Delightful Purpose

In a practical world influenced by Francis Bacon's scientific method and consumed with college education for technical skills only, everything that does not function in a need-based role is nearly discarded as purposeless. The age-old question of “why am I here?” is answered with advice for finding a fulfilling career or setting a quantifiable goal without ever actually pausing to wonder why we are here. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is not the extraordinary talent of the man who runs a mile in less than four minutes, but that he is made to run. G. K. Chesterton said, “We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.” Something about the mundane, everyday is the most curious. The question of “why am I here?” is found in a more glorious answer than the one usually given. Our purpose is found in the beauty of being unnecessary.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” As familiar as these ancient words are, it is easy to miss the miracle and goodness of God's creation. Of course, there is the miraculous work of God speaking into existence everything in the universe, making it beautiful and good. But the fact that He made anything at all is just as much a miracle. Why did He create in the beginning? Unconstrained by time and space, God could not have felt that He had had need of mankind to devote His time to, to keep Him busy and occupied. Neither could He have tendency toward feeling lonely. After all, He was already in fellowship within the godhead. When He initiated making man on the sixth day, He was not finding a helper suitable for Himself, or filling the universe because He felt alone in a vast world devoid of mankind. Rather He said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26a, ESV). Far from seeking needed companionship, God already was in fellowship. These observations lead to a somewhat startling conclusion: mankind is unnecessary. We are unnecessary. No, not a single being in the universe required man for any practical purpose. God, in His supreme glory, does not require our services of worship to add to His beautiful radiance. Neither can we discover an idea or invent a gadget that will cause God to wonder or add to His knowledge. He is as praiseworthy as He always has been, whether the creatures He brought into being acknowledge Him or not. In fact, considering what mankind did at the Fall, how the beauty of creation was marred by conscious, willful disobedience, God could have just as well not created in the beginning. The universe could never have been, and mankind not present.

Lest our unneeded existence be equated with its belittlement, be certain it is quite the opposite. Knowing that mankind is not needed for a utilitarian task is the most delightful characteristic of existence. Since God chose to bring the world and man into existence without obligation to duty, its very value is in being unneeded. Rather than being degrading, this is marvelous and shows the goodness of God in His delight to make us. James Schall, in The Unseriousness of Human Affairs, wrote, “The Fall is the account of free creatures claiming to be themselves the cause of the order and nature of things... To avoid this unpleasant possibility, God's only choice would be not to create at all, so that nothing but God would exist... Yet something in the goodness of God seeks to diffuse itself—not of necessity but out of delight.” When a child at the beach makes a castle of sand, it serves him no purpose. Never can it serve the purpose of housing him, providing shelter, or keeping him warm. Quite the contrary, its only purpose is to serve the pleasure of the little boy. If someone who knows nothing of the child walks by the sandcastle, they recognize it as valuable and more special than the rest of the sand on the beach because it was built merely out of goodness and joy. In a similar way, it is the things that are not pragmatic which show God's grace and love. If a creature or thing does not pull its weight but is still here, God has value for it. Nothing man does can ultimately enhance God. The non-utilitarian view of life best shows the delight of God, not in our needful contribution to the world, but in our superfluity. Mankind is beautiful not because we must exist but that we do.

Our superfluous existence communicates something about our value and purpose. Being here at all is only a result of the overflowing goodness of God. In Jayber Crow, Burley and Big Ellis went to cook an angel food cake and found that it did not come close to filling the pan. Looking forward to a heaping serving of cake and not wanting to be disappointed, they had determined that one man “could eat that big a cake by [himself].” After they “repeated the recipe until the pan was full, making sure they would have plenty for everybody,” they placed it in the oven. Upon opening the door once the time on the recipe had passed, they found the cake had gone beyond the pan to reach “exactly the same dimensions as the oven.” Like Burley's angel food cake that kept expanding until it reached the limits of the oven, God's goodness is so abundant that it has overflowed in the act of creating. But God's mercy cannot run out of “the eggs Annie May had saved up to sell at the store” or be constrained by the size of the oven. Instead, His goodness draws on an account that has no limit. Far from making man's actions worthless or excusable, this indicates that we exist because of a love outside ourselves and beyond necessity. “It is not 'necessary' that we exist,” wrote Schall. “It implies that we exist because of a choice, a love, a freedom grounded in what is beyond necessity. It implies that our lives should reflect this non-necessity, this freedom to be recipients of goods and graces of which we are not the cause.” God's gracious choice, like an overflowing angel food cake, forms our life purpose into delight and gratitude, not joyless, utilitarian duty. One result of this unnecessary nature of mankind is thank-filled joyfulness. As important as righteous obedience is, delighting in the law of God is equally important. The Psalmist wrote, “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” An element of rejoicing and wonder ought to accompany obedience. “Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever,” according to the Westminster Shorter Catechism. God's delight led Him to creation, our response ought to be delight in God. By looking at the world and self through this lens, the breeze on a spring day becomes more refreshing since it would be just as possible for it not to be there. The green grass is beautiful, not because we know why God chose for it to be green, but just because it is. Each individual life is valuable not because it is determined to be so but for the reason that God delighted to cause that life to enter the world.

The unnecessary nature of God's creation work is beautiful and gives us a purpose unlike anything else can. Jayber Crow, in Wendell Berry's novel, makes a remarkable observation: “[God] must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world.” Truly the clearest vision of God and His character is all around us. His love, goodness, grace, and joy are constantly visible. Centuries ago, the apostle Paul wrote, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” As miraculous as the work of creation itself was, another astounding miracle is that God chose to create in the first place. His delight in the superfluous must lead to ours.