The Scriptures do not specifically address this question. However we can note some important indicators, which may help us to have some insight into this most perplexing mystery.

Let us consider the givens according to Scriptural evidence. Scriptural references in this work are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, a text frequently used in theological Colleges because it is regarded as a reliable and accurate translation of of the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.

The Book Genesis confirms the following important theological positions …

· Before creation as we know it, God was. [Genesis 1.2]

· Whereas there was a formless void and darkness (chaos) God created order, beginning first with light.[Gen.12-3]

· Already in view are God the Father and God the Creative Word (Jesus Christ ref-Gospel of John, chapter 1)

· God found the outcome of his creativity activity to be good. [Gen 1.10b, 1.12b, 1.18b, 1.21b, 1.25b, 1.31b. Here God saw that it was very good)

· The crowning glory of his creativity was humankind.[God' activity on the sixth day – Gen 1.26-31]

· Most significantly humankind was made in God’s image and likeness [Gen.1.27b]

· God blessed them (humankind) and set them over all things – giving and entrusting them to the stewardship of all things [Gen.1.28ff]

· God’s creativity activity is followed by a day of re-creation … resting from His labours [Gen.2.1-2.3].

· The majority of Chapters Two and Three of the Book Genesis is regarded by a significant element of the community of Biblical scholars as being of different authorship to Chapter One of the Book Genesis. Notwithstanding, all chapters are included under the direction of the priestly editor of the text. Whereas the first chapter is embracing many important theological truths of God’s creativity, some of which are listed above, the majority of the second and third chapters are dealing with the fall of humankind from the Godly peace and prosperity of paradise.

· That is, theologically, God placed us in paradise [Gen. 2.4b-9].

· That was God’s gift. It was characterised by closeness between God and humankind, prosperity and innocence. God extended this paradise by creating male and female that they might be companions. This Scriptural insight [Gen.2.18] tends to point away from the thesis that God created humankind simply to keep Him company. In any event such an argument does not account for the perfect community of love, the Blessed Trinity.

· In God's gift of the Garden of Eden a difference between good and evil was not known by the human inhabitants. [Gen 3.5] Paradise was in harmony with God in sublime innocence and goodness.

· It was humankind that sullied this oneness with God. Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Such were the capacities and freedoms that God gave them, they also had the capacity and freedom to disobey Him and to play God. God vested humankind with many gifts and capacities that derive from his own divine being. Sadly we do not have the capacity always to use our God derived gifts wisely; we do not have the humility always to acknowledge the source of our gifts and thus to defer to the greater wisdom and authority of God. Instead we have the capacity to play God.

· As a result of humankind’s disobedience and propensity to play God [Gen.3.5] we have been separated from God. How can we be as one with God when we think we are more important and our views are prior to those of God? It was our choices, our sin, which created the ground for separation. Surely we can see this sort of separation happen in the human condition when two people in relationship no longer behave as one – when unity is offended by wilfulness and loss of trust; when one person assumes a priority over another.

· God gave paradise, yet humankind destroyed trust and put itself above the wisdom of God. Thus from an intimate relationship with God in paradise our choices rendered separation. We note in the Genesis account that the more deeply humankind descended into wrong choices and decay the shorter became the life expectancy of each generation. Human disobedience, idolatry, error and the unleashing of evil rendered the shortening of life.

· We know from the power of the Gospels that all that humankind created in sinfulness was overwhelmed by God’s work in and through Jesus …life and hope restored and unsullied relationship made possible by God’s stunning gift of new life through the perfect obedience and faithfulness of Jesus, the second Adam. Jesus was every thing that Adam was not …obedient, humble, seeringly faithful and true to creator God, and even repudiating the true divinity which was rightfully his (unlike Adam’s pretensions and idolatry) so that in his perfect humanity what ever Jesus did intimately relates to us and our destiny. Little wonder the writers of the Gospels called them Gospels, i.e. good news. Therein they recorded their testimonies of the work of our gracious and loving God who reaches out through Jesus to restore the relationship which we breached.

And so with respect to our musings upon why God created us it may be asserted …

[1.] God created humankind with amazing gifts… indeed in his image and likeness.

[2.] God gave humankind blessed freedoms, a natural corollary of love. Love does not enslave or demean. It should be noted that this dimension of God is not so clearly described in the Old Testament but absolutely jumps off the pages of the New Testament, noting especially the work of St John in Gospel and Letters.

'God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.'

Letter of John, Chapter 4.16b

'[Jesus said] This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

Gospel of John, Chapter 15.12 and 13

[3.] The possibility must always have existed that the gifts given by God could lead to problems if humankind exceeded its experiences and wisdom. And so the only caveat upon the freedoms of paradise was access to knowledge beyond the experience of the innocent, that is, issues of morality and decay - good and evil. To grasp more fully God’s motives in withholding the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil [Gen.2.17], consider by way of parallel the need so often felt by responsible, loving parents to protect innocent young children until they have sufficient experience and maturity and wisdom to make responsible and healthy moral decisions.

[4.] The two essential human flaws in view in this account of Adam and Eve are disobedience and idolatry. Both flaws can be tracked back to the capacities God gave us when he graciously invested us with such gifts and dominion. In love God gave us so much of himself that the risk always was that we would abuse those capacities and liberties, abuse His love and His staggering generosity and believe ourselves to be greater and more important than God, the very source of our 'powers'. God created us in His image and likeness – and therein we find such nobility and dignity. We were not created as minions, slaves, automatons, mechanistic utilities or such like. We were created in God's image and likeness, vivified by his breath and placed in great prosperity, freely to dwell in blessed relationship with God. The profound theological insight in the Book Genesis points to the reality that, through bestowing such extravagant gifts, God took the risk that we would exploit His gifts and freedoms for selfish gain ( a theme which is still recurring in the human condition). In profound love God did not withhold His gifts. But our freedoms and capacities give the potential that we can come to be believe that we are wiser than God, that we do not need God, that we are self-sufficient. At our greatest moments of self-delusion we can even adopt a posture that places our priorities ahead of God's – and that begins to look like we place ourselves and our needs before those of God.

Whereas we might not be able to find in the Genesis account an unequivocal explanation of God’s motive in creating humankind, we can see in evidence that God had wonderful plans for us; we blew it; and God, in his own time, through the blessed gift of His loving and obedient and faithful Son, restored the life of prosperity and peace and intimate relationship which began before we disobeyed Him and played God.

And it is true that we see through the full sweep of Scripture, the nature of God. Therein we might ponder productively upon God’s motive for creating humankind. The Scriptures reveal that God is manifest in three persons … God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Prologue to St John’s Gospel [St John 1.1–18] is an unequivocal exposition of the mystery of the separate persons of Father and Son, yet the singular Godhead. New Testament material found in John 14, Acts 2 and Romans 8 (et al) gives us insight also into the third person of the Trinity … the Holy Spirit.

Orthodox Christian teachings, confirmed in the early centuries of the Christian Church, especially through Apostolic witness as handed down through Scripture and through the teachings of the great Councils of the Patristic Period, have much to say about the Trinity. Refer, for example, to the three great credal statements of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church … the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed. The church understands that God is perfectly one yet perfectly three persons. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are discrete and honoured in their beings. Yet God is one perfect unity. The Trinity is the mystical manifestation of both perfect unity yet wholesome prosperous individuality – the righteousness of God. The Blessed Trinity is a community of love where there is such harmony between individuals that one can exist in perfection, in union with the other persons such that perfect individuality and unity are both true. And the dynamic which permits this paradox is unconditional, sacrificial love … as manifest in the life and work of Jesus.

It is no great conceptual leap to surmise that if all of the above defines God (however imperfectly and incompletely), then the God who creates and does so in perfect love could not create whimsically, nor for self-serving ends nor haphazardly. He is not creating for companionship … his being is already perfect companionship. He is not creating to manipulate nor to generate servants … he needs neither outcome. In any event such behaviour is the very antithesis of the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, upon his cross of glory.

Could it perhaps be that as we understand God in the fullness of His revelation (Old Testament and New) then we understand that our loving, creator God can do no other than create that which He loves. We are created in love because love creates love It creates life, righteousness and the beauty of God’s image and likeness. It heals and liberates. It restores and reconciles. It gives forth peace and joy. God's love and all of its fruits are the very meaning of life which God has created.

We are created as a direct result of the very nature of God who has no utilitarian motive … His nature has no exterior motive because it is acting out of His own nature which is love. Again, do we not have some insight into such a possibility when we experience the loving behaviour of another who is without guile, or any self-serving motive, but simply does that which is done because that is his/ her deep-seated loving nature. Such a proposition upholds the dignity and integrity of both the lover and the beloved. Holiness indeed!

Creator God – a God of love!

In God's creative activity and salvation history God's love is manifest. It is dynamic, tenacious and eternal. The assertion explored above is that God's love is the very source of God's creative activity. That same love is ultimately expressed in perfect, harmonious relationship through God's greatest revelation of His love - Jesus the Christ. In Jesus, God promises and effects perfectly His prosperity, peace and joy. It is love active now and perfected in our complete surrender to the will of God.

Given all that is outlined above then the questions are well asked ... If God is such extravagant and self-giving love, then why is there so much suffering, pain and injustice in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do those who behave criminally and in evil ways so often seem to prosper whilst at the same time the humble and gentle struggle, often unjustly? Is not God supposed to be a God of justice and mercy?

In God’s Creation – that of a God of Love – why is there suffering and pain? If God's love goes before us ... then why the need for repentance? If God is Love – gracious, sacrificial and unconditional – then why judgement?

These pivotal questions will be explored, however incompletely, in future issues of “Together”