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Creation of Mankind

nadosnados
edited December 1969 in Faith Issues
Hi everyone,

I have a very simple question, but I couldnt find an answer for it.

Why did God create humans? Is it because he wanted to have rational creatures to love them and love him back? But if that's the reason, then angels have this criteria... so why creating humans after angels?

thanks.

Comments

  • Basant TawfikBasant Tawfik
    There is this book that a priest gave me once........... it is called "What on Earth Am I Here for?"by Rick Warren. u should go find it or if u can't find it, ask ur FOC!! He will help. Hope I helped.oh ya!!! And..........
    [move][glow=green,2,300]MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!![/glow][/move]
  • HolmesHolmes
    [coptic]+ Iryny nem `hmot>[/coptic]

    [quote author=nados link=topic=6072.msg80826#msg80826 date=1199541466]
    Why did God create humans?


    Love.  That is why God creates, because He loves.  As Bishop Kallistos Ware says in his book The Orthodoxy Way:

    [quote=The Orthodox Way Pg. 44]Creation is an act not so much of [H]is free will as of [H]is free love.  To love means to share, as the doctrine of the Trinity has so clearly shown us: God is not just one but one-in-three, because [H]e is in a communion of person who share in love with one another.  The circle of divine love, however, has not remained closed.  God's love is, in the literal sense of the word, "ecstatic"-- a love that causes God to go out from [H]imself and to create things other than [H]imself.  By voluntary choice God created the world in "ecstatic" love, so that there might be besides [H]imself other beings to participate in the life and the love that are [H]is

    Think of it like this: Why do parents have children?  Because they have so much love that they wish to share it with another person, not just keep it between the two of them.  If we as humans, are capable of such love, and our love is merely a reflection of God's love, imagine how much love God has; the One who IS love. 
  • nadosnados
    yes I agree it is because of love that God creates. But my question is, why creating humans although God already had angels to love him? I mean what's special in creating humans? If there is nothing special, thus this means that there is a possibility that God will create a third creation after that!
  • jydeaconjydeacon
    what makes us special is that we were created on the image of God Himself, no other creation has that gift. He also breathed the Breath of Life into our nostrils giving us His Holy Spirit. I know this is a very simple answer but i'm kinda busy so i can't write all that i want
    God Bless and Pray for me and my weakness,
  • HolmesHolmes
    [coptic]+ Iryny nem `homt>[/coptic]

    As I understand it, angels were created to serve.  They serve God and they serve man.  Man was created to be children of God.  We were created to inherit His kingdom, and to rule over all of creation.
  • nadosnados
    If angels where just created to serve God, why did they have free will?

    Also, why would God need to create some creatures to serve him? Is he in need to any kind of serving? Another point, I do not think that a loving God will create some creatures just to serve him... that's not a feature of love, but of  a high ego.

    thanks
  • clayclay
    If we were created to love God, and worship Him, why do we have free will?

    Because a fervent service or love, comes from free will.

    Secondly, you are contradicting yourself. You accuse God of a high ego for creating creatures that serve, and then question why he gave free will. Has it ever occured to you that God has this purpose in mind, and the Angels out of their own will were content to do so? Obviously the Angels found a reason? Perhaps they found that the God they serve is one of love?

    Did you forget that God served us? That Christ came as a Servant King? Do you believe that one can't get satisfaction by service? 
  • clayclay
    [quote author=nados link=topic=6072.msg80837#msg80837 date=1199559453]
    yes I agree it is because of love that God creates. But my question is, why creating humans although God already had angels to love him? I mean what's special in creating humans? If there is nothing special, thus this means that there is a possibility that God will create a third creation after that!


    Compare a toddler, who is just grappling with new (and to us very basic) concepts, learning how to assemble a castle with building blocks and his father, who sits on the couch reading the Newspaper criticizing the Journalist, because he believes the journalist doesn't get it. That is the difference between us and God. That is why we call many things a "Mystery", and not try to rationalise it.

    Most things we say about God is not completely accurate, because words fail. That is why negative statements are the only true ones. This is what some call Apophaticism.
  • nadosnados
    No i am not saying that one can not get satisfaction when serving the one s/he loves. This can surley be the case but as u said, when one serves with his own will. But now, the angels were not created and then they choose to serve; no! Angels were created for this purpose from the begining. It is like getting some slaves to serve the master and not having loving children that serve their father. Hope u can get what i mean.
  • HolmesHolmes
    [coptic]+ Iryny nem `hmot>[/coptic]

    [quote author=nados link=topic=6072.msg80851#msg80851 date=1199611043]
    If angels where just created to serve God, why did they have free will?

    Also, why would God need to create some creatures to serve him? Is he in need to any kind of serving? Another point, I do not think that a loving God will create some creatures just to serve him... that's not a feature of love, but of  a high ego.


    You seem to be forgetting something, so I feel compelled to remind you of what St. Paul says:

    [quote=Romans 9:20-21]But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?  Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?"  Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?

    You are in no position to question why God created beings for the express purpose to serve Him or not.  Tell me, which is better, to exist to serve or to not exist at all?  Does God require service?  No.  Is God in need of prayer or worship?  Absolutely not.  Then why do we do it?  Because it elevates us.  It is the means for us to be in communion with God.  It is the means for us to partake of the Divine nature of God.  It is the means that man becomes God (i.e. theosis).  So if anything, it is for our benefit and not God's.  The same is true of the angels.  They were created to serve.  Does that imply that God merely wants mindless slaves?  Absolutely not.  Did you forget that the angels could (and did) choose not to serve?  Lucifier and a third of the heavenly hosts fell because they willfully chose not to serve, and not to love.  Service is an expression of love.  If God Himself served us, as clay pointed out, then what of us or the angels?
  • nadosnados
    Thanks for ur replies.. but I still have some points unclear for me.. please help me out.

    These are the points concluded:

    - God creates because he loves
    - God created angels and humans with free will because he does not want only to have robots, but rational beings
    - Angels and human beings serve God out of their love to God

    These points are still unclear:

    - Why God said that he created angels to serve him? Why not just creating them and they choose (out of their own will) to serve him as humans do? God did not create humans to serve him, but they (out of love) do serve him.

    - Why having 2 creations with free will? Is it that God created humans only because some angels fell? Does it mean that God will create later on a third creation and so on?
  • abkarino22abkarino22
    I don't  have an answer but I have a question. When were the angels created?
  • jydeaconjydeacon
    To answer abkarino22 question all the Heavenly Hosts were created on the first day when God said let there be light, because they are bodies of light, I got this from HH book, "The Angels", you can find it here, http://www.coepa.org/tNG/cnt_download.php?id=252&dname=Download2tNG/cnt_download.php?id=252&dname=Download2
  • clayclay
    Nados, are you familiar with the Old Testament parable of the Potter and the Clay? It actually is the reason I decided this avatar. It is repeated a few times in Scripture:

    1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.
    5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! 7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.
    11 “Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.”’”

    (Jer. 18)

    This was expanded upon in St. Paul's epistle to the Romans:

     

    14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”[f] 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”[g] 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
    19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
    22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
    25 As He says also in Hosea:


          “ I will call them My people, who were not My people,
          And her beloved, who was not beloved.”[h]
          26 “ And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,

          ‘ You are not My people,’
          There they shall be called sons of the living God.”[i]

    27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:[j]


          “ Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
          The remnant will be saved.
          28 For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
          Because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.”[k]

    29 And as Isaiah said before:


          “ Unless the LORD of Sabaoth[l]had left us a seed,
          We would have become like Sodom,
          And we would have been made like Gomorrah.”[m]

    What do you make of these passages?
  • nadosnados
    well... I am afraid to say that those passages when you are quoting them right now they mean "do no ask questions... just obey the master... you are merely a slave!"

    ok... that can be the case... but just dont say God is loving and caring, if just ask a simple question is answered with "DO NOT ASK!"
  • HolmesHolmes
    [coptic]+ Iryny nem `hmot>[/coptic]

    You're mistaken.  The above passages do not say that we should not question God.  On the contrary, how can we know God if we do not question and seek Him.  However, there is a limit to the questions we can ask.  We will not be given the answers to everything and God is not accountable to us.  Why He creates, as has been revealed to us, is out of love.  That is enough.  We each serve an individual purpose that is for us to determine with God's help.  I have present, what I believe to be, the roles of angels and humans are.  Others may have differing opinions.  Many 'why?' questions will never be answered while we live here on earth, and we have to learn to accept that.  If we do not, then we run the risk of becoming arrogant, and even defiant against our Lord and Creator.  Trust me, I know from personal experience.  You have to acknowledge that as humans, our capacity to understand God is extremely limited.  God is infinite and we are finite.  The finite cannot comprehend the infinite, ever.  If you do not realize this, believe me when I say, you will have great difficulty in dealing with God.  Again, I say this out of love as I have experienced the dangers of demanding answers to questions that we are not privy to knowing.
  • HolmesHolmes
    [coptic]+ Iryny nem `hmot>[/coptic]

    One other thing I wanted to mention, St. Paul tells us the following:

    [quote=1Corinthians 13:12]
    For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

    So what is he trying to say here?  In this world, we will never have all the answers.  We can't have all the answers.  That should not hinder our spiritual growth however, because there will come a time when we 'shall know' just as we are known.  Things will be revealed in the fullness of time, once we enter into the Kingdom 'prepared for us from the foundation of the world'.
  • PopeKyrillosPopeKyrillos
    the reason we have free will is because God wants us to serve him out of love not because he have too.
  • godislove260godislove260
    I've heard a priest say in a sermon that we were created to praise God. This doesn't mean that God was in need of praise.

    I think that we should consider that when we give thanks and praise to God, we do that out of love. And i believe that in order for us to speak of love it has to be out of free will.
    You cannot be forced to love someone. Loving God is the best thing in the world, for love is the highest emotion, for God IS Love. So God created us and revealed Himself to us so that we may have the honour and pleasure of loving Him. And in order to love someone you have to know him. Because we know God we love Him, and because we love Him, we praise Him. So the fact that we were created to praise God doesn't mean that God has a big ego and wanted to create beings to praise him. Praising God, knowing God and loving God is in our benefit, it is also for our pleasure.

    I hope someone can provide info on angels.

    Glory be to God forever
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