Why does God create, the essence of love and a tribute to Mexican Jazz

So an interesting question was raised in my philosophy of religion class last week. If whatever God does is hopelessly flawed, why create at all? Imagine hypothetically if the universe wasn't around. Does that diminish God's goodness or attributes in anyway? Well i doubt it because God is just as good with the universe there with or without the universe. God doesn't need this world to be good. There is no necessity to add to God's perfection by creating our world. If there's any benefit endowed its not on the creator but on the created, being us. Here's what i deem to be a plausible explanation. Now i'm currently struggling to make positive concrete assertions about my knowledge of God that can be made on logical reasons rather than reasoning from a sacred text. I intend to do an elaborate post on this eventually but for now, i'll just draw out one idea which i find to be fascinating. Creators of products tend to have some imitation of themselves in the product created. So think of anything that you've ever generated and whether the above statement is true. Is there an attribute or a quality of yourself that lies in the essence of a product you've created. A simple example would be, whenever you write essays, emails, articles etc, giving your own opinion is in some sense giving the reader some insight as to what your essence or attributes are like. So lets say for argument sake God created me by using my parents as tools for creation. This means that there are some attributes within me that are present in the creator. So for instance if i possessed goodness (which I think has a complicated definition that i wont go into because i havent made up my mind on it), this attribute that i possess would probably be the highest form of excellence in God. God would possess the epitome of goodness. Truthfully i don't know or think i will find the answer in this life for why God has created at all but a plausible explanation to me of why anything in this universe exists at all, is because God has created us out of love. Our world is God's choosing to create it. The only way to know why God chose this world has to be from God through divine revelation. If you do something entirely for the benefit of another, it is an act of love. So how does one defines love? There is plenty of literature on love but since this is my blog, my definition of true love; when you love somebody your ego disintegrates, you become insignificant and the happiness of the person that your in love with is of substantial importance to you. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have loving parents, think of the relationship that your parents have towards you and i think it illustrates my definition better. Or imagine if you have your own child and how you would love them (I'm not defining happiness because that is too subjective).
So maybe God made us out of love and so that we could love God back. You might say this indicates that love means God is needy then. If love entails some amount of neediness, then theres imperfection in the lover. However love doesn't always express incompleteness if your without it. So God could feel loved even if we didn't love God. So to reiterate my point, creation could exist because God loves us and God wants us to love God back.

One last thing i want to make a mention of with regards to freewill. I think its fair to say that we have freewill and we can choose to believe in God or to not believe in God. Imagine if God showed Himself/Herself to us in the sky. The search for truth would be over as to whether God exists or not. Then imagine if someone was to tell you that you must love God and do good things in the world or else you'll go to hell. Think about the purity of your actions from that moment onwards. Everytime you were to do something good or out of love, you would do it because you would be thinking that this action has a means to my end. If i do this good deed i will go to the kingdom of God but if i don't i might go to hell. All your actions in life from then on would be dictated by the knowledge that God exists and wants you to do certain things. However lets say you don't know that God exists and you then do good things. Which case of doing goodness is more noble now? Quick example to make my point a little clearer. Imagine that theres a hungry man at the side of the road and he asks people passing by for food. 2 strangers walk by the hungry man at different times. One is named Tom who is a theist and is conscientious that God is watching all the good and bad things Tom is doing. The second stranger is Andy who is an atheist who does not believe in God at all. Tom gives food to the hungry man because he knows God would have wanted him to have done that. Andy gives food to the hungry man because he feels sorry for him and feeds him out of sympathy. I think Andy's deed is more noble and is of a purer good than that of Tom. I think freewill is closely related to the purity of our intentions. God having given us freewill and not revealing Himself/Herself to us allows us to make a conscience decision as to whether or not we purely want to love the Creator back.


A tribute to Mexican Jazz



I recently went to watch a Mexican jazz band from DF (the capital) named Sacbe at Harry's Bar. The performance was fantastic and i had an interesting conversation about how God and music were connected with the Bass player Enrique Toussaint. I'll post some links as to what the music was like at the bottom of this post along with some random facts i stumbled upon of Sacbe.

I asked enrique if there was anything he could teach me about music that i could take away with me from the short 5 minute conversation we had. Now i've asked this question once before to another Mexican musician i met in a jungle in Palenque (Mexico) and i managed to have a one hour class with that guy. When asking this question i thought to myself, what a stupid question to ask. This guy is never going to have the time to entertain such a poorly defined question. To my delight, his eyes kind of lit up and he said sure. He went on to explain to me that music was not that complicated, told me something about pentatonic scales, the 5 different forms and how mastering the 5 forms was sufficient for being able to improvise with music. Now theres one major problem i have when it comes to improvising that i'm sure a lot of musicians struggle with. Its improvising freely without having to think where the notes are and what scale your in. As easy as it sounds, i find it difficult to play by being dependent solely on your ears and how you feel then and there in the moment. My definition of a skilled musician is one who can hear whatever sound he has in his head and translate that sound straight away on to an instrument. Enrique told me you can't be thinking of the names of notes when your creating something because when you improvise, you just have to let yourself go. Its not as complex as people make it out to be. Music is a gift and its a gift that constantly comes from above. All you are is an interpreter, a vehicle for the gift and ultimately you can make people happy, make people cry and thats what its all about. Its a big responsibility. But if your thinking too much its stopping that thing from happening, that connection with God or however you want to call it. My definition of a virtuoso is someone who can translate the sound instantly, add feeling to the notes and create a connection with the audience. I'm at a point in my life where i am questioning what are the attributes i can positively predicate/ascribe about God. The only thing i do know and believe for sure is that God can communicate with me and i to God through music. I don't have a rational justification for it but i just know that it is true and its great to hear a good musician confirm my theory. We tend to find ourselves affiliated and connected with those who share similar views with us. I believe that the best evidence for any theories that make up your own truth is personal experience.

Sacbe is a jazz trio of the Toussaint virtuosos. Enrique, the bassist, is a self taught musician (he never had a formal education for music). His brother Fernando. the drummer, told me that they started playing when they were 16 in pubs. Strangely enough i felt connected to the band when they played this music because it reminded me of the high quality of jazz music that i came across while i was in Mexico. The pianist, Eugenio, has played with a famous bass player and drummer i happened to watch perform in Mexico named Augustin Bernal and Gabriel Puentes. Its such a delightful coincidence that i should meet someone who has played with someone i've seen perform, at the other end of the world, in Harry's bar. What are the odds of things like that happening?

Anyway im posting 2 links below. One is to hear the brilliant Confluencia track from Augustin Bernal's group Jazz en tres and a recording of Sacbe's performance of sunset at sunset at Harry's bar. If they get inactive and you want to hear them please drop me a comment and i'll make sure it gets activated. Photographs for this post are courtesy of Ms Mamy Goya Oshiro.

Confluencia by Jazz en tres

Sunset at sunset by Sacbe