Kaka D. Iralu
For every action in life big or small, there is always a goal or purpose behind it. For example, we cook a meal with the purpose of eating it or we built a house in order to live in it etc. Starting from this premise, I have been grappling with the ultimate purpose of life on earth. The question is: What was the purpose of God in creating the universe and the earth and mankind to live in it? In my search, I could not find one Bible verse that explains the purpose of creation in one word or sentence but what I discovered is this: The greatest is love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Love your neighbor as yourself. Speak the truth in love. Love ye one another. Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. In other words the resounding answer that comes back from the Bible is love, love and love.
I am therefore convinced that the purpose of creation is to practice love- Love between God and man. Love to our neighbors, love within the family etc. Conversely, it also means that if we hate one another or refuse to love one another, we are acting in diametrical opposition to God’s purpose for creating us.
But the next question is: Where did this love come from? For an answer, let us go to John17:24.
“Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
Now, the Bible in Genesis 1:1 begins with the words: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” But what Jn.17:24 reveals to us is that before that “beginning,” or before the foundations of the world were created, there was love within the triune Godhead. What a wonderful revelation that is- this knowledge that love had existed in God before he created the material world and that he created us in love so that we too can love him and also love one another in this world!
What a contrast that is to Stephen Hawkins’s theory of a static past where the universe just began with nothing and therefore without any plan or purpose except a chain of physical laws. After all a static impersonal nothing, can ever create something as beautiful and wonderful as love.
What a contrast that also is to the Muslim concept of a one and only Alah who is not a Trinity but only one God. In such a concept of God, the concept of love can have no meaning. This is because a one God theory cannot accommodate the concept of love as love needs an object for love to be valid. For example in conjugal love, it needs two persons-husband and wife- for love to be real and valid. However, in the absence of an object on which your love can be directed and in turn be reciprocated, love can have no meaning at all. In such an "objectless love," love can only be “self love”- a love that begins with itself and must end in itself. The Christian concept of love in contrast, is valid love, because within the triune God, there are three persons- Father, Son and Holy spirit- among whom love existed before the visible world was created.
How comforting too this Christian concept of love is from the Hindu concept of Advaita-Vedanta where ultimately everything material or empirical (which also must include love) is but an illusion (Maya). But despite that conclusion, unable to run away from the visible universe and themselves, they would take a leap of faith and say that ultimately, the final reality of everything lies in the oneness (Pantheism) of everything. They would say that atman (The individual spirit or soul) and Brahman (The universal spirit or principle) are ultimately one and the same thing. This philosophy concludes that ultimate reality however cannot be described in human language (Neti neti). (Here, as far as I am concerned, I for one will not allow an illusionist to tell me what love is or for that matter, what ultimate reality is all about!)
In contrast to all these theories and philosophies, the Bible describes this wonderful thing called love in the following words:
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, hopes in all things and endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
To practice this love to God and towards one another is then, the purpose for which God has created us.
