Question:

I have been struggling recently with wondering why God has done everything he has.  Why did he decide to create the universe? Why did he make man? Why did he create angels and strange creatures to worship him all the time? Why create a son? And why choose that as the way to save us? I struggle to see the point in it all. I know there isn’t an answer to all this, but I wondered if you could put my mind at rest a little. It’s made me feel very conflicted — I see so much evidence for God in this world, but without a point to it all, it’s hard to fully believe it.

Answer:

I appreciate that these are legitimate questions–the kind of questions that come up especially when we are experiencing spiritual struggles or tragedy in our lives but any thinking Christian will eventually struggle with this question.

The reason God created the universe is the same are the reason he created humans.  In both cases it is because God, by his very nature, is relational.  God himself exists as three–Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The Son loves the Father.  They are one, the Father gives glory to the Son and the Son loves the Father (John 17:20-23).  God seeks relationship.  God is all about relationship.  He created the universe so that we could live in it and he created us so that we could have a relationship with him and with one another.  All of this is clear from the first two chapters of Genesis.  In Genesis 1 we learn that everything God created is good and we learn that all of creation centers around God forming mankind.  Why?  We learn the answer in Genesis 2.  It was God’s intention that we live in an intimate relationship with him and with one another.

Is this arrogance on our part, to imagine that all of creation centers around us?  No, it is the simple truth, as shown in the Bible.  The entire story of the Bible is about God creating us to be in a relationship with him, and about him sending his Son as a sacrifice to reestablish that relationship after it was destroyed by our own sin.  God did not create us or the angels so that we would worship him.  He created us so that he could love us and we could love him.  It is only natural that we worship him and give glory to him.  God did not create us because of an ego trip but because of love.

By the way, God did not create the Son.  The Son of God is eternal.  He is coeternal with the Father.  Like Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I AM.” (John 8:58).  So, The Son exists, as does the Father and their existence seems to me to be about the fact that God is relational, as I said above.

Why did God save us through his Son?  Again, it is about love and about relationship–his desire to reestablish an intimate relationship with us.  Romans 3:21-26 gives a good theological explanation of why God gave his Son.  It is because God’s holiness requires death for sin and Jesus’ death allows God to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:25).  This is good theology, but I would remind you, as with the reason the universe exists and why we exist, the death of his Son is about God’s desire for a relationship with us.

I hope this helps.

John Oakes