Why Did God Create Us?

Someone asked a preacher, “Why did God create us?” To the preacher, that was an interesting question. His answer was along the following line: “God created us to love and enjoy him.” What an interesting way to answer an interesting question.

Hold on a second. Did the answer offered by the preacher satisfy your curiosity? If not, why not? Actually, I find that question to be an existential one, especially for those who believe in God. But why?

As we explore this question, why did God create us? I shall do my due diligence to explain why I find it to be essential. But we must first consider whether or not God created us to begin with. So, buckle up; let's dive in.

Meanwhile, here's our previous Read: Let The Dead Bury Their Dead.

Did God Create Us?

Did God create us? Hmm. The question of God's existence is one that people wrestle with. Those who affirm the proposition do so with conviction, while those who reject the proposition do so with a lack thereof. However, the existence of human beings and the reality within and without give us reasons to ponder beyond argumentations.

We often ask the following question: Who am I? Why am I here? Is there meaning to life? Was I created for a purpose? What else is out there? These, and many more, are questions that we grapple with individually. Many people feel uncomfortable with the fact that we don't have all the answers and are searching and seeking. Then, the introduction of the concept of a God creating us and the reality we see and experience becomes more prevalent. It offers comfort to the discomforted and meaning to that which appears to be meaningless apart from it. God, they say, is the answer to everything.

Depending on who you ask, the word “God” means different things to different people. But we can agree that its general usage is with reference to a creator or the ultimate source of our being and of all existence, whether known or unknown.

That being said, the understanding of such being in existence puts us in another problematic situation, where we have to argue what God is or isn't, the positive and negative aspects, how we know what we know about God, and how reliable the method is. But putting all that luggage aside, let's agree for the purpose of this conversation that God exists and is the source of our existence. That is to say, God created us. So, why did God create us?

Having agreed to further the conversation to this point, acknowledging our limitations and welcoming the proposition of the ultimate source of our being, we've gotten to the real problem. But if you want something that deals with the specific question, Does God exist?, we may have to discuss that separately. Thank you.

Why Did God Create Us?

As a believer in the Christian faith, I've thought about this question. I remember standing by my window, viewing the sky and the environment before me, and being left to wonder. I wondered how we started and got to the point where we developed the ability to do the things we've done. We've come a long way, and the thought of dying and an afterlife caught me in disarray. “God created us, knowing that someday, we would die and some would go to hell, but he did anyways,” I thought. “But why did God create us? Was it for us or for himself?” I think therein lies the divide.

Actually, my religious inclining offered me an answer that I'd share with you. The problem is, like the one offered by the preacher, the answer only sufficed for a while. Do you know what that is? That's why we're here, isn't it?

In the book of Genesis, where the creation story was narrated, the first account presented an interaction in a council of the Elohim, supposed to be the triune God in Christianity. While that could lead us to another problematic situation, let's focus on the creation of man.

Genesis 1:26 KJV, And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:27 KJV, So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:28 KJV, And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

The above verses reveal to us the consideration of the God to make mankind (that is, us) to look like God. But the main reason why God created us was to exercise dominion over the things that he had created already. Those things included the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the livestock, and the whole earth, including every living, moving thing on it. Is that all? Yeah, but. What does that even mean? It means God created us to take care of the things he created. The second narrative makes it clearer.

In Genesis 2, the narrative reveals that after God created the heavens and the earth and everything in it, something was lacking: rain upon the earth and someone to till the ground. The idea of a farmer becomes prevalent here. But the narrative continued with water coming out of the ground to water the earth, and God then forming man from the dust of the ground. He breathed life into his nostrils, and the man came alive. Here, the idea of a potter and the clay is depicted.

Then God planted a garden eastward in Eden with trees, including the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Also, he produced a river to water the garden, a river that parted into four heads: Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates.

Genesis 2:15 KJV says, And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

With that, we can deduce that God created man consciously to serve the purpose of God. But what is that purpose? Is it just to till the ground and watch over the earth? This is where it gets tricky and a bit complicated. Another layer gets added to the story. It's the idea that God gave the man an instruction to avoid eating from a particular tree that God created; that doing so would result in death for the man. Isn't this death supposed to be a relief from the workload of being a caretaker? If not, why did God fashion its existence? Free will? To choose to keep dressing the garden or cease from it? Or was it intentional to mess things up and make the story become more interesting and relatable?

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But something isn't adding up. Maybe it is, but I'm not getting it. Maybe I'm looking at it from a different angle. Hold on! Too many maybes I've got here. Let me think for a second. Right, let's consider something: a revelation from the book of Revelation.

Revelation 4:9 And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,

Revelation 4:10 The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

Revelation 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Looking away from the drama in the garden as it pertained to the man in the narrative and perhaps can be interpreted to reflect the present state of things, we can see that if God created us, it was for his pleasure. Not man alone, but all things. Taking that at face value, the “all things” would include thoughts and actions and everything that exists. It makes me wonder if that God, according to the Christian Bible, is taking pleasure directly or indirectly in all that's happening around the world.

If it is true that he created man, planted the tree, detected the result that would follow from eating of it, and commanded not to, foreknowing that they would, as well as the repercussion of doing so, it is but fair to conclude that God was in control, is in control, and will forever be, according to the scriptures. The story is quite fascinating, and I'll leave the implication of that for you to consider.

Moreover, considering other understandings of God would leave us with a more complex or less complicated situation. Even the understanding of our limitations and the idea that God is unknowable leaves us with ourselves to grow and experience everything life has to offer: the positives and negatives of this reality and of our actions, to learn to give, to love, and to cherish what we have. While we may not fully understand why, one day, when death comes knocking, we may have to go. With that, I yield. It's your call; share your thoughts.