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Goals matter to us. Whether asking big questions such as “What is the meaning of life?” or little questions such as “What should I do today?,” we always have purpose looming in the back of our minds. Regardless of whether our life goals are good or bad, well thought out or underdeveloped, human beings are teleological creatures—we can’t escape asking, “What is the meaning of everything we do?” As a pagan philosopher, Aristotle insightfully began his book on ethics by arguing that every action needs to have an end or goal to hold any value, and that every end must draw toward a unifying primary end, or the significance of all lesser ends is lost. The reason that people have asked such questions is that we are made in God’s image, and God Himself does what He does on purpose. Our quest for purpose and meaning in life reflects the fact that God created the world and sustains life with a goal in view. As sinners, we often struggle to find our way: “He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Eccl. 3:11). Yet God knows “the end from the beginning . . . , saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Isa. 46:10).
God creates the why as well as the what of creaturely existence. The puzzling question, however, is, “Why did the eternal, self-sufficient, independent, immutable God choose to create the heavens and the earth?” The tempting, easy-way-out answer is, “Who knows?” It is equally easy to say, “For His own glory.” Though still not answering the question fully, we could say, and the church has often said, “Because God is goodness itself, and He freely chooses to communicate His goodness to others.” So why did God create? Surveying the testimony of Scripture, we can at least say that God created the world freely, to display His triune glory, and to communicate His goodness to creatures. These ideas are important because they establish a trajectory that should govern our chief end in life, funneling all our lesser goals toward God.
god created the world freely
Only God is necessary; creation is not. He is distinct from and independent of the world. Creation did not fulfill some kind of eternal neediness in God. He is not like created beings. Rather, He is a transcendent, self-existent, self-sufficient, independently blessed Being. Though God is the “dwelling place” of believers in time (Ps. 90:1), He is eternal, not subject to time. “From everlasting to everlasting you are God” (v. 2). He is not like the gods of myths and novels who happened to be there first or who have more power than other beings. Some creatures are more important and more powerful than others, but God is in a category of His own. If we climbed the ladder of being, from lesser to greater, we would not find God at the top. Even while He fills heaven and earth (Jer. 23:24), “heaven and the highest heaven” cannot contain Him (1 Kings 8:27). God must be God, independently and eternally, or He would not be God at all. He is necessary Being, and nothing else is.
This means that creation is a free act of God. Creation is ex nihilo, from nothing. We must untrain our minds from implicitly conceiving of nothing as something. God created the world by Himself, from Himself, and through Himself. This does not mean that ex nihilo creation somehow makes the world an extension of God, either as part of God or confining God to creation. Scripture opens with the words “In the beginning, God” (Gen. 1:1). He simply is, and all other things come to be. While arguing ultimately for the God-given dignity of creatures, the late theologian John Webster is a bit too hesitant to conclude that creation “humiliates the creature.” We are not humiliated in the sense that we don’t matter (which is his concern), but we are humiliated (i.e., humbled) in that we are dependent rather than independent beings. Creation is first about the God who does not need us or anything else, and we should avoid transforming a theology of creation into anthropology, making creation about us instead of God and His works. Our proper posture as creatures should be “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8:4). Let God’s name and glory be majestic in all the earth, and let us worship Him, humbly delighting by submissive faith in His superlative freedom.
god created to display his triune glory
God created the world to display His glory as triune. We need to grasp the what and how questions about creation before shifting to exploring the why questions. Webster notes well that “it is unwise to proceed directly to speak of creation as a trinitarian act” without first considering the Trinity Himself. Though we get far into the Bible’s story before God fully reveals Himself as triune in the Father’s sending the Son and the Spirit in Their missions to save His people (e.g., John 14:26; 15:26), Scripture’s divine Author gives us hints of His triunity along the way. Genesis 1:1–2 already introduces God and His Word and Spirit, and Psalm 33:6 says, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath [Spirit] of his mouth all their host.” Space does not permit a full exposition of the Trinity, but we need a summary of who God is as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to understand what He does in creation (and why He does it) from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. There is one God who is three persons. Divine persons are not parts of God but are fully God. The Father is God from none, the Son is God from the Father, and the Spirit is God from the Father and the Son. Theology, or reflection on God, precedes economy, or reflection on His works. God’s works in time reflect who He is in eternity. When God creates, therefore, all three persons create inseparably but nevertheless reflect Their order of being (from, through, in). Working inseparably does not erase appropriate distinctions between the persons. The Nicene Creed helps us here. The Father begets the Son and (with the Son) spirates the Spirit, and He is called “Maker of heaven and earth.” Yet the Father acts through the Son, who is begotten of Him: “By [the Son] all things were made.” Last, perfecting every divine work, the Spirit is “the Lord and Giver of Life.” Accordingly, God spoke the world into being through His Word and by His Spirit. Reflecting God’s Being, the how of creation is the single work of Father, Son, and Spirit, including appropriate emphases on the work in origin, execution, and perfection.
Does the Trinity tell us anything about why God created the world? Focusing on the Son gives us some clues. Echoing Genesis 1:1–2, John 1:3 connects some dots for us: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” The Son is on the Creator side of being. Pushing toward purpose, Paul adds, “All things were created through him and for him” (Col. 1:16). Without adding to His majesty, God created to display His glory through His Son and for His Son. At the outset, this means that displaying His glory encompasses both wrath against sinners and the salvation of God’s elect. God demonstrates His wrath and power in condemning the reprobate for their sins, showcasing “the riches of his glory” for elect “vessels of mercy” (Rom. 9:22–23). All sin deserves wrath (2 Thess. 1:8), but the Spirit specializes in convicting people of the sin of rejecting Christ (John 16:9). What could be more offensive to God than rejecting the Son through whom and for whom He created the world? The Spirit of the Lord rests on Christ (Isa. 11:2), and when judgment comes, “he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath [Spirit] of his lips he shall kill the wicked” (v. 4; see 2 Thess. 2:8). God’s priority in creating was to display His Trinitarian glory. Do we make His priority our own in believing, worshiping, and living?
god created to communicate his goodness
Though the purpose of creation includes divine wrath against deserving sinners, wrath comes third in a logically ordered list. God’s own glory and communicating His goodness to creatures take priority over judgment. God created the world to showcase His glory by extending His goodness in and to creatures made in His image. Reformed scholastic theologian Franciscus Junius, toward the end of his book A Treatise of True Theology, argued that theology, or wisdom for studying and knowing God, includes chief and subordinate ends. Chiefly, theology aims at God’s glory; secondarily, though related closely, God designed theology for the salvation of His elect. This proper theological agenda reflects something about why God created the world. God created the world, as Webster wrote, out of “supreme generosity.” Even though God displays His glory in salvation and condemnation, we should not forget that “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). Though not all human beings reach this goal, it is a divine focal point of creation through the Word and in the Word’s mission in becoming flesh.
Summarizing Scripture, Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 7 (“Of God’s Covenant with Man”) gives us an overwhelming depiction of divine generosity in communicating goodness to created beings. Though “the distance between God and the creature is so great” that human beings could hardly hope to have God as “their blessedness and reward,” yet God voluntarily made a covenant with Adam on their behalf. Promising Adam life in reward for obedience that he owed God simply by being a creature, the living God shows His abounding generous goodness through the covenantal gift. Immediately after Adam spurned God’s gifts, ruining himself and all his children, God immediately promised “life and salvation by Jesus Christ” through a covenant of grace (Gen. 3:15). Not only that, but this covenant would be a testament, or last will, in which Christ’s heirs receive His entire inheritance for His work rather than theirs (Heb. 9:15–17). All covenants are agreements establishing relationships, but some covenants are testaments, making covenant promises heavily one-sided. The weight of the conditions and promises of the covenant of grace in Christ falls on God, which every Old Testament sacrifice, priest, prophecy, sign, and sanctuary confirmed. When the Father sent the Son on His mission to become man and save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21), He communicated God’s goodness and grace “in more fullness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles,” than ever before. This “spiritual efficacy” hinges on the Holy Spirit, which is why Westminster Confession 8.8 refers to Christ as “certainly and effectually” applying His purchased redemption to His elect, both calling them to faith and “governing their hearts by his Word and Spirit.”
Step back a moment and take in the panoramic view of God’s goodness to creatures. God’s freedom in creation and His triune glory displayed in creation are precisely what makes the narrative of His covenant with human beings so compelling and breathtaking. If we turn the doctrine of creation into anthropology, we will likely ask, “Why doesn’t God save everyone?” Yet if we evaluate creation theologically, God’s independent self-existent blessedness and the Trinitarian character of His work should make us ask, “Why should God extend His goodness so abundantly to any creature, especially when so many rebel against Him?” The only answer is, “You are good and do good” (Ps. 119:68), and “The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord” (33:5). Recognizing God’s freedom, we should humbly and gratefully rejoice in, serve, and worship Him.
conclusion
We get caught up with our life goals, and these are often shortsighted: What do I want to do in life, and what should I do today? Aristotle was on to something; we need a chief end to tie together all lesser ends. What Aristotle could not see, however, that every Christian can and should is that God as Creator already provided an end for creation. Why did God create the world? Answers to this question must be tentative and modest. On some level, “Who knows?” is not a totally inappropriate answer. God does not need the world. Yet in creating the world, He acts like Himself, leaving traces of His triune glory in His work and communicating His goodness to creatures who don’t need to exist and who can’t make demands from their Maker. God created the world for eschatology because He created the world with teleology. He leads redeemed creatures back to their source in the Son, as the Spirit directs the pure in heart to see God (Matt. 5:8) through seeing Christ “as he is” (1 John 3:2). It is blessedly humiliating to be a creature and superlatively uplifting to be a redeemed creature. The reasons for creation give reasons for the creatures to direct their lives back to God. The right posture of creatures contemplating creation is, first, knowing “the only true God, and Jesus Christ” whom He sent (John 17:3). Do we know Him, trusting that He will fulfill every promise He offers us in Christ, relying on Him as the path to return to God? Above all, if God created all things for His own glory in creation, must we not “ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name” (Ps. 29:2) through worship? Does asking why God created leave you saying, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Ps. 8:1). Westminster Larger Catechism 1 declares that “man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.” What could be more noble, and what could be beyond this?