Why did an immaterial God create a material universe?

[tonychanyt]

God is a spirit. Yet, Gn 1:

26 God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

God created the physical universe to sustain human lives. Human souls bear the image of God.

And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Humans were to multiply in this physical environment.

Further, this universe contains a spiritual realm. Col 1:

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Angelic beings dwell in the vertical realm. The vertical and the horizontal realms interact as a co-reality.

Moreover, when we are born again, the Spirit/Paraclete dwells in our spirits.

Why did an immaterial God create a material universe?

God didn't just create a material universe. It is too simplistic to isolate the physical universe from its associated spiritual dimension. We have a spirit, soul, and body.

 

[Mark Quayle]

God is a spirit.

God is spirit. Seems to me a bit difficult to confine him to being merely [another] spirit, however much bigger and better than the other spirits.

God is a spirit. Yet, Gn 1:


God created the physical universe to sustain human lives. Human souls bear the image of God.



Humans were to multiply in this physical environment.

Further, this universe contains a spiritual realm. Col 1:


Angelic beings dwell in the vertical realm. The vertical and the horizontal realms interact as a co-reality.

Moreover, when we are born again, the Spirit/Paraclete dwells in our spirits.

Why did an immaterial God create a material universe?

God didn't just create a material universe. It is too simplistic to isolate the physical universe from its associated spiritual dimension. We have a spirit, soul, and body.

I understand the usefulness of the "vertical vs horizontal" dynamic, but I don't think it is quite descriptive of how God sees things, and therefore, not entirely useful in figuring such questions out as this one. Not that my construction is solid either, btw, but I see God in whole different economy from the Angels' existence. He is outside of it all, but within it all for his purposes.

It will be interesting, though, to see Heaven how he does. I tend to think it will all be IN HIM, in some way; I hesitate to get too specific about it. But I don't think it will be/ is the same realm wherein angels currently "reside".

 

[tonychanyt]

I don't think it is quite descriptive of how God sees things

Right. I've made some clarifications. Take another look. Feel free to follow up. I'll try to clarify. Thanks

 

[Aaron112]

Why did an immaterial God create a material universe?

Why do artists continually create abominable idols, why does anyone buy what they cannot eat, what cannot profit them, why do architects create empty tombs for living humans to work in ?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Why do artists continually create abominable idols, why does anyone buy what they cannot eat, what cannot profit them, why do architects create empty tombs for living humans to work in ?

A reasonable answer to the OP might include the notion that we do not even understand the material. I notice that quantum theory increasingly more closely approaches implications that there is something (someone?) holding all this in hand. What we see is not the whole of it. I think the material will be 'swallowed up' by LIFE. ("Death is swallowed up in victory" might be more literal than figurative.)

It is not that this temporal life —described in Scripture as a vapor in comparison with the solid reality of the eternal— isn't very real. It is real, but it is only temporal, and then over with. Time passage is only definitive of this sequence of God's work. Then it is over with.

 

[Clare73]

God is a spirit. Yet, Gn 1:
God created the physical universe to sustain human lives. Human souls bear the image of God.
Humans were to multiply in this physical environment.
Further, this universe contains a spiritual realm. Col 1:
Angelic beings dwell in the vertical realm. The vertical and the horizontal realms interact as a co-reality.
Moreover, when we are born again, the Spirit/Paraclete dwells in our spirits.
Why did an immaterial God create a material universe?

For his pleasure. . .

God didn't just create a material universe. It is too simplistic to isolate the physical universe from its associated spiritual dimension. We have a spirit, soul, and body.

 

[Mark Quayle]

For his pleasure. . .

As to the OP's question, "Why did an immaterial God create a material universe?", there is something specifically material to the kind of glorified bodies we will have in Heaven, (members of the body of Christ, in which he will intimately delight even as members of the Bride of Christ, I think) that keeps me wondering if it has something to relate to being "made in the image of God". DNA?

Just what is the "immaterial" nature of God, after all? We really don't know very much!

 

[Aaron112]

DNA?

No.

 

[awstar]

For his pleasure. . .

Amen. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelaton 4:11