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Monday, December 9, 2013

God and humans, how we relate

                As we enter the second week of Advent, it is so fitting that we are beginning our foray into the theology of God and humanity.  Why relationship?  Why do we even need Jesus?  What’s the big deal about God coming to earth as a baby, growing into a man, and dying so that humans could “have a relationship” with Him? 

So many questions that find their genesis in the theology of human being and God’s relation to us.  Existential questions.  Ones that drive at who we are, what our purpose is, and the point of our otherwise futile lives.  Some that even question God’s existence. 

If God is so good, why did He create humans

                (who have great propensity towards violence/destruction/malevolence)?

If God is so perfect, why does He need humans to worship Him?

 


                To answer all, we begin with the premise that God is a relational being.  As a perfect, benevolent being it is better [e.g. more perfect and more benevolent] to be relational than not; therefore, because God is absolutely perfect and absolutely benevolent, He is relational.[1]  Scripture teaches us that He exists, eternity past through eternity future, in 3 persons all in perfect communion with each other.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are perfect and complete in love and relation unto themselves.  They lack nothing.    

                And yet, the Godhead desired to express an outpouring of His perfect and unending love through the creation of human being.  Not because God was lonely.  Not because He needed to be worshiped.  Not because He needed to create.  Not because He needed to have a relationship with something He created.  God needed nothing.  Unto Himself, He is perfect. 

                Conversely, God didn’t need to create human because His love was too big to be contained.  The Triune God contains and expresses infinitely perfect love all the time, eternally.  There is not an over-abundance of love, uncontainable by the Trinity.  There merely is the Godhead, expressing infinite and perfect love, in eternity past, present, and future. 

                Rather, God chose to create human being because of His infinite and perfect love and benevolence.  Because as an absolutely perfect and benevolent being, it is more benevolent to create human than it is to not.  And God is always the most loving, most benevolent, most perfect of all given possibilities. 

                And so, the Triune God created human being. 

                As a perfectly loving and benevolent Creator, God’s plan for His creation includes, dare I posit hinges upon, relationship.  Relationship with God, relationship with one another, relationship with the rest of creation.  Thus tomorrow, we will examine why God elevates human being over the rest of His creation as we explore the theology of the Imago Dei.  And next week, we will consider how humanity broke relationship with our creator, and why we are in need of that baby in a manger to make it right.                

Want to know where we've been in this series?  Click the links below for more. 
 



[1] I am purposefully omitting a few premises here because I am not engaging in an ontological argument for the existence of God, rather introducing how and why God is relational with His creation.  If you are curious as to the missing premises, please comment below or message me and I will provide these.   

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