Why are we here?

Why are we here and why when we are being good do we still suffer?

 

 

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Paul Gauguin 1897 - 1898

 

 

How would you answer this question I was recently asked.

 

I had to respond in written form in under 500 words by

electronic communication.

 

Here is my answer...

 

Your question is one that has been asked since the dawn of time and the subject of songs, plays, films and more books than you could possible read in one lifetime!

Therefore, in answering I can give but a few brief pointers for further consideration.

Let me begin with a word that you used ‘good.’

What is goodness is a fascinating question.   If, as some atheist claim, we are nothing more than a random collection of atoms reacting to various stimuli, then on what basis can you declare anything good, bad or indifferent – things simply are as they are.   

It is worth teasing this word ‘good’ out in the creation story of Genesis, when God created and declared things good. Indeed in Genesis 1.31 we read, ‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.'

We also have built into this story the choice of the first human pair to be obedient to God or to seek after knowing good and evil – or maybe better to say good and non-good.  We can assume up until this point and their subsequent knowledge from the ‘fruit of the tree’ they knew neither good nor bad – things simply where what they were.  The choice is made and knowledge once gained, cannot be ‘un-gained.’

The choice that now lies before every human person is between the good and the bad.  However, how do we begin to make choices when those choices have a multiplicity of effects on an ever-increasing scale as more and more people are involved? 

A deep philosophical question with a wide range of ideas put forward over the years.

From a Christian perspective if we go back to the creation account and see there the creation as a natural result of the reciprocal love of God as a Community (we call this the Trinity) – then has God given up on this idea?  Is there a plan B – a fresh start perhaps in a new way?  

The Christian is no – and a very loud no at that.  God is redeeming and restoring his good creation and one day, as we read in Revelation 21 and elsewhere, (see for e.g. Romans 8.18-25) there will come a time when heaven (God’s realm) and earth (humanities realm) will be conjoined and become as one.

Our role, our purpose, why we are here – to be co-partners with God in bringing about the redemption of the cosmos.

The God uniquely revealed in Christ, the God whom we can get to know personally, the God who invites us to partner with him in building God’s Kingdom upon earth by way of presaging the coming new heaven/earth. 

Wow – what a calling!!!

 

‘You are a unique and irreplaceable actor in the drama of human history, and Jesus Christ has need of you to make known his salvific work in this particular place and at this particular moment in history.’

 

Michael Quoist ‘The Christian Response’