Q&A: A "Superfluous" Creation
A "Superfluous" Creation
Question
I’ve been wondering to myself whether there’s really substance to this question or whether it’s only intuitive, and I’d be glad for some help with it. Lately I’ve been puzzled by the countless creations and creatures in the universe that seemingly serve no need or purpose. I’m talking about many billions of animals from which human beings derive no benefit, and sometimes cannot even reach and whose existence the human mind does not even know about. About tens of billions of stars, most of which do not shine on us at all and do not help our world exist, and really also about billions of people who make up more than 99 percent of the world, even though according to Judaism the world was not created for them but for those who keep the Torah (unless their possibility of observing the Noahide commandments is itself the reason for their creation). One can always dismiss the question and say that we do not understand the Creator’s secrets, but isn’t this far too vast a scope of peripheral, attached, and unnecessary things that demands an explanation? And doesn’t this somewhat strengthen the hypothesis that the world was created entirely by chance, and therefore tens of billions of creatures also came into being by chance?
Answer
You assume that everything was made for the sake of human beings, and especially for the Jews. How do you know that? There is a dispute between Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed and Rabbi Meir ibn Gabbai, author of Avodat HaKodesh, on the question of whether everything was created for man (Avodat HaKodesh), or whether each thing is an end in itself (Maimonides).
Discussion on Answer
And if we assume that everything has a purpose in itself, does that make the question easier? So is it easier to say that God has exalted purposes that we do not understand?
And by the way, according to the view that everything was created for man, is there really no answer to such a fundamental question?
Esh,
Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, chapter 13.
The source was already given here.
I didn’t understand the question of whether it’s easier or not. It has nothing to do with the exaltedness of the purposes. If man is the purpose, isn’t that also beyond you? Either way, we do not understand the purpose of creation, even if it is for the sake of man. But if each thing was created for its own purpose, then the question does not arise.
Someone who thinks everything was created for man may indeed have no answer, and that itself would be an argument against his position. But he might also say that the world was created within a system of laws that allows for the natural emergence of human beings, and that this system of laws dictates a universe like ours (from the Big Bang onward, this is what comes out). Perhaps it was impossible to create a similar world with a different system of laws such that man and a universe would emerge that would fulfill the same functions that the Holy One, blessed be He, wants for man. Search the site for similar things I’ve written here more than once about evil in creation.
Where does Maimonides say this?