Expert: Griff Ruby - 1/21/2009

Question
Hi,

Thanks for your reply. You wrote:

"It is love that desires a universe full of beings capable of making their own choices and of choosing to love each other and their Creator.  The desire for such a scenario is no actual need, as if God would starve etc., but a wish that we humans, by virtue of our own makeup as well, also share (though it may in many cases be overwhelmed by other desires)."

I couldn't find answer to my question "why God created man" in the above paragraph. Can you please explain more clearly?. Let me restate my question. You wrote that God created man so that He can have fellowship with him. I asked since God is not in need of anything, why does He needs that fellowship. Also why He created especially when He knows that there is a possibility that humans may stray and do worst deeds.

You wrote that God wants to test us whether we humans are showing love towards physically or mentally deformed persons. Why does He make some creatures in trouble and distress in order to test other creatures?


Answer
However inconvenient they can be, life's challenges are what makes life so interesting.  If everyone was just born in Heaven and knew nothing else, how boring would that be?  Heaven is no mere place of ease and comfort, but meant to be the winner's circle, so to speak.  There is nothing more wonderful than seeing someone rise to meet some challenge, and the more impressive the odds, the greater the triumph itself is.  But without odds it wouldn't be real, and with odds there is always the possibility that the person will fail in that particular challenge.
There is a rather interesting line that comes at the end of the movie "City of Joy" (worth seeing - this might also give you some insight into the question, the whole difference between seeing people as mere mouths to feed versus coming to know them and appreciate their accomplishments and true character), in which one man (a Hindu) says to the other, "The gods have not made it easy to be a human being," to which the other man responds (having learned the lesson) "That's what makes it feel so G-D-ed wonderful to beat the odds!"
But getting back to the basic question as to why Mankind is created, the basic answer boils down to the fact that God loves us.  To understand love is to understand why the creation of Mankind (or at least something very like) would have to have been inevitable.  But to one who does not understand love I am not sure there exists any way to explain it.  Have you never watched a movie or read a story, and rejoiced to see the good guy triumph or attain whatever goal he sought?  To be capable of such feeling even over a mere fictional character, how much more great the value of the struggles of real characters?
I think I have pursued this topic as far as I can.  I hope this helps, God bless!