If God is all great, what was the point of Him creating us? What need did He have in doing so? 

One way of looking at it is this way. God has lots of attributes, and some of these attributes are part of His essence. In other words, just like water is wet, God has attributes that are part and parcel of Himself. Of these attributes, we know that God is all-loving (al-wadūd) and all-merciful (al-rahmān).  

Since God is all loving and all merciful, He created us humans out of this love and mercy. It is out of His care and compassion that He wanted to give us life and give us the opportunity to earn eternal happiness in exchange for limited, finite acts of good and obedience to Him that He really doesn’t need. He only asks us to do them because it is for our own good! 

But isn’t the fact that so many people in this world are evil make this futile? 

It’s important to acknowledge that not everyone is evil in this world. There are also lots of good people. There are also some bad people who are really good but became bad because they were victims of their circumstances. God will judge all of us according to our circumstances so it is only He who can judge which one of us is truly good or evil. 

In Islam, God also sees hope in every single one of us. He sees hope that we may turn back and change, perhaps not in this world, but in the grave, the Day of Judgment or maybe even in hell. So not all is lost if we don’t make it in this world.  

Second, there are many humans who have fulfilled the ideal of being God’s vicegerents on earth. In other words, they are people who have purified their hearts and fulfilled what God expected of them. Why should these people be denied their existence because others would be bad? Why should evil people have a veto over the existence of Good people? 

To learn more, please tune into the full version of this lesson.