Why Did God Create People? - Part 2
At this point we are digging deeper into the questions spawned by the question, Why did God create people? Those questions are Why did God create people with freedom to choose? And For what purpose did God create people?
After asking ourselves similar questions like, Why do we choose to marry? and Why do we choose to have children?, we saw that freedom to choose and to love are somehow wrapped up in the answers.
Maybe another good question would be, How are the freedom to choose (not be forced) and love (true love, selfless love) related? Yet another question!
In his book, Finding The Father, Herb Montgomery seems to pull things together for us:
We may scratch our head and say to ourselves, "Why would God make such a world in which His creation can thwart His own activity and desires? Why would God make a world with this level of freedom?" Or as some have asked: "Why would God make a world that could say no to Him?"
It all comes back to the beginning—our picture of God. If we begin with the assumption that God is a being whose chief attribute is control, then it is puzzling why He would make a world in which He chooses to let others control events. But if we start with the premise that God's chief attribute is love, then some things begin to make sense.
Let's say that I scheduled and controlled my wife's life down to each and every moment of the day. I determined when she woke up each morning and what she would wear. I dictated that she would make breakfast and decided what she would make. Then I scheduled her morning, afternoon, evening, and night with meticulous detail. Her entire day was scheduled and controlled, including bathroom breaks. Would you say that I was the most loving husband ever to walk the planet? Of course not. You would say that I was a control freak! We look at people who exert that much meticulous control as being emotionally and psychologically unhealthy. And yet we continually attribute this characteristic of meticulously controlling everything to God.
Now, if we start from the premise that God's chief attribute is not control but love, we begin to see a whole different picture. Our three-in-one God (Genesis 1:26 says “Let Us make man in Our image, ...”) created us out of a pleasurable experience of love. Their desire was to share Their love and have others enter into its joy. God, being a God of love, created us for love. Yet for love to be experienced, the objects of that love must be given freedom!
In the Bible, God’s Operator’s Manual for humans, God Himself says the primary two goals or purposes for people are, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:38, 39.)
Have you formulated an answer in your own mind for the original question? At this point, you may be ready to tackle what may be the most asked God Question: “Why Doesn’t God End Suffering?”
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