The Why of God Creating (Intellectual Dissonance II)
So the dilemma from yesterday's blog is God standing outside of time, with equal access to all points "on the line" of time (as my friend puts it), knowing everything (everything), and able to interact with the creation in time in such a way as to make our freedom meaningful. So that even though He knows all the prayers that will ever be prayed, and knows how He will (and has already) answer all of them, still, we have true freedom and choice, and somehow our interaction with God is altering the course of things. (Though God sees all of that "altering" already accomplished.)
And I asked, "How do you handle the tensions inherent in this line of thought?" Some of my friends end up limiting God's knowledge. Some deny the notion of His immutability (They think He changes, which the Bible suggests obviously, but then turns around and say He doesn't change.) Some don't accept the notion that God sees all points "on the line" of time, that He truly doesn't know (except the general notion that He wins) how all of this is going to turn out because of our freedom.
Why bother with all this wondering?
For me, to ponder and pursue the nature of God is to pursue relationship. Who is this God we serve, and what is the nature of His love? What do I mean--and for me, this is very real and very personal--when I say "God loves me"? How I see the identity and purposes of God speaks very loudly to my interaction with Him, my faith, and perhaps most importantly, my trust.
And if I am to live His life into the world, demonstrating His life, or better yet, letting His life be lived through me through the work of His Spirit, then again, the thoughts and ruling ideas of who He is, and what His purposes are as He deals with me, matter. All we have to do is look at the vast diversity in which God's life is lived out on the planet to see that these ideas matter.
So let me ask another question. Again, not rhetorical, and even though it's mostly unanswerable, I still think which direction we lean in terms of answering the question determines much. Here it is: why did God create all this to start with? And why human beings? Which of course leads to all the other big questions of theology and philosophy that we've all been dealing with forever--origin, destiny, identity, the nature of our knowing, etc.
It's an old question. But ask it anyway, let it roll around in you. If He knew evil was present, if He knew the suffering that was coming, if He knew that somehow it was going to cost both us and Him terribly to get through this journey, then why? Before creation, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit in love and communication, a community that needed nothing, with life inexplicably glorious, and then one day, they turn and create a world that will engulf itself in sin and horror, glory and wonder, and all that reality means in terms of humanity and this universe we find ourselves in. And in the end, all that creation destroyed just to make another one, and this time, it's paradise, with evil no longer a possibility.
Why not just start there--with paradise--to begin with?
Why?
I'm not suggesting we can answer this question in real terms, but I am arguing that it's contemplation holds meaning and promise, depending on what we say. And if you'll hang with me through this line of thinking, though it's going to take a few days, we'll get to Jesus and why the thought of the incarnation is dropping its intellectual trappings and rising up in my practical, functional, everyday life--in my heart--like a phoenix.
Feel free to jump in here anytime...
6:35:13 AM 
