Why create?

[iggyting]

The OP poses a question 'Why create?'. This is akin to a category of inquiry about:-

Who creates God?
Why there is something instead of nothing?
Why is God a Trinity?

Is it not a question of perspective? For example, a 2D creature asking a 3D counterpart: 'Why a circle?" The answer: "No, it is a sphere!"

[Walty]

I think we can begin to understand why He did.  It was simply a gratuitous gift of being.  He is that sort of God... the kind that gives with joy and no desire (or possibility) whatsoever for anything in return.

[Oldavid]

You make some good points Walty.
I'd like to be able to isolate some quotes from you to make individual replies- but I can't. I don't know how to work this infernal thing!

I'm not altogether comfortable with talking about God's free will. The notion  has inbuilt problems. It's sure that He doesn't need any of us to improve His happiness or anything else. He is, as you said, completely self-sufficient.

However, He cannot not be what He is. He, as the theologians say, cannot contradict Himself.

Now, since  it is the nature of goodness to do good, and God is good, I rather think that, even it He didn't create the universe that we are part of, He would have had to do something because that is the integrity of Himself.

Sorry it the concepts are not well-put, But the more I tried to simplify things in my mind at work this morning, the more it seemed to tangle.

[Benno]

You can't isolate God the Father from the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are all God, and always were. The "heresy" referred to must have something to do with seperating the trinity, I'm guessing. There's no reason to ask why God created, unless you place God the Father (like some pre-existing great mind/ will/ whatever) before God the Son. That's where heresies start, and why John started his gospel the way he did.   

[Oldavid]

What "heresy" are you referring to Benno?

[Walty]

You make some good points Walty.
I'd like to be able to isolate some quotes from you to make individual replies- but I can't. I don't know how to work this infernal thing!

I'm not altogether comfortable with talking about God's free will. The notion  has inbuilt problems. It's sure that He doesn't need any of us to improve His happiness or anything else. He is, as you said, completely self-sufficient.

However, He cannot not be what He is. He, as the theologians say, cannot contradict Himself.

Now, since  it is the nature of goodness to do good, and God is good, I rather think that, even it He didn't create the universe that we are part of, He would have had to do something because that is the integrity of Himself.

Sorry it the concepts are not well-put, But the more I tried to simplify things in my mind at work this morning, the more it seemed to tangle.

Yes, I understand what you are saying, but I believe you are putting limitations on God at this point. 

This is the crucial point where I would argue with you...
If God had to create then He is not perfect alone.  And we do not want to say that God is not perfect alone, no? 

If God had to create then He would simply be a pagan god or the Prime-Mover of Stoicism or Neo-Platonism.  The Incarnation, in fact, would not be possible unless God is radically transcendent to the world.  If He had to create the world (or something) then He would not be radically transcendent but reliant upon it and that God could not enter the world in the way Christ did.

[Walty]

You can't isolate God the Father from the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are all God, and always were. The "heresy" referred to must have something to do with seperating the trinity, I'm guessing. There's no reason to ask why God created, unless you place God the Father (like some pre-existing great mind/ will/ whatever) before God the Son. That's where heresies start, and why John started his gospel the way he did.   

Again, I think the Church has always said why God created, at least in very limited and abstract though quite correct terms.  It was a gratuitous gift of Himself.  He is that sort of God.  It was pure love and giving, the ultimate in Goodness.  Any other reason, when taken to its logical end, will develop into a heresy (see the first 5-6 centuries of the Church).  As I mentioned before, this distinction is at the heart of Christianity and directly reflects upon every aspect of it, especially the Incarnation.  Looking at this distinction between God and world wrongly is what lead directly to the Christological heresies of the early Church.

You must say that God is perfect without the world and did not need to create it for Christ to be as the Church says He is. 

[Oldavid]

I'm simply saying that has to be what He is. If He is the creator then it seems to be logical to say that He has to be a creator. It's of His very nature to be so.

Likewise the Trinity.

As the theologians say; God is simple, that is that He has no "parts " that can be separated.

Does that have something to do with what you were on about Benno?

[Melita]

Isn't the Trinity a way of understanding the way that God, as Love, is a 'relationship', between the persons of the Trinity and between God and His creation? So is creation an expression of love?

[Walty]

Isn't the Trinity a way of understanding the way that God, as Love, is a 'relationship', between the persons of the Trinity and between God and His creation? So is creation an expression of love?

A creation is an expression of love, but an unneeded one because of God's Triune nature.  He already is a perfectly loving "community" within Himself and so is not needed outside of Himself to make Him loving.

God is the Creator, but He could have chosen not to create.  Otherwise God, loses perfection.  I know I sound like a broken record, but really, if God has to create then the earth has some weight over Him and He relies upon it instead of our total reliance upon Him.  He really is completely and utterly transcendent.

[Melita]

Isn't the Trinity a way of understanding the way that God, as Love, is a 'relationship', between the persons of the Trinity and between God and His creation? So is creation an expression of love?

A creation is an expression of love, but an unneeded one because of God's Triune nature.  He already is a perfectly loving "community" within Himself and so is not needed outside of Himself to make Him loving.

God is the Creator, but He could have chosen not to create.  Otherwise God, loses perfection.  I know I sound like a broken record, but really, if God has to create then the earth has some weight over Him and He relies upon it instead of our total reliance upon Him.  He really is completely and utterly transcendent.

Yeah you do sound like a broken record

I'm not disputing any of that. Although I don't think there should be an emphasis on God's transcendence to the exclusion of His immanent nature. And it's in the nature of love to create. And I suppose as self-created (isn't God self-created? actually, what is the formal way of looking at that? Because presumably as an infinite being, there was no point where He was not, and then was....) the mechanism of love was willed into existence and with it, the inevitable will to create. Or something.  I get the feeling I'm leading myself up the garden path...

[Walty]

I wish I could put up my entire textbook for Theological Functions in Philosophy because this is what the entire course is about.  It's really riveting stuff.

The pagans had gods, but they were part of the universe.  What Christianity did was completely remove God from the universe which makes the universe something that could have just as easily not existed.  When that happens, contrary to what you might think, it elevates the universe because it is no longer necessary, but a complete gift from a God who could have chosen different.  That makes His love and His choice to make us more substantial and genuine.

The funny thing is that Rationalism and Modernism needed Christianity to crop up.  Once God was completely transcendent from the universe then you could remove God from existence all together.  Once you do that you can make man his own god and then you arrive to where we are today.

[Oldavid]

As I said earlier; This  comes with built in problems.
Walty you seem to fixated on one true thing but which needs to be reconciled with other true things.

But I can't see what pagans and modernists have to do with the issue.

[Walty]

As I said earlier; This  comes with built in problems.
Walty you seem to fixated on one true thing but which needs to be reconciled with other true things.

But I can't see what pagans and modernists have to do with the issue.

I don't see how the things I've mentioned aren't reconciled with everything else in Christian theology and philosophy.

The pagans and the modernists simply illustrate how making what seem to be slightly different distinction on the God/world paradigm completely shift wordviews.

[iggyting]

An aspect of the discussion touches on whether God creates out of a 'necessity' or a free choice. I think it is the latter that is proper in Christian theology.

However, there is a distinction between free will and making a choice. In the Pure Perfection, there is free will but no necessity for choice, because it is absolute. Choice involves a multiplicity of the more or less. In this respect, by saying that God creates out of His Absolute Goodness is to mean He creates freely with no necessity to make a choice.