The question has been asked, “Why did God create?” This question is connected to other questions such as: “If God has foreknowledge, then why would He create if He knew humanity would sin?” These are not easy questions to answer. Furthermore, these are not easy questions to ask if you consider yourself a Christian. If we come up with the wrong answer, then it could disrupt our faith. If we answer biblically, however, we can bolster our faith.
God’s Purpose for Creating
The Bible opens and declares: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The story of creation begins with a Person, not a thing. It all begins with God. God existed before there was a world. The apostle John wrote, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made” (Jn. 1:3). Additionally, the apostle Paul wrote, “For by Him were a all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or power: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Col. 1:16-17). Putting those two statements together we can conclude that God created all things, and all things were created for Him. This is foundational for the answers to our questions. God is Creator, and He created everything for His glory.
The heavens and earth declare the glory of God and worships Him (Ps. 19:1-4; 89:5). The sea roars, the floods clap, and the hills make a joyful noise unto the Lord (Ps. 98:7-8). The earth’s inanimate objects glorify and honor the One who has created (Ps. 148:1-14).
The capstone of God’s creation was man, for man was created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27). Along with all of creation, God created man to glorify and worship Him. The psalmist wrote, “Ascribe to the Lord, o heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness (Ps. 29:1-2). There is glory and worship due His name. Paul added that God predestined us to the praise of His grace, and glory (Eph. 1:5-6;14). Furthermore, at the consumption of all things, all of creation will sing: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things” (Rev. 4:11). From the very beginning God was to be worshiped, and for all of eternity God will be worshiped.
Worship is the expression of our devotedness to God. Humanity and its worship of God were corrupted because of sin. Sin had devastating effects on worship. Man’s heart became corrupted, which led to man worshiping creation more than the Creator (Rom. 1:21-25). The restoration of man and worship was God’s priority behind the incarnation of Christ. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth” (Jn. 4:24). The woman believed that true worship would happen when the Messiah would come. Jesus declared, “I that speak unto thee am he” (Jn. 4:25-26). Jesus had come to do the will of God, restore broken humanity, and reinstitute true worship.
But our questions are why did God create if He knew man would fall? Or wouldn’t it have been easier for God to just either not create anything at all? Or why didn’t He create man without the ability to sin? Such theological and philosophical questions have been argued and debated for centuries. It’s not my aim to attempt to enter the arena with theological and philosophical giants. I neither have the capability, nor the vocabulary to do so. Instead, I want to try help us see things a little clearer.
God’s Will and Man’s Will
We have already deduced from Scripture that it is God’s will for creation to worship Him. Since sin entered, then is it God’s will that man perish? First, we must answer the question concerning the consequences of sin. Sin distorted man’s worship, but it did much more than that, though that is important. The Hebrew word for “sin” is defined as “to miss the mark.” Sin misses the mark of God’s holiness. It leaves humanity short of God’s righteous standards. God’s holiness and righteousness are intrinsically connected. For God to be holy, then He must be just. A God who is not just, cannot be God. But God is just. And to miss the mark of God’s holiness is to be in debt on God’s ledger. Sin has a cost, and that cost is death (Rom. 6:23). The Lord told Adam that the day He would disobey His commands would be the day he would die (Gen. 2:17). Adam didn’t die the moment he ate of the tree. Instead, the effects of death began to work in him. It was never God’s will that man die. But man made the choice to disobey God, and death entered the scene. Paul wrote, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:19). God’s justice had to be reconciled with man’s decision to sin. Though Adam did not die at that moment, something else died in place of Adam (Gen. 3:21). In the New Testament, Jesus paid the debt of sin with His death on Calvary. God’s justice had to be met, which Jesus freely accomplished. Like Adam and Eve covered with the skins of a dead animal, believers are clothed with Christ’s righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21).
This leads to another question: “Does man have free will?” God created man with the ability to choose. Adam’s choice to disobey God and eat from the forbidden tree had disastrous effects on man’s free will. God, however, did not allow sin and evil to frustrate the very purpose of creation, which was to allow man the freedom to determine itself towards doing good. God has permitted, but not caused, man to fall into sin through free will. For instance, when man turns away from God, he does so without the help of God. God does not assist man’s will to sin. On the other hand, when man turns to receive God’s grace, it is God’s own act enabling man’s choice to choose salvation. This is what it called “prevenient grace.” It is God’s act upon man’s will to yield to God’s call to salvation.
Does God’s prevenient grace intrude on man’s free will? The work of grace encourages the will to desire to do good. Paul encapsulates this well in Romans 7:15-24. Before conversion sinful man does whatever he pleases, it just doesn’t please God. Now that grace has moved upon man’s will and affections he desires to do the good things he wasn’t previously inclined to do. Grace works to enable man’s will to do good.
Does God’s grace work against man’s free will? If God moves man’s will, this is not opposed to man’s free will to choose. For instance, God’s activity in natural things is not contrary to their nature. For instance, if the wind blows through a tree, the limbs and leaves move naturally. The moving of the limbs and leaves is not against it’s nature. God moves in the will of man in ways that are consistent with man’s willing. God doesn’t coerce man’s will into doing something that it doesn’t want to do. God moves things in a way that is consistent with its nature. Man was created in the image of God, its in man’s nature (though damaged due to sin) to do good.
To answer the question we asked: “Is it God’s will that man perish?” The answer is no. The apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). God is willing to save, but He will not coerce man to be saved. Someone said the elect is whosever will, and the non-elect are the whosever won’t. Jesus died for those who do not want to believe and who will never believe. The gift of God’s salvation from sin is offered whether accepted or not (1 Tim. 1:15-16; 2:3-6; Titus 2:11-14). Sinners are lost not because of a deficiency in God’s grace, but due to a defect in a sinner’s will. Nothing prevents the worst of sinners to believe in Jesus and be saved except his own fatal refusal to choose it.
The will of God is that all be saved, but its not God’s will for that to be accomplished through overriding a person’s will. Again, God did not create robots, He created humans to worship Him. If worship is coerced, then it is no longer worship. I think of the chorus of Bonnie Raitt’s song I Can’t Make You Love Me, “Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t. You can’t make your heart feel something that it won’t.” Though God created us to worship and love Him, it must be done out of the abundance of the heart and will. God won’t make us love Him if we won’t. But He has provided the means necessary to enable us to change our hearts and wills through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God’s Foreknowledge
The original question of “why did God create if He knew man would fall?” becomes puzzling when we think of man’s free will and God’s foreknowledge. Man’s ability to choose or reject God’s call to salvation takes place in time. Scripture reveals that all of time is known through God’s wisdom (Is. 46:10). God is omniscient, or all knowing. He knows the end from the beginning. God foreknows how man will choose, but His foreknowledge does not determine man’s choice. In other words, the events of time and history or known by God because they occur. However, they do not exist because God knows them.
St. Augustine wrestled with this same conundrum. He said, “Just as you do not, by your memory of them, compel past events to have happened, neither does God, by His foreknowledge, compel future events to take place.” He goes on to say, “God foreknows all the things of which He is the Author, but He is not Himself the Author of all that He foreknows.” Origen said something similar, “Divine foreknowledge means not that anything will happen because God knows that it will, but that, because it will happen, God already knows it.”
In other words, the idea that God foreknows what the believer’s choice would be does not mean that God is coercing the act of belief, or forcing a will to do something it wouldn’t normally do.
God’s foreknowledge does not make God the Author of events that are contrary to His will. Yes, God knows who will respond to the gospel message and believe. Yes, He knows who will reject the gospel and be damned. Neither of these truths imply that God decided for them in eternity past. Salvation, and the expression of salvation in worship, wouldn’t have any great meaning if God overrode man’s free will to choose.
Why Did God Create?
If God knew that man would fall and sin, then why did He create? Let’s try to answer this with an analogy. When a man and woman choose to get married and have children they do so with the knowledge that their child may not turn out to be a stellar citizen. Their child may become a scourge to society. But there is also the hope that their child becomes a successful doctor or lawyer who is adored by all. There is always risk in having children. But people keep choosing to have children.
Let’s think about this further. If a couple has a child and that child turns out to be a serial killer as an adult, is it the parent’s fault? Some may want to blame the parents for faulty child-rearing, or poor choices of neighborhoods they lived in or schools they sent their child to. History records many awful people who had very fine parents and upbringing. The parents aren’t culpable for their offspring’s behavior. A parent’s child makes the free choice to either be a scourge to society or a hero.
Parents know their children will make mistakes and make poor choices. That’s part of parenting. While parents don’t know the particulars of a child’s choices in advance, God does. Children bring heart ache and joy all at the same time. It’s the possibility of children bringing joy and fulfillment that leads people to continue procreating.
Wouldn’t the same be true for God the Creator? God’s first son, Adam, disobeyed and sinned. But the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, obeyed and brought salvation. By one son’s offense judgment, condemnation and death reigned. By another Son’s obedience grace, righteousness, and justification reign. By one son’s poor choice, sin abounded. By another Son’s perfect life grace did abound much more (Rom. 5:17-21).
Yes, God knew there was the possibility for humanity to fail. But God also knew there was a great possibility for Him to have a Son who could undo what sin had caused. That Son would extend God’s grace to fallen humanity who would bring us in as sons and daughters that we might cry out in worship, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:14-17).