What was God’s plan behind Creation and why does he need one?

Hello Larni,
Don't worry about any delays. I was glad to have some more time to reply to others.I'd just like to say, that your overall concern about suffering is one that is shared by myself and many other christians, and is known as 'the problem of evil'. Yes it is a problem for us, and as I have said before, I have agonised over this very issue. But I still believe that God loves us. You may wonder how people can still love such a God who puts so many others through torment to the point of death. There is a couple of things to say about this. Yes God does cause some to suffer and others not to. In some respects you can say that God has the right to do whatever He pleases with us, as He made us & can destroy us, and who are we to say otherwise. But one question you should perhaps ask is, why does God choose to be merciful to any? God told Adam that if he disobeyed Him and 'eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.'(GEN 2:17) But God did not kill Adam straight away like He could have, in order to satisfy his justice. He chose to show mercy instead, and cover Adam's shame with clothing.Yes God does allow some to suffer, but what is remarkable is He also chooses to show mercy to some, and that is ultimately His choice, and only He knows why. Read Mathew 20:1-16 about workers being hired to work in a vineyard at different times during the day, but all receiving the same pay. In verse 15 Jesus says 'Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' The Jews rightly believe that 'if disaster befalls a city, has not the lord caused it?'(Amos 3:6). They also believe that if a person is suffering in any form, they are being punished by God because of sin. But look at the next verse where Jesus says: He says no. That people who suffer are not 'greater' sinners than everyone else. But they still perished because of their sins.The next legitimate question might be; that may be fine for adults but how could a baby be capable of sin that would warrant them being punished to death? This one is a tough one to understand, but apparently we have inherited Adams sinful nature, and are sinful from birth. You could even go back as far as conception. Don't ask me how this is so, as I don't know. But if one studies child behaviour, you might conclude that bad behaviour is more likely innate than nurtured.God has only one punishment for any sin, no matter how small, and that is eternal separation from Him, which involves death. The Bible tells us 'for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). That God allows any human to live at all, shows mercy and grace.Here is a quote from Douglas Wilson in his book 'Letter from a christian citizen', which I'll finish up with.

Hello Larni, He is in charge, and we can't stop him, this much is true. But I do not believe he is mistreating us. If God took pleasure in causing us pain, or delighted in our suffering, for no reason other than it was just for fun, then I would agree with your position. But many verses in the Bible indicate that God is concerned about our suffering. Sure you may say that it does not explain why He allows it or does nothing to stop it, and I agree that we can't explain it.Yes, ultimately, in regards to our suffering, the buck stops with God. But the reason why us christians still love Him, is because of what God did about our suffering. You feel that the only answer for our suffering is to not have any at all, full stop, end of story. God's answer was to sacrifice himself for us. Yes he allows suffering, but He did not even spare himself from it by sitting in an ivory tower sympathising with us. He became human himself, and willingly went through agony to the point of death. If you were to make a top 100 list for greatest sufferers in all history, God would be No.1 on that List.I do not like to suffer. I do not like it when others suffer. You obviously are horrified by it. God also takes no pleasure in seeing us suffer. You cannot see how anything would justify it, from your limited perspective. I however trust that God, having all knowledge, has a good reason to allow it. I hope that one day you also will begin to trust in this.It is the devil that promises a life of pleasure, like the lure of pleasure island in Pinochio, but in the end you'll end up an ass. Yes, God's way hurts right now, and we don't know the full reason why we have to suffer. But He has promised us that in the end He will wipe away our tears, and there will be no more suffering, and we will live in paradise for eternity. I believe in God's promise.If there is no God then suffering is truly meaningless?If you want to really know more then there are a few books I will recomend. The first is by Phillip Yancey. The version I have is two books in one volume, but you may still be able to buy them separately. The first book 'Where is God when it hurts' is about physical pain. Yancey looks at the complexities of how we sense pain, and examines people with leprosy, who feel no pain, and many other issues. The second book 'Disappointment with God' is about emotional pain. Neither are meant to examine the question of why did God create a world with pain, but in a roundabout way they did take some of the wind out of my sails, reducing my complaints against God.An article I'd recomend is at Why Us? The Problem of Evil - creation.com , which covers alot of what I have already covered, only a bit more eloquently.Alot of your questioning is regarding the contrast between justice/punishment and mercy/forgiveness. I'd like to examine this, but time is the problem.

Hello Huntard, I was not just referring to the physical suffering during His death. God Still exists and is still suffering, and He has been since Adam sinned, from our continual rejection of Him. Individuals may have suffered physically more than Jesus, but they did not bear the weight of the worlds sin. God loves each one of us, and every sin we commit grieves Him, as does every one of us that chooses to be eternally separated from Him.

Hello Larni, Why must we conclude this? Just because God can do anything, does not dictate that He should. God created this universe to follow physical laws & us to follow moral laws. These laws (at least the moral ones) are based on Gods own character. His character may also dictate what He will & will not do with His unlimited power. How can you know with your limited knowledge, that God, who has all knowledge, has no good reason to allow suffering? How do you know this? Again, having the abilility to do something, does not mean God should, in order to satisfy your will. The Bible says 'God's will be done', not 'Larni's will be done'. Because He also made a conscious choice to submit Himself to it, in order to save us.

Hello Bluejay,Just getting back to some earlier posts. I don't think that we can technically say that God 'Created' good & bad. They may be derived from God's innate character, which is our yard stick for good & bad. Whatever is of God's character is good, and whatever is opposite to God's character is bad. Unless good and bad have an objective foundation, they are just subjective. For us christians, that unchanging foundation is God's character. As above, God only does what God only does. Whatever God does is what we call good & just & loving. It is who God is that defines these terms. So in that sense, God can only ever do good things. We may not consider God's justice as good, like criminals blaming a Judge for their incarceration. But like the criminal, who are we to make the rules. Not sure where you got this from?? If love is part of who God is, then 'love' could never exist as a separate entity, a created thing.

Hello Jumped up Chimpanzee,Thanks for letting me know. I have had a quick read of your post and some of the responses, and so far looks very interesting. I'll try and get over to it, but it depends on how things go here first.

Hello Larni, I think we are stuck in a loop here. You are making the assertion that Gods aims can be acheived without suffering, purely because He is all powerful. I think we have reached the limits of our understanding of what 'all powerful' actually means.If I may be a little cheeky here...My train of thought is thus:God: My will is that humans have free will.Larni: Ok then, my will is to reject you, and any help you offer.God: Alrighty then, but don't blame me for not helping when you suffer the consequences of your actions.Larni: But you can do anything. You can give me the power to reject your help and still help me as well.Can you see any problems with this?

Hello Bluejay, Thank you. Though I feel I am at the limit of my ability to expand on these topics. So from this point on, I'm talking about things beyond my compehension, and things I say may contradict earlier posts and get messy. Yes. Good is derived from God's character, as his character is what defines good. Meaning that if things such as love, patience & kindness etc are a characteristic of God, and God also tells us that these are good things, then they are good. However bad things are that which are not of God's character, or the oposite of what God does. So in that way, God's character does determine also what is 'bad', but only by default. Admittedly this is a hard one to answer. I wonder what would have happened in the garden of Eden before the fall. If Adam cut himself whilst tending the garden would God have immediately healed it? Perhapps only if Adam asked Him to? Does God consider minor things such as skinned knees a bad thing, or simply a learning experience? If so, is there a cut off point where the level of injury is then considered bad?Anyway I found this excerpt from Why is there death and suffering? - creation.com ; So in the pre-fall world, God may have upheld everything so that skinned knees would not occur. But as they occur now, they can be considered a consequence of sin and therefore a bad thing. Almost every other point on your list could be covered by this point. That these things (perhapps barring sharp rocks & flat tyres) are the result of disobedience to God's will, which is the outworking of His character. I do not believe that God made these things directly. They are the result of our sin, rejection of doing things in line with His character. This comes back to the objections from Larni, that if God knew that these things would occur, then He is responsible for them anyway, and yes ultimately God is resposible. The answer to why a loving God created this world, knowing that bad things would happen, is admittedly one I cannot adequately answer. Only that if God thinks it a price worth paying, then it must be.

Hello Bluejay, Yep, I think you've got me here. This is possibly where my theory comes apart. However I want to draw a distinction between God's vengence & ours, which might just save me.God has told us to 'let vengence be mine'(Romans 12:19). My understanding is that because we do not always know the full story, that we should not take revenge on people who we perceive have harmed us, because we may punish an innocent person. As only God knows everything, then only He can truly exact righteous revenge. Revenge is a bad thing we do, in order to satisfy our desire for justice, which is a good thing . Most police officers would prefer that citizens not take the law into their own hands, but let the police do their job. In the same way, God is to be our police. Most of us do feel that justice requires some form of punishment, as does God. However our administration of Justice by our finest judges is fallible and poor, and revenge by angry citizens even worse still, and therefore bad. God's justice/revenge is perfect & righteous, and therefore good.Jealousy is somewhat harder. In context, the jealousy of God is related to the jealousy of a husband, whose wife is cheating on him. In this context, the jealous husband is justified, as his wife has broken a promise to be faithful only to him. In Exodus, God has entered into an agreement, that He will be their God and they will be His people. So in this context, God is jealous if they then worship another god, because they will be cheating on Him. This is not like a possible interpretation of the term 'jealous' as being jealous of your neigbour who is better looking, has a better car, bigger house etc, which is known as coveting and is a bad thing. As I've admitted to Larni, this is beyond our ability to know. But my guess is love, though I'm seeing many weaknesses in this argument. The other alternative 'God's glory', has more biblical support, though I'd have no hope in explaining this without making God out to be a egotist. Again, as admitted to Larni, I can only assume that God has a very good reason. I think that in order for us to be the kind of beings that could spend eternity with God, we needed to have free will. But this also means we are capable of sin. I tried earlier to portray love, as being more than just an emotion. That it is also a choice, a commitment, an action. I agree, with emotions like boredom, curiousity & loneliness. But I think love is a fair bit different.