Why Did God Create The Universe And Human Beings?

By Fr. Sebastian Athappilly

Why did God create the Universe and Man at all? This question is a very good one, especially for those who believe in God, the Creator.

The question takes for granted that humankind and the entire universe do not exist by themselves but are dependent existences. The only one who is existence by essence is God, who is Being as such, Being Itself. To be is God’s very nature. Hence, whatever or whoever exists other than God must be a created being. In short, every being is either Being as such (that is, God), or a creature, dependent on God for its existence. It is quite evident that a created being cannot be dependent on nothingness. God is the Reality on which all created beings depend for their existence.

Now, the question arises, why did God create the universe and humanity? The answer to this question has to come from God, the Author of creation. Being creatures ourselves, we do not have a direct access to the answer. We cannot find the answer in the Creator’ (God’s) ‘mind’ unless God reveals it to us. Although God is not bound by any obligation to reveal this answer (or anything at all about God’s nature) to anyone, the Judeo-Christian tradition believes that God has revealed it to humankind purely out of grace and love, and each one of us is free to accept or reject it.

The Lord of history is also the Lord of nature. One insight given in the account of creation is that God created humans in God’s image and likeness (The Bible: Gen 1:26. 27; 5:1; 8:6). Only regarding the creation of humankind this is specially so mentioned. Whether there are other beings who were created so is left open.At the same time, it is also evident that animals, birds, plants and astral and material bodies like the sun, moon, planets and the stars, etc., are not created in the likeness or image of God. In the biblical language, the creation of humans is “in the image and likeness”, or simply “in the image” or “in the likeness” of God. This all means that human beings stand in a special relationship to God, the Creator, compared with other earthly beings and astral bodies. Precisely in this also consists the worth and dignity of each human being, who is a person. Persons are beings endowed with reason, intellect and free will. Persons can know God and love God. They can also know and love other persons. This spiritual faculty of persons makes them ends in themselves, and not means for something else. The dignity of the human person is God-given, already in creation. Hence it is indelible. This is not a generous gift of anyone. Human rights derive from human dignity. That is why John F. Kennedy, President of the USA, stated boldly and plainly in his inaugural address in 1961 that “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God”. Human dignity and hence human rights are not dependent on caste, creed, colour, nationality, job, age, education or sex.

Being created in the image and likeness of God is biblically the foundation of human dignity and human rights. This is further deepened by the insight that each human being is called to be a child of God by grace and destined to share in the life of God. This again grounds our fraternity, in that we are all children of God and among ourselves sisters and brothers. This is absolutely impossible in the atheistic outlook on principle, for there the only common ground is matter, which is unable to engender and sustain personal/spiritual relationships.

To be made in the image of God means also that humans share something of divinity. In other words, from the start itself, humankind has a God-given spark of divinity within the human nature. This element provides humans with a basic affinity towards God, in such a way that human heart will be fulfilled only in attaining God or attaining union with God. Becausethehuman person is created in the image of God, human beings are open to God by nature, although this natural openness or desire need not be consciously and reflectively present every time in every one. However, this longing for God is manifested indirectly and implicitly in the search of the human heart for something more and higher. There is in every human heart a divine restlessness or discontent that shows itself in the void that is experienced even after possessing all the imaginable goods of this world, wealth, power, fame, beauty, etc. The numerous suicides among people of worldly success indicate this.

St Augustine of Hippo (364-430) writes in his autobiography Confessions, addressing God: “Thou hast made us unto thee; restless is our heart until it finds its rest in thee, O Lord!” Our experience is not different. Whether one experiences this consciously or not, the reality cannot be otherwise, from the point of view of the biblical vision of human person. The craving of the human heart is naturally for something still higher. God has created human beings in such a way that God will satisfy this thirst by leading the human person to fulfillment.

Being created in the image of God thus implies that human person is created to attain God in love and knowledge. This basic orientation is at the basis of human spirituality. ‘Spirituality’ is here meant in two senses. The first is the philosophical sense. Being created in the image of God, the human being is endowed with a vertical orientation towards God. This marks human transcendence, a going beyond the sensual and material beings of this world that are the objects of empirical knowledge based merely on the five senses. Human beings are not merely embodied beings, but embodied spirits. Self-reflection or self-criticism at the cognitive level is an essential part of this spirit-ness or spirituality. The distinction between phenomenon (appearance) and noumenon (thing or reality in itself) can be grasped not merely at the level of the senses, but only at the level of the spirit.

This leads us to the second sense of ‘Spirituality’ here, the moral-spiritual sense. Again here it is a question of transcendence, but transcendence at the level of willing or freedom. While the first sense is related to intellect and knowledge (reason, cognition) the second sense is related to will and choice (love, decision). In the face of a temptation to sin, the human being can resist it. Not only evil things, but even good things can be renounced by human persons for the sake of a higher good. The religious who know that family life, wealth and freedom to do one’s own will are good and positive values and stillvoluntarily opt for celibacy, poverty and obedience, exercise precisely this transcendence. Similar is the case when one forgives one’s enemies, those who have really hurt one. Sacrificing one’s life for the sake of the others is yet another heroic example of transcendence at the spiritual-moral level. We have many noble examples of a lived spirituality rooted in truth, justice and selfless love. Where one does such things without any material benefit and monetary reward and even incurring material loss and even risking one’s own life, we have clear and unambiguous evidence of transcendence, a going beyond the empirical and material world of the senses.

Jesus says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). Only pure spirituality can be at work here. This is impossible for those with a purely materialistic world view. Materialistically-minded people would find this as utter foolishness and sheer blunder. That is why we do not find anything similar to the above-mentioned heroic examples among the atheists, nihilists and materialists. If at all they bring about such deeds of spiritual transcendence, it would be a contradiction in action of what they profess in theory! For, materialism does not allow of anything beyond the immediately and physically visible and experiential.

How poor and bankrupt would be humanity if there would not be people motivated by a spirituality of transcendence! In times of crisis we hear of such noble examples often. This is something consoling. One such instance in the present crisis of the corona pandemic is that of a 72-year-old Italian priest Don Giuseppe Berardelli at Casnigo, a town in northern Italy about 50 miles northeast of Milan. Fr. Berardelli chose to put others’ lives before his own by giving up his ventilator to save the life of a younger person, on March 15, 2020. He gave the respirator that his parishioners had purchased for him to the younger patient. Similar instances could have happened also elsewhere. Such a heroic and humanitarian deed cannot be explained purely in terms of an atheistic and materialistic ideology. Having been created in the image and likeness of God, human beings have within their nature a relationship with God. This means that the religiosity in the human beings is not an additional overlay on them, but, rather,is intrinsic to them. In this sense it can be said that the human being is naturally religious. This is the basis of Religion, which expresses itself in various religions and variously interpreted and articulated. These interpretations and their expressions need not be always perfect and exhaustive. It is a fact that expression lags behind experience. We are not able to articulate exactly and adequately in words what we ultimately experience. For instance, one may not be able to give a perfect explanation of what is meant by life or love. An inaccurate theory about life or love does not necessarily mean that the concerned person is not a living or loving person. And vice versa, a perfect theory or definition of love does not in itself mean that one is a truly loving person, either.

Another consequence of humans being created in the image of God is inter-subjectivity. The relationship between/among human beings as subjects and persons is something special to humankind. Mutual relationship from subject to subject has thus also a horizontal dimension, beside the vertical dimension of religiosity (relationship) with God. This horizontal dimension shows itself in our social and societal life, beginning with family.

No man is an island. The present networking is an expression of this basic connectedness of human beings and is also the ground of human solidarity. The plural form that God created them (humankind) as male and female in His image (Gen 1:28) suggests this social dimension. The idea of co-humanity as the perfect image of God points at the necessity of fellowship among the humans. “Where is your brother Abel?” (Gen 4:9), is a question everyone has to answer. The counter question of Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is a lame excuse and an unacceptable response. In the New Testament, Jesus makes it very clear that the love of your brother (neighbour) is equally important as the commandment to love God (Mt 22:39). The Last Judgment is all about this (Mt 25:31-46). The principle applied there is: “Just as you did it to one of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40), and “as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Mt 25:45). Similarly, the parableof the Good Samaritan speaks of the salvific significance of the love of neighbour (Lk 10: 25-37).

To be human means essentially to be in dialogue with God the Creator as well as with other spiritual (rational) fellow-beings. Any such interrelationship can be an experience of bliss and happiness only if it is lived in the mutual relationship of love, trust and surrender, which culminate in spiritual union. The marital relationship between acouple is an image and symbol of this ultimate union of heavenly bliss. As is obvious here, without love and trust such a blissful relationship cannot exist. In the animal kingdom we have some faint analogies about this. Coming to the level of the humans, where we have the degree of self-consciousness and subjectivity to a great extent of perceptibility, the issues of love/hatred, acceptance/rejection, self-sacrifice/egoism, trust/distrust, obedience/disobedience, etc. play vital roles in making one happy or unhappy. God the Creator gives Himself to us in love.

The creatures in this universe appeal to us through their grandeur and beauty that we humans have the duty to admire, appreciate, accept, love and trust in the greatness, beauty, wisdom, intelligence and power of God. In addition to this appeal of nature we have also the history of salvation and revelation that speaks to us about God’s immense love and power. Nature and history both speak to us about God and the need to trust in Him fully.

According to Christian teaching, we are all created to become the children of God (Jn 1:12) and to obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom 8:21), to have eternal life (Jn 20:31), to have the imperishable inheritance with Christ in heaven (1 Pt 1:4), to be participants of the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4), to be there, where Christ is (Jn 14:3), and so to share in the glory and bliss of God, according to our capacity. In short, God created us and the universe to share with us and the creatures His life, joy and abundance, each in its own way. Only rational, spiritual beings are able to thank and praise God for this, also on behalf of the other beings.

The purpose of creation is thus two-fold: a) from the part of the agent, i. e., the intention of God the Creator, it is self-communication, or sharing His life and love with His creatures; and b) from the part of the creatures, it is to attain God and to participate in His life and love and so to give glory to God by reflecting God’s perfections and also by thanking and praising God consciously, where this is possible.

(The author is a Catholic priest from Kerala belonging to the CMI (Carmelites of Mary Immaculate) religious congregation. He has been teaching Systematic Theology from 1985 at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram, a leading centre for higher Catholic learning, in Bangalore. He served there as the President, Dean (Faculty of Theology) and Registrar. Since 2009 he has been teaching there as visiting professor and also been serving as hospital chaplain at the State Hospital and University Clinic, Graz, Austria)