Our surprising universe. |
Given God's perfection, we wouldn't really expect him to create a world at all. One wouldn't expect a perfect being to be lacking in any respect, so there would simply be no need to create anything. Theologians actually tend to agree on this point: they're quite insistent that God is completely self-sufficient and has no actual need of his creation.
So then, what would a world made for us look like? First of all, since Christians believe that both God and humans are essentially spiritual, one would expect the world God creates to be spiritual as well. There's no particular reason to think that God would create a world composed of a fundamentally different kind of "stuff," a collection of physical particles that interact according to some seemingly arbitrary set of laws. A purely spiritual realm would be not only simpler, but also far superior in some aspects: for example, there would be no physical brains to cause irrational decisions and mental illness.
Pictured at center right: us. |
Since God is assumed to be perfectly good, the world should be completely free of unnecessary evil. We also shouldn't expect any flaws in God's personality, such as vanity, bloodlust or an out-of-control temper. If we're ever deserving of punishment, that punishment should fit the crime: no indiscriminate mass slaughters. And since God is meant to be perfectly just, humans should be treated equally: there's no excuse for divine endorsement of slavery, misogyny, homophobia or one particular favored group of people.
Here, then, is what we can say about the world we might predict given only the traits of the classical Christian God to work off of. If we even expect such a God to create a world of fallible people at all, we would expect that world to be...
- Spiritual and not physical
- Young, with life formed via special creation
- Of appropriate size and content
- Free from all unnecessary evil
- Treat everyone equally
- Make his existence and his expectations of us evident
- Be free of character flaws
- Not demand sacrifices, worship or love
- Give us a single, optional life
- Reward or punish us based on actions, not belief
- Reward or punish in proportion with those actions
Interesting thoughts. If you can look without biased eyes, it is very strange that the (alleged) most important entity in existence chooses to be undetectable by us but nonetheless demands our belief and worship based on stories in a story book written by we don't know whom.
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