[DavidL]

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I honestly don't know. Why God created in the first place is a knotty problem theology has been unable to answer. The Bible doesn't say why He did. There is much speculation, but in the end we simply accept that He did for His own good reasons.


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May I use the word "existential" in a philosophy forum?

Dear friends, I believe that the ultimate answers are existential, and are consequently inviolate to reason.

NotReady: Does the Bible not say that "God is Love" (not "God has love" or "God is loving" but "God IS Love") and also that "knowledge will pass away"? If so, then the very essence of God is Love itself, not a philosophical treatise.

Did Christ not say "I AM the Truth" rather than "the written word is THE truth"? If so, Truth IS the existential person of Christ, not a theological or moral doctrine.

Every philosophical approach to defining God – and hence the creation, the moral law, and everything that proceeds from God – will come up short, not necessarily because God is infinitely sovereign and therefore beyond human comprehension, but more simply because it fails to capture the existential nature of His being.

The universe is created as an expression of God's love. Here are the three gifts of God: the gift of Life, the gift of free choice, and the gift of Himself through His Son.

God can not be contained within the pages of the Bible. If the Bible signposts the love of God through the risen Christ, then it has fulfilled its ultimate purpose.

I have never studied philosophy, but I believe (in a rough sense) that reasoning begins with assumptions, and that assumptions proceed from one's innate convictions. If we want to "reverse engineer" further, then I would very loosely suggest that conviction is the result of some kind of amalgam of intuition (faith, revelation and imagination fit somewhere in here), volition, and humility (or lack of). The intellect is a slave to these convictions, but it creates its own reasons – and justification – that proceed from them.

The way I see it, philosophy that does not lead us to a "first cause" will inevitably result in an unsatisfying, circular belief system.

I would suggest that "reality" incorporates elements that are highly subjective, and that God seeks a uniquely individual relationship with every person. Thus it is for each individual to "work out their own salvation".

The very nature of our entire being – physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever – created in the image of God, is existential, yet somehow we always manage to "convince" ourselves that the ultimate answers to the puzzle of life lie behind reason and scholarship. Knowledge may provide a temporary panacea for insecurity, but it is ill-equipped to deal with the anxiety and restlessness that relentlessly harass the core of the human psyche.

May all the readers of this forum experience the depth of God's unfailing and transforming love.

David