Why did God create me?

At the intersection of philosophy and theology there is a question: why does man exist? Various philosophers and theologians have attempted to address this question on the basis of their philosophical beliefs and systems. In the modern world, perhaps the most common answer is that man exists because a random series of events has culminated in our species. But at best, such an address addresses a different question-namely, how did the man come to be? -And not why.

The Catholic Church, however, faces the right question. Why does man exist? Or, to put it more colloquially, why did God make me?

Knowing
One of the most common answers to the question "Why did God make man?" among Christians in recent decades it has been "Because he was alone". Obviously nothing could be further from the truth. God is the perfect being; loneliness comes from imperfection. It is also the perfect community; while he is one God, he is also three persons, father, son and holy spirit - all that is naturally perfect since all are God.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us (paragraph 293):

"Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth:" The world was created for the glory of God. "
Creation testifies to that glory and man is the pinnacle of God's creation. In knowing him through his creation and through revelation, we can better testify of his glory. His perfection - the real reason he could not have been "alone" - is manifested (declared by the Vatican Fathers) "through the benefits it confers on creatures". And man, collectively and individually, is the head of those creatures.

Love him
God made me, and you and every other man or woman who has ever lived or will live, to love him. The word love has unfortunately lost much of its deeper meaning today when we use it as a synonym of pleasure or even not hate. But even if we struggle to understand what love really means, God understands it perfectly. Not only is it perfect love; but his perfect love lies in the very heart of the Trinity. A man and a woman become "one flesh" when united in the sacrament of marriage; but they never reach unity which is the essence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

But when we say that God made us love, we mean that he made us share the love that the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity have for each other. Through the Sacrament of Baptism, our souls are infused with sanctifying grace, the very life of God. As this sanctifying grace increases through the Sacrament of Confirmation and our cooperation with the Will of God, we are further attracted to His inner life. , in the love that Father, Son and Holy Spirit shares and that we have assisted in God's plan for salvation:

"Because God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that anyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).
serve
Creation not only manifests the perfect love of God, but his goodness. The world and everything in it is ordered to it; that's why, as we discussed above, we can get to know it through its creation. And by collaborating on His plan for creation, we draw closer to Him.

This is what "serving" God means. For many people today, the word serving has unpleasant connotations; we think of it in terms of a minor person serving a major, and in our democratic era, we cannot bear the idea of ​​hierarchy. But God is greater than us - he created us and sustains us in being, after all - and knows what is best for us. In serving him, we also serve ourselves, in the sense that each of us becomes the person that God wants us to be.

When we choose not to serve God, when we sin, we disturb the order of creation. The first sin - the original sin of Adam and Eve - brought death and suffering into the world. But all our sins - mortal or venial, major or minor - have a similar, though less drastic, effect.

Be happy with him forever
This is unless we are talking about the effect that those sins have on our souls. When God created you and me and everyone else, he meant that we were drawn to the life of the Trinity itself and enjoyed eternal happiness. But it gave us the freedom to make that choice. When we choose to sin, we deny knowing him, we refuse to return His love with the love of ours and we declare that we will not serve Him. And rejecting all the reasons why God created a man, we also reject His ultimate plan for us: to be happy with Him forever, in Heaven and in the world to come.