Perhaps one of the most significant stumbling blocks to most would-be theologians is the question of why God created the universe at all. It is not a particularly complex question. In truth, it is a startlingly simple proposition, and one that is grounded in so much of our understanding of the world, God, and the latent meaning of the act of creation, but it is not one that is easily answerable.
The immediate challenge is in saying that God needed to do anything, that the act of creation was something that was obligatory. God, who is perfect all in Himself, is not in want for anything. So why do it? It would seem that having nothing would be infinitely simpler than having something. We are struck with this abundant mystery, a mystery which predicates our existence and our relationship to God, both questions that are fundamental to our understanding of the world.
There are some familiar responses from the great Doctors of the Church which are occasionally used in response to this question. The most famous of which is St. Thomas Aquinas’ claim that creation was an act to express the glory of God (Summa Theologiae, 19.6.3). That is to say, the universe exists as a kind of mirror, reflecting the infinite perfection and grandeur of its Creator. Creation, for Aquinas, is the ultimate exhibition of divine majesty, a testament to the beauty and goodness inherent in God.
St. Augustine is perhaps more laconic, only noting that creation was the result of God’s goodness (City of God, 11:21). While Augustine does not delve into the mechanics or motives in a detailed fashion, he presents creation as a natural expression of divine nature.
In either case, this can hardly be taken for a motive, nevertheless a motive so sweeping as to explain why there is anything at all. I think most people will feel that these responses are relatively unsatisfying intellectually. Certainly we might expect a clearer purpose for the groundwork of our existence than these fairly nebulous explanations.
For those seeking a richer and more imaginative account, the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite offer a compelling alternative. A Greek theologian of the 5th century, whose works have often been neglected in popular discourse, Dionysius presents a vision of creation rooted not in necessity or duty, but in abundance itself. He employs the term hyperplērōma, or “superfullness,” to describe God’s nature. According to St. Dionysius, God is so replete with goodness, love, and joy that creation emerges as an overflow of divine plenitude. It is as if the universe is born not out of need or even deliberate calculation, but as an act of sheer, overflowing joy. Ergo, creation is an act of cosmic leisure on the part of the Almighty, an unbounding and unfolding jocular moment that extends across all time and throughout the universe.
These descriptions harmonize in portraying creation as God’s lavish gift, a cosmic overflow of joy rather than a calculated necessity. This mystery invites the proclamation of a Creator who delights in existence itself, whose laughter permeates the heavens and earth.
This notion finds a poetic resonance in the words of Dante Alighieri, who, in the Divine Comedy, evokes the joyous, cosmic character of divine creation. Speaking of the song of the angels he writes: Ciò ch’io vedeva mi sembiava un riso de l’universo… (“What I saw seemed to me to be the laughter of the universe”). Here, the act of creation is not grim, utilitarian, or burdensome. It is radiant, playful; it is full of the natural delight of the material world. The angels laugh at the great celestial joke of the universe which is pervasive and latent in God’s great cosmic sovereignty.
If we take this vision seriously, which might be counter-intuitive, it begins to reframe the entire spiritual drama of the cosmos. The question is no longer simply why God created the world, but what sort of world we inhabit if creation is truly the overflow of divine joy. A world born of lack would be anxious, competitive, and fragile. A world born of superabundance is fundamentally generous.
This perspective subtly alters the tone of Christian theology and cosmology. Creation is not God’s great engineering project, designed to solve a particular problem; it is the diffusion of goodness in the universe. As St. Dionysius writes elsewhere in his works, the Good is “self-diffusive.” It pours itself outward into all things. Light does not calculate before it shines; fire does not deliberate before it warms. In this same sense, to say that God creates is simply to say that Goodness radiates. The universe is not the answer to a deficiency, but the consequence of a joyous fecundity.
Perhaps this is best expressed in the words of English wit G.K. Chesterton, who says, “the reason why the angels fly is that they take themselves very lightly.” Then how much more does the Lord of all the angels?
Photo by Ilya Yakubovich on Unsplash
