david@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood) (03/22/85)
In reply to John Ollis who asks why man was created by God: The OT prophets sometimes liken the relationship of Israel to God as that of a wife, although one who is not yet faithful as He is. Similarly, Paul says that there is a "mystery" which shall be revealed, that the relationship of the faithful to Christ is like that of a marriage: the reference to Genesis is "they shall become one (flesh)," just as Jesus is to have said elsewhere, "I and the Father are one," or with the Psalmist, "you shall be as gods." I do not certainly know whether these observations say anything about why God created us, but they suggest another similar question: Why do we have children? I don't believe it is because we die. Rather, we seem to enjoy the very fact of their existence in our likeness; they are not simply companions for us, but we are able to love them as our selves. John said that God is love. Perhaps we are created so that God may love us, so that we become the human reflection of his nature. If this is so, then God quite literally fulfills His nature by His eternal "recreation" in what is finite. As Paul says of the pleroma (fulfillment) of the universe -- through Christ, God shall become all in all.