One of
the most troubling questions brought before pastors, priests or any other
apologist for God is this: Why did God create mankind? While I would argue some
things just are the case, to say God
did create man with no further explanation would be disturbing to any believer
who wishes to assume there is a perfect being that at the same time has reasons
for its actions. (It seems odd to me a perfect being would have reasons for its
actions, that is to say, has desires.) Apologists hate this question primarily
because the faithful hate being challenged on their beliefs and secondarily
because they simply don’t know. But asking why God created mankind is important
if we’re to be inclined to follow the dictates of any creator of ours. The
answer to such a question would give human life direction, a direction we would
be able to say we might be compelled to follow if we also hold the belief that
we should listen to our parents for no other reason than they created us.
The fact
that apologists don’t know the answer to this question is evidenced by pages
and pages of Google searches that turn out the same few unsatisfactory
explanations or dodge the question entirely, as if you had put the question to
a nearly deaf lunatic. Here are some of the explanations:
Christianitytoday.com
is of the opinion that mankind was created to play a rule in some ultimate plan
God has for the universe. However, prior to this revelation, the author of the
article, Dawson McAllister, acknowledges that God has no need of us per se, but
decided to make us out of His love for us, a love which preceded our very
existence. (How is McAllister sure our creation wasn’t done out of malice? This
would seem more consistent with the world we actually live in.) BUT since God
did make mankind, we might as well serve some purpose for Him. While we don’t
know this purpose, we can help fulfil this purpose by worshipping God, first of
all. Nevermind that McAllister states earlier that God did not make us out of
some vain need to be worshipped. The explanation ends with the unfounded
assertion that we need God, not the other way around. Please note that this
decrepit reasoning doesn’t necessarily make McAllister a bad person, just a
poor thinker.
Goodnewsaboutgod.com’s
explanation, given by an M.D. (allegedly) is that our existence is necessary
for the redemption of our spirits from sin by dying. Feel free to read that
again. Apparently God cannot stop or redeem the sins of eternal beings – such
as, say, a fallen angel – so God had to make mankind so that someone could be
saved from sinning by choosing to follow God. "Thus humanity is made the vehicle through which the
reconciling of the universe is to be effected, even though all efforts of
humanity itself are in vain and come to nothing, and it is left to God to
provide, in the person of His Son, the one effectual means by which this
reconciliation is to be accomplished." So it seems God is not omnipotent
after all. God isn’t much of an architect either, if He’s relying on mankind to
redeem the entire universe. Should of just created the universe right the first
time, God. Just sayin.’
John D. Morris of the Institute of Creation Research is a bit more humble and is inclined to say, in part, that this is a sufficiently difficult question to fully answer. But Morris tries anyway, saying that God is love and (for some reason) showers love upon things that deserve punishment. (I know, I know.) Morris continues: “But in His love He desired reciprocal love, so He created man in His own image. Man was given the ability to respond to God's love or reject it. In the beginning man enjoyed full fellowship with God, but soon rejected Him, bringing the ruination of all creation. This wasn't God's intention, so He implemented His plan for creation to fulfill its intended purpose.” Morris begins his piece by saying we don’t know why we were created, then says he does know why. But if what Morris is saying is right, God is fallible. Moreover, Morris’ claims conflicts with other apologists who insist that God did not create us in order to be worshipped. But, in being consistent with other apologists, Morris claims our existence is part of some greater plan though whatever this plan is is never fleshed out. Morris claims to be a PhD, but his institution’s website will not say of what. No surprise there.
One of the more (?)
baffling answers is given to us by gotquestions.org. Their short answer is that
God desires worship even though God doesn’t need
it because God is perfect. Question: As I hinted at earlier, wouldn’t a perfect
being be free of desire, of the need to please itself? And, for no apparent
reason speaking on God’s perfection, the anonymous author goes on to
illogically conclude that in God’s perfection, He cannot make anything greater
or even equal to himself because than God would not be the One true God. That’s
the equivalent of saying I could not have a son who is better than me because
then I would not be the one true Theory Parker. The answer provided eventually
concludes that we were created to have the pleasure of knowing God, which
surely does not speak to the vanity of God which so many other apologists avoid
saying.
Lastly, for now, Biblestudy.org
claims “The culmination of God's creation was to
create US, man, which is what Genesis clearly states (see Genesis 1, especially
1:26),” in effect saying that mankind is the equivalent of the star you put on
top of the Christmas tree, that last little touch that really makes the tree
come alive. Basically, mankind is a decoration. But God also made this pinnacle
of God’s creation incomplete – only a physical being – and only worshipping God
makes the physical creation complete by adding its spiritual dimension. Deeper
into Bilblestudy’s explanation, things get stranger and further from any
rational explanation by asserting we are basically copies of God who can become
equal to God if we follow God’s dictates.
Now, it can’t be the
case that all of these viewpoints are correct, so one or more of them are
wrong. (Likely, all of them.) If any one of them were correct it should be
obvious and that would be the default answer. The plethora of answers indicates
apologists are simply guessing. But we must reiterate why this question is
important: We should know why we are created if we are to fulfill any purpose
our creator (or creators) may have laid out for us. But would that purpose even
be necessary to follow?
Imagine if you will a
deep sea robot sent to record data from the ocean depths. If the robot were
able to reflect upon it’s own existence, it might ask why it is doing the job
laid out before it, that is, collecting data. Should the robot say to itself,
“Well, this is what my creator wants me to do, so I’m going to do it”? The
robot is under no obligation – simply because it was created by someone – to do the job it was programmed to do, and
if it doesn’t do its job or fails in its job, it creator doesn’t condemn it to
hell. If anything, the creator of the robot will say, “That’s unfortunate. I
should build a better robot next time.” The creator doesn’t hold the failure of
the creation against the creation, he or she holds it against themselves. [While
it can be granted that the robot needn’t know why it is collecting data for the
creator, a self-aware robot may not choose to follow its programming for any
number of reasons. It may not like the job laid out before it or may not like
the creator’s ultimate reason for creating it. Or it may not do its job due to
a glitch.]
To draw the analogy
closer to home, imagine you have a child and the child grows into a rebellious
teenager, or heaven forbid, a ‘moral’ vegan. Is the child you created obligated
to follow your rules such as eating meat simply because you created them? What
if your intended purpose in having a child was to create a pro football player?
If they don’t make the cut, do you hold it against the child? Surely too many
people hold the acts of the child against the child, at least over the short
term, but this is simply the avoidance of responsibility by their creator. Or
is it? When there is a conflict between the creator and the created, who is at
fault?
The only possible
answer is no one. There is no reason for a creation to follow the dictates of a
creator simply for the act of being created. After all, the creation usually
has no say in the matter of it being created. At the same time, the creator
cannot account for every action the creation might take, not unless they were
omniscient. Theologically, the problem in God’s creations not following the
dictates of God are God’s fault
because God should have known better if God is omniscient.
Back to how this
relates to the purpose of mankind from the apologist’s perspective. People ask
apologists why mankind was created, but for the most part, the answers are
unsatisfactory or at best, partial guesses. If God at all requires or desires
worship, God is vain. This is unacceptable to most fair-minded theists, or they
will at least try to avoid saying this outright. If instead mankind is part of
a plan, which plan is it? If the purpose of mankind is to follow God in hopes
of redemption from original sin, this is both redundant and cannot be mankind’s
original purpose since there was no sin until Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the
Garden of Eden. If mankind is part of some greater plan we are not privy to,
this is not very convincing in trying to get a skeptic to follow God since we
can’t know that God’s ultimate plan isn’t evil. Moreover, mankind is under no
obligation to follow God’s plan just because God decided to create mankind. To
be obliged in such a respect, mankind would have to know the full details of
the plan while at the same time universally conclude that the plan was good
(insofar as we recognize goodness beyond the dictates of the creator or
creators). The only other reason someone might feel obliged to praise and follow God is because their life is so
good they want to thank someone. That’s all well and good, but this is not the
same as being obliged in the true sense of the word.
If you’ll notice, a man
or woman confident in themselves and able to give their own life direction
doesn’t ask why mankind was created or what their purpose in life is. It is a
person in a moment or moments of weakness (who is also the easily led on
occasion) who will ask “Why am I here?” The answer is “Why do you want to be
here?” Obviously, by the myriad of answers given by apologists, they have
answered the question for themselves. They simply don’t realize that is exactly
what they have done.
Why am I here? To tell
you that you can tell yourself why you are here. If you believe God gave you
free will for a reason, then use it.
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