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

If God is some kind of all-powerful master of the universe, what was his purpose in creating life and what exactly was his plan for us?Why would God create life for a purpose? Surely if an all-powerful creator wanted to achieve something, it could do so instantly without requiring thousands of years of human labour — and fallibility.I could understand if God created life because he is lonely, or just out of interest to see what would happen, but the idea of creating life for a purpose with specific rules and regulations, and then getting all upset when we fail to adhere to those rules, seems bizarre to me.To consider how strange this is, imagine if we humans created a completely new species and demanded of this new species that it should follow certain rules. Yet, at the same time, we gave it free-will and an inquisitive mind of it’s own and consequently it refused to follow our rules or failed to understand them. Would it not be highly peculiar if our reaction were to blame the species that we were entirely responsible for creating, rather than blame our own motives and designs?

Hi MR and thanks for your response That's reasonable, I suppose. But it's not really making us for a purpose to achieve anything. And were we made as an afterthought to enjoy the beauty of the rivers, oceans and other life, or were we the first idea, and the other things were made subsequently for our enjoyment? No, I don't. But I have a rough idea of what they are.Seriously, though, I don't think that the way we implement rules for children is anything like the same as the way God supposedly implements his rules. Certainly not the same as the punishments for disobedience. I don't think anyone would consider it acceptable to burn their children for eternity or drown them in a flood. Also, we don't quite yet have the ability to completely design our children, so they need guideance, whereas God supposedly did. Take the commandments supposedly given by God to Moses: "Thou shalt not kill", etc. Whether you think that humans had evolved over hundreds of thousands of years or you believe that God made us a couple of thousand years before he gave those commandments, do you not think that we had already worked out that we needed to get on with each other for our own benefit? When Moses passed on those commandments it wasn't to a crowd who were in the midst of stabbing each other to death. There wouldn't have been a crowd there in the first place if that's how humans behaved before they were given any rules.I still can't see any rules etc that are supposedly attributed to God that we couldn't work out for ourselves - and almost certainly had already done so.

Ah, but you're forgetting that all animals were vegetarians and the weather was always sunny before Eve bit that apple!

Hi MR I know you said in your first post that you're unsure exactly what the purpose of our creation was, but why do we have to "trust that God knows more than we do about creating realities, and that He created our current one the way He did for very good reasons"?To reflect on a previous topic I raised about why God is a second rate creator, wouldn't a better creator have made the purpose perfectly clear? Couldn't the average human being make a purpose patently clear? Why is it so hard for the all-powerful creator to do so? If the purpose is obscure to us, then why didn't the creator make us in such a way that it is not obsure?

Hi Bluejay I share your above view entirely.It's been interesting to see how this discussion on my topic of "what was God's plan?" has centred on the question of morality (i.e. good v evil).It reflects back on the point I made in my OP about how odd it would be if we made a new species solely for the purpose of following certain rules, and then got upset with that species (rather than with ourselves) if it failed to do so.If the plan behind our alleged creation was to do nothing more than follow pre-established rules, it seems as if creation was a very tedious and uninteresting idea. What might be the plan for our after-life? Do we just get to sit round in a circle and talk about the rules that we had to follow while on Earth?Those long winter nights in Eternity will just fly by!

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Bring on the wall! - Dale Winton

Hi MR I think this discussion about Good and Evil is wandering slightly off topic. I've actually been preparing a new post on the specific subject of Morality, following a recent discussion I had with Stile, which I hope to propose as a new topic in the next few days.It seems to me that most of your arguments on this topic of God's plan have been along the lines of "how do we know that God doesn't have some reason behind the way things are?" That's not really much of an argument. We don't know that there's a god at all, let alone whether or not he has a reason for the way things are, or any plan to change things. Do you have any specific ideas as to what any plan might be? I don't blame you for not coming up with anything, because I can't.

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"Bring on the wall!" - Dale Winton

Hi hooah212002 Quite. It reminds me of a conclusion I reached on another thread discussing the reasons behind Jesus dying to save us from our sins. Who or what gave God the power or the authority to "save" us after Jesus had temporarily died? It's implied that he didn't have that power or authority beforehand. Why not? Who is really in charge?

Well, yes, in a way. But of course my original question was really a challenge to the general idea often spouted by religionists that there has to be a purpose to life, and therefore there must be an intelligent creator behind that purpose. I'm just asking if anyone could come up with a good suggestion of what that purpose might be, because I don't think I've ever heard one.The lack of response to this is remarkable considering how much certainty and dogma is normally associated with religious belief. You'd have thought that if "purpose" was fundamental to the belief in a creator, there would be a lot of very strong and readily available answers as to what that purpose was.

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"Bring on the wall!" - Dale Winton

Hi MR As you know, I hope to start a new thread in the next couple of days on the subject of good and evil. It is the meaning of those words "good and evil" that I want to explore. You may wish to start thinking about it.I don't normally like to pick people up on their spelling, but as you use the word "perhaps" in so many of your posts, you may care to note it is spelt like that and not "perhapps".

Hi MRAs promised I have started a new thread on the specific subject of morality - good and bad.I have expressed my view on how morality is a logical consequence of evolution. You may wish to consider my views and let me know your own opinion on that thread.EvC Forum: Morality is a Logical Consequence of Evolution, not Creation

Hi Calypso OK, so what are we being tested for? What is the purpose beyond all the testing? What kind of "real world" lies in wait? So the purpose of the tests is that we'll be perfectly developed to improve our chances of what? Living in a world exactly like this one? What will be the purpose of living in that world? Will it be to test and improve us so we are perfectly developed to live in another world exactly the same again?

Hi 3DSOC Humans don't have the ability to manufacture ready made new humans. We have to teach our children certain things. Why couldn't God, if God is an all-powerful perfect being, have created humans with a complete understanding of everything?And you haven't explained why he created us in the first place.

Yes, it would! But you're on the right track. There is no ultimate purpose to evolution and reproduction. That's my position. Religionists always say that there must be a purpose - that God has a purpose. I'm just asking what that purpose is.

There have been a lot of posts under this topic, but I've just scanned through them all again and can't find any direct answers to my original question (other than "I don't know").Does anyone have any direct answers, or can they point me to a previous message I may have missed that they consider is a direct answer?I find it somewhat surprising that there doesn't seem to be any clear answer to what the purpose was behind the alleged creation, considering how important the whole subject is to some people - some of them blow planes up for Christ's sake (or Allah's sake).

Funny, that's exactly what I had suspected!I just thought it reasonable to give the other side a chance (again) to explain, in case there was something I'd missed.It seems we can now conclude that we have:A supernatural creator - though we don't know what it actually is;That created the universe - though we don't know how it did it;That had a purpose - but we don't know what that is either.