog in this series, I omitted this as a characteristic of God). He gives the analogy that a great composer, who composes music because it is something that flows from him. I’ll go for this reason. He created the Universe because he is a creating God. It is in his nature.

It is also possible that he created the Universe just as context for his creation of Man. The thought here is that the whole universe has only one purpose for God, which is to provide a backdrop for Man to live his life and for Man to appreciate the power of God. This alternative is an entirely credible conclusion from what I can see. The creation story in Genesis 1 could be interpreted in either way. However, if I have to decide for myself, one way or another, I will settle for the thought that God enjoys his creation for its own sake.

This still leaves us with the question why God made Man. Again, the Bible gives few clear answers, but perhaps a number of clues. The nearest that I can get to this, is that he wants to share himself and Man is the target of that sharing. Why God should want to do this is another question? (Questions within questions – will they never stop?). I can get no further than it is in His nature. For the same reason that He creates, He wants to share himself. It is in the nature of God himself to do these things.