S2E3: Creation - What is the Purpose of it All?

What is the meaning of it all? Why did God create the universe? Did God create the universe, so that humanity could exist? What does the Genesis creation narrative say about the purpose of everything? Its answer may surprise us.  (Genesis 1)      
              -
01:40 -  A recurring problem: our idea of God is too small     .
08:40 -  Is the Universe designed so that Life can exist?        .
15:45 -  The purpose of each created thing in Genesis       .
22:30 -  Meaning of God's Delight in Creation       .
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Transcript

S2E3: What is the meaning of it All? 

What is the meaning of it All? Why does the universe exist? Why is there Life? Why does something so strange like a duck-billed platypus exist? And some of us think that religions hold the answers to these “why” questions. But, do religions really possess answers that others don’t? Does the Bible?

Our “why” questions though, are essentially questions about purpose. What are all these things for? What purpose do they serve? Many of us think that this is what Christianity answers—specifically, the Creation narrative in the Bible. So that, if we ask the Creator of all things, “what’d you make this for,” we will get an answer to its purpose; what its role is in the overall scheme of things, what benefit it provides us, or why it’s necessary for our existence. Like an engineer explaining the importance of an interlocked gear in his machine—a machine that produces… “us.” 

But what if God’s answer is, “Look! Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you just love it?” 

[ music / ]   

Welcome to "What do you mean, God speaks?" where we explore important ideas, insights, and stories in Christianity, for the skeptics who want to understand religion, to the Christians who have questions about their own beliefs. And everyone in between. 

I am Paul Seungoh Chung, and this is our third episode of the second season, "The Genesis Creation account, part 2. What is the purpose of it All?" 

[ / music ]   

One thing we often get wrong when we’re trying to make sense of the belief in God is the sheer scale and scope of the ideas that’re involved. It’s like we listen to a talk about our solar system, and then look for planets among the local landmarks in our neighborhood; or it’s like someone’s speaking about the ground everything’s standing on, and we think she’s talking about the classroom floor. Our idea of God is too small; it’s too narrow.

This was the main problem that the very first episode of this series was grappling with; many of us nowadays think that “God” is simply an entity—albeit one that’s all-powerful and all-knowing—which we encounter only in religious experiences or when things happen that cannot be explained. We can encounter “God” that way, yes; but, for Christianity, God is not an entity in our reality; God is the whole of Reality that all of us are engaged with, in all things and at all times. The question is, is Reality we’re engaged with, Who or a what? Our view of God… was too small. 

This was the problem again when we tried to make sense of what it means to say that “God speaks”. Many of us think it is simply about hearing a voice in a prayer, or reading the Bible, or perhaps experiencing the wonders of Nature; it certainly can include those things; but, for Christianity, every truth is God speaking—every truth in every era, in every area. It’s because all of reality is God speaking, through nature, history, or even our inward selves. Christians do believe that God speaks to us in a personal way, through the Bible and in our own lives; but, those cases belong to a special set within this far more comprehensive, all-encompassing idea. Our understanding of God speaking… was too narrow. 

The same kind of problem was at the root of our question about science and God. What if science discovers the complete set of the laws of nature that explains the universe, life, and everything? Does that mean science would leave no place for God to be found? We ask this, because we tend to think that God is only to be found in questions that science cannot explore, where science reaches its limits. And God is found there too, yes; but, for Christianity, the laws of nature, and every rational principle underlying everything that happens and how everything comes to be, is God, or more specifically, what the Bible calls the Logos of God; it is God speaking. So, whatever principle or law that science discovers, whatever it has yet to discover, and even those it will never discover, are all God speaking. Our way of relating God to science... was too limited.

And this is still the problem when we try to make sense of the Genesis account of Creation. Too often, we approach it by asking if this narrative somehow “fits” our current scientific account of the cosmos, such as the big bang, evolution, and so on. And if not, we think either the Bible or science has to go. But, the world that Genesis describes is not the world of modern science in the 21st century; it is the world that the people in the biblical times imagined it in their cosmology. It is those people, and their view of the world, that Genesis was speaking to. 

Even when we realize this though, we tend to miss that, for such people, things in the physical world were also something far more than what they are to us. Seed was something like the essence of Life—what enables all life to propagate itself. Water was something like the physical substance of possibility. They weren’t just symbols of those things; they were those things. And once we understand what each feature of the physical world that God creates in Genesis… meant to these people, we can then catch a glimpse of the sheer scale and scope of what it was trying to describe. This was what we explored in our previous episode; we were translating the Genesis narrative into our concepts and level of understanding. 

And it was something like this: As Genesis opens, God first sets forth an infinite sea of possibilities—fathomless and inconceivable to our mind. Then, God speaks to bring forth one possible world out of infinite others that it could have been. What kind of world? One where things exist—things that can be perceived and known; where things happen, and time flows. God speaks again, and the world becomes one where different things can exist, because there is space between them. This “space” then separates the sea of possibilities into those that can be known, and those that cannot. God speaks again, and the world now has tangible things, with defined forms—and so dry land, or the material world, emerges. God then speaks to this world, so that matter has the capability to bring forth Life.    

This is what God creates in in Genesis, if we understand what the physical things in this account meant to the ancient Hebrews. Their view of the physical world is outdated, but not their larger, general ideas about what constitutes every world. A world is where things happen, time flows, things are separated by space, things have forms, and Life can emerge, and an infinite range of possibilities await. God created that. All of that is God speaking. 

And whether modern science is compatible with this account is not quite the right question to ask; it is compatible, but that’s not the point. Our scientific cosmology may—and likely will—become outdated just as the one that the ancient Hebrews held, but the world that we will continue to live and explore, will still be that world God creates in Genesis: a world that God speaks; a world of possibilities, events, things, forms, and Life. So, our understanding of God and Creation, was too small. 

And there is one other question about Genesis where our views may likewise be too narrow. What is the meaning of it All?

[ pendulum ]

Go back to the opening verses of Genesis, where God is about to speak to the dark, fathomless abyss of water, which represents the infinite possibility. God speaks, and the possibility becomes something. God brings forth a world—one that is defined by Light. Yet, what this account implies is that, God could have spoken something else. A very different world could have been brought forth; or, there could have been no world at all.   

So, why this world—why this kind of universe? What is the purpose of it all? 

And the way we came up with the answer was… we peeked ahead. How does the Genesis Creation account end? Well… with the creation of us. God creates human beings in His own image, telling them to rule over every creature, which seems like a big deal. So we thought God created the universe… for our sake. The universe is our nursery, so to speak, because God wanted conscious, intelligent creatures capable of forming a personal relationship with Him. And those creatures needed a place to live. So the purpose for creating the world was for Life to exist, so that creatures like human beings can eventually emerge and thrive.

But, this implied that there should be some signs of design in our universe—to be specific, designs to end up with us, or at least, creatures like us. Surprisingly, it is contemporary cosmology that has raised the possibility that our universe is indeed designed. Scientists noticed that the fundamental parameters and characteristics of our universe seemed to be fine-tuned for Life to exist. Now, for there to be any kind of Life, there needs to be, at the very least, complex form of matter; and it also needs a hospitable environment, which won’t destroy that complexity. But, if say, gravity, or strong or weak nuclear forces, or electromagnetism—if any one of them—was even slightly stronger or weaker than it actually is, none of that would exist. There would be no complex matter, nor stars, nor planets. And if after the Big Bang, the universe expanded slower than it did, it would’ve collapsed in on itself before Life emerged, and if it expanded faster than it did, stars wouldn’t have formed, from which we get… complex matter. And these are just some examples among many others that make it possible for our universe to sustain Life. And we can’t explain why so many physical parameters have such precise values that are needed for Life to exist; as far as we know, they could have been different. 

This has led some scientists and philosophers to propose that the universe was fine-tuned by a divine designer, or “god,” so that Life could exist. But, there are, of course, other explanations. One is that there is a more fundamental principle that science has yet to discover, which will explain why these parameters are what they are, and could not be any different. The other is that there are multiple universes; some physicists have theorized that the laws of nature may generate many, many universes that have different parameters from each other; most would not be able to sustain Life, some would last mere moments, but a lucky few, like ours, would have precisely the right kind of parameters. Now, there is no evidence that there are other universes; there’s almost no way to test them, and the couple of times that we did, it came up negative. So, there are scientists who criticize the idea of the multiverse as not a scientific idea, but a philosophical one. But, that does not mean they do not exist—we just don’t know yet.

If I seem sort of non-committal here, it’s because I am. Whether the universe is fine-tuned, or there’s a more fundamental principle at work, or there are multiple universes, is an interesting question to be sure. But, for Christianity, it makes no significant difference to the belief in God. If the universe is fine-tuned, that is God speaking; if there is yet undiscovered fundamental principle, that is God speaking; if the laws of nature generate other universes, then that is God speaking. In each case, that would be what the Bible calls the Logos of God. Now, whether God that speaks is personal —which is to say, whether Reality is Who, and not a what—is a different question altogether. But, that may not be a question that scientific inquiry into Nature will answer; it certainly wasn’t how people in the Bible came to form their personal relationship with God. 

I’d say the question of fine-tuning holds significance rather for the atheists. If the universe is fine-tuned because it was “designed” for Life to exist, then Reality simply cannot be impersonal; it cannot be a what; it has to be a Who. But, it may very well be that a yet to be discovered fundamental principle, or the multiverse will explain why there is fine-tuning. My view of it is: the question of fine-tuning and design is for the atheists sort of like how the question of evil is for those of us who believe in God. If God is good, then why does evil exist? Now, if there’s no answer to that, it raises serious problems for a belief in God. But, there are answers why there can be evil when God is good; episode 11 of the first season of this series alone already hinted at one of them. Yet, these answers can still be questioned; the problem of evil is still something Christians wrestle with. Nor do our answers —even the best ones—imply that atheists should believe in God.

However, whether the universe is fine-tuned is important for Christianity for a very different reason. And this returns us to the question, what is the purpose of it all? Is the purpose of the universe to sustain Life—specifically, living things like us? Did God create the universe for our sake? Because if that’s so, then even if our universe is fine-tuned for Life, it seems very… inefficient. If Life is the purpose of the universe, then most of the physical universe is devoid of Life. If we humans are the reason why God created the universe, then much of it has nothing to do with us. And scientifically, there is nothing in the evolutionary process that guarantees that Life would eventually lead to producing sentient beings like humanity.

But, what if we were wrong from the start? What if the universe is not created so that we can exist? What if the purpose was something else entirely?

[ pendulum ]

What we often miss is that the Genesis creation account is actually quite clear on the purpose of Creation. To be specific, God gives a reason for each thing God creates. Perhaps we shouldn’t have skipped ahead to the end so quickly.

On the fourth “day,” God speaks, and brings forth the lights in the sky: the sun, moon, and the stars. And God says, “Let them separate day from night, and mark the seasons, years, and days,” and “give light to the earth.” What is the purpose of the sun, moon, and the stars? They are to be measures of time, and to be sources of light. Now, we’ve already explored how the separation of day and night, signifies Time itself, and how for the ancient Hebrews, “earth” is not the planet Earth, but something like the entire physical cosmos—the material world that have defined forms and shapes. And for them, the sun, moon, and the stars, were lights in the sky, but also the manifestation of order and regularity that governed this cosmos. So, if we put all these together, what God spoke was something like this: “I want there to be order in the universe: for the things in the heavens to move in ordered, regular intervals in time, and shine with light.” And that is what stars and planets do. That’s what they are. And according to Genesis, that is their purpose.

On the fifth “day,” God speaks, and the waters of the sea bring forth living things, and birds fly across the sky. Again, for the Hebrews, the seas and the sky, were both the physical seas and the sky, but also the realms beyond the reaches and even understanding of humanity. God speaks so that Life thrives there; including interestingly, the “great monsters” of chaos that would be terrifying and disastrous to human beings. But, we should attend to what God then says. “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” God’s command for the living creatures were to multiply and fill the world—to live in every possible place Life can thrive. Which is what Life does. Which, I should also add, is precisely what the process of evolution accomplishes. That is what God wants living creatures to do; that is God’s reason for creating living creatures.

These two examples should already have hinted at a pattern. The purpose of each created thing, according to Genesis, is to be what God created them to be—that is, for things to be themselves. It’s more than that though; it’s for there to be a world where they can do that. Think back to the two things that God created first; Light, and the sky. We can deduce their purpose by what God does with it. God creates the Light, then, separates light from darkness, so that there is day and night. And with that, time comes into being. Or more specifically, things can happen in sequence —things that consciousness can perceive and know. Then, God creates the sky, and separates the fathomless water into two, so that there is “above,” and “below.” This “sky” is space, so that different things can exist; different entities, different realms, different possibilities; it is also literally Space, because sun, moon, and the stars are eventually placed there. So, the reason why God created these first two things… is for things to happen, and happen in sequence, and for there to be space for different things to exist. Which is what the world is. Any world—even ones that cannot sustain any Life.      

But, God does create human beings at the end, and blesses them. Doesn’t that imply we are the purpose of Creation? Because everything God created led to us? Perhaps. And if it turns out that the universe is indeed fine-tuned for Life, and there is no multiverse with different parameters, then we’d have more reason to think so. But, as it is, the Genesis account is ambivalent. If humanity, or even Life, was the purpose of Creation, then it seems odd that the Genesis account would describe the reason God creates each thing. And in most cases, these reasons had no bearing on whether Life, let alone, humanity, can exist. 

This is especially notable when God creates earth, or matter. In other cases, God would speak, and things would come into being—and what God says, or does with the created thing would imply God’s reason for creating it. But, on the third “day,” God speaks, and creates the earth and seas. Then, separately, God speaks to earth, so it will be capable of bringing forth Life, or “plants with seeds.” It’s as if the two are separate: that God creating earth, is its own thing, and God enabling this earth to bring forth Life is yet another—two separate things with its own reasons. 

Now, God does create human beings when God created everything else, including every other living creature on land, and the entire world is flourishing and filled with life. It is then that God says, “Let’s create humanity in our image, to have dominion over all living things.” And God presents the completed world to humanity, and gives them a command, “to fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over all living things.” Which, by the way, is what humans do, whether we like it or not. We are so adaptive that we were able to inhabit every land-based environment; with our intelligence, we have gained a mastery over the material world in ways no other creatures have; and our actions have profoundly affected every living thing. But our mastery and actions have been in many ways harmful—but, that’s for the episode when we will explore the Fall of humanity. 

The point here is, God speaks as He presents the completed world to humanity, and God does not speak about the purpose of the world; rather God speaks about humanity fulfilling their purpose when presented with this world. It’s not about what the world is supposed to do for us, but what we’re supposed to do regarding it. Or, to put it more simply and perhaps more provocatively, it may be that the universe was not created for the sake of humanity; rather, humanity was created for the sake of the universe. But, that’s for the next episode. 

[ pendulum ]

And now we come to what I consider to be the most compelling point that the Genesis creation account presents regarding the meaning of it all. Each time God creates, God then declares that “it is good.” 

Again, God does not wait until He creates living creatures, let alone humanity, to declare that the world is now, “good.” When there is light and darkness; when the sky separates the seas of possibilities; when sea and land form, and later brings forth “seeds” of Life; when sun, moon and the stars shine in the heavens; when living creatures flourish in the seas and sky; when living creatures move about on the earth and under the earth; each time, God says, “it is good.” 

And the word, the meaning of “good,” here has a primal sense to it—pleasant, delightful, valuable, and excellent. In a word, God “loves” it. Some translations often miss this, but, when God creates everything there is, including humanity, the Genesis narrative breaks with its usual descriptive tone, and exclaims, “And look! It was very good!” As if to invite the readers to share in God’s delight.

But, think back to what God created. What delighted God so? What does Genesis invite its readers to share in that delight? That things happen. That time flows. That there is space, so that different things exist. That things can have forms. That Life is possible. That there is order and regularity in the heavens, and the sun, moon, and the stars shine there. That there are myriads of living things: things on land, things that creep, things that fly, things that swarm in the seas… and monstrous things dwell in the depths. That there is light. That there is darkness. That there is a clear sky, and the endless possibilities it holds. And that there is fathomless depth of inconceivable possibilities. Each of that, every one of that, is good. 

Now, the gods of the neighboring peoples of ancient Hebrews, made the world and reigned over it by battling the monsters, rising from the dark, fathomless depths. But, in Genesis, all of that, including the depths and the monsters therein, is God speaking. All of that is God’s speech, the Logos, even if the abyssal depths may be beyond our human speech and understanding. All of that is good.

And that is the meaning of it All. Things do not have a purpose it fulfills like a gear or a cog in a machine. God in Genesis does not coldly assess how each thing He created is functioning merely as a part of some larger goal. God created each thing so that they can be themselves, even as they are part of a whole Creation, and that is what delights God. To put it differently, the reason why God creates each thing… is for there to be something new, a new addition, that God will love. 

And so God does. God creates each new thing—God speaks each new level to reality—like a poet reciting the next stanza, or a composer adding in a new voice, or a melody, and then exclaiming, “this is good!”

Genesis suggests that the reason God creates, to put it most simply, is so that a world exists: a world with endless possibilities, with its own story, with its own things. And we humanity, the image of God, is created to encounter them all—all that God is speaking. 

And that is, “very good.”

Yet, this is a very challenging statement. Because it is by no means obvious to us that all that is “very good.” Sometimes, our lives are such that we think, “perhaps it would have been better if there was no world at all. If nothing happened; if nothing else existed. A world without life; a world without monsters; a world without pain.”

[ closing music ]   

And it is this that leads us to the next set of topics: creation of humanity, Adam and Eve, and their Fall.

But, for next week, we will have a bonus episode for some housekeeping, and to wrap up our exploration of Genesis and Creation, covering some topics and questions that just didn’t quite fit in the main episodes. 

And please continue to support this series, by following, subscribing, and sharing. You can also support this series by buying me coffee! www.buymeacoffee.com/PaulSoC. The link is provided in the episode description, if you are interested.