Two red finches dance around a bird feeder in my front window, their crimson wings painting the morning air. Beyond them, the rising sun sends golden light dripping through the leaves of my crabapple tree to pool in patches on the front lawn. A few towering cedars stand sentinel above. They nod their hoary heads in time with the silent breeze as if to give their approval to the sunrise. And nearer than all these, twin baby girls sit smiling, full of milk and flexing their newfound voices in infant glee. The scene is soaked in pleasures and fills my heart with a wild joy.
Perhaps you have had a similar experience and have wondered, as I did, whether this kind of scene makes God happy. Does he enjoy this lovely slice of creation with the same delight I do? Does he actually like what he has made? If we can answer those questions, not only will we gain insight into the fathomless gladness of our God, but we will also be better equipped to engage with God’s world as he does.
Trinitarian Fullness
To begin, yes, God delights in his creation! The Lord rejoices in the works of his hands, from the red finch to the rising sun to the little girls made in his image (Psalm 104:31). How could it be otherwise? God is no idolator, and so God is foremost in his own affections. From all eternity, the Father and Son have perfectly delighted in one another by the Spirit. This unfathomable abundance of life and love, beauty and joy is his Trinitarian fullness. And creation externally expresses some of this internal fullness.
Everything that is not God makes God’s divine nature and power visible (Romans 1:20). The world with a deafening voice declares the glory (Psalm 19:1). So, if God loves himself perfectly, how could he not take pleasure in his creation? Jonathan Edwards explains, “As he delights in his own light, he must delight in every beam of that light” (God’s Passion for His Glory, 157). To do otherwise would demonstrate a defect in his love.
Furthermore, no one can force God to do anything. He is the freest and happiest being imaginable. Therefore, if things exist (and they do), they exist because God is satisfied that they should be. As someone once observed, if God wanted to erase the universe, he wouldn’t have to do anything. He’d have to stop doing something. You exist, trees exist, stars exist, mosquitoes exist because it is God’s present pleasure to make it so. To riff on G.K. Chesterton, creation is the continual, exuberant encore of a God who delights in all that he has made. The sun rises each morning because God gives it a daily bravo.
Divine Hedonics
For Christian Hedonists, God’s happiness in creation comes as no surprise. But can we say more? Can we, as with fine wine, discern the different hints, flavors, and bright undertones of God’s pleasure in creation? Indeed, we can. In an analogous way, our human joys as subcreators give us a glimpse of God’s joys as Creator. So, what specific kinds of pleasure does God enjoy in his creation?
1. The Pleasure of an Artist
I have a juniper bonsai tree sitting on my back porch. I’ve cultivated — the correct term is “trained” — that tiny tree for years to fit the aesthetic standards of bonsai. It came home with me from the hardware store a wild bush, untrained, uncultivated, and unbalanced. But now it reveals a delightful symmetry — one long, graceful branch on the left harmonizing with two short ones on the right and topped with a tampering crown. I have invested much time, thought, and creative effort to make that bonsai tree beautiful. It is (even if not a great one) a work of art.
All trees are bonsai trees. God “trains” every tree on the planet. In my limited way, I cultivate my little tree with care and attention, but much lies outside my artistic control. Not so with God. He is not only exhaustively sovereign; he is exhaustively artistic. Every elm and ash, each birch and oak, the rowans, maples, poplars, and palms, the innumerable variety of trees — and yes, the crabapple in my front yard — are all God’s bonsais.
This bonsai principle extends far beyond trees. All of creation displays what George Herbert calls God’s curious art. He designs, erects, cultivates, paints, chisels, tunes, sculpts, fills, molds, finishes, and crafts all things to showcase his diverse excellencies. Realizing this led Augustine to pray, “The voice with which [created things] speak is self-evidence. You, Lord, who are beautiful, made them for they are beautiful” (Confessions, 11.4.6). Like sunlight through stained glass, triune beauty dances through the cathedral of creation, filling it with music, magic, and light.
When the divine Artist proclaimed his finished work “very good” (Genesis 1:31), he declared his aesthetic approval and artistic pleasure in what he had made.
2. The Pleasure of an Architect
Speaking of cathedrals, if you want to witness the genius of an architect, spend some time in a great cathedral. From the symmetry of the structure to the harmony of the whole, the particular attention given to each stone, and the symbolic significance of the materials, a cathedral puts the architect’s wisdom, power, and patience on full display.
In the same way, the cathedral of creation displays God’s genius. Scripture repeatedly connects the structure and order of the world with God’s wisdom.
O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures. (Psalm 104:24)
God himself describes creation in architectural terms when he points out his providence to Job. The divine Architect “laid the foundations of the earth” and “determined its measurements.” He sunk the cornerstones of the cosmos, set the pillars of the world, and leveled the land. He circumscribed the sea and handcrafted the doors of the deep (Job 38:1–11). Absolutely nothing falls outside this sovereign construction.
Why did he do all this? Why did he construct the world in this way? For the same reason a great architect builds — because he delights in doing it. “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:6). God finds pleasure in orchestrating order and instilling degree. He loves hierarchy and harmony. Only the Architect can rejoice in the foundations only he sees.
3. The Pleasure of an Author
Although I am a bit biased, I suspect few pleasures surpass the pleasures of an author. Words make worlds, and wielding that magic thrills the soul. And it should! When our words make our internal life visible, we touch the very principle of our being — like seizing a lightning bolt. We exist because the Word speaks (Hebrews 1:3). Just like our words make what is internal external, God’s cosmos-creating words — words that we can taste and feel, smell and see — communicate his internal fullness.
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge captures the enchanting speech of God beautifully in his poem “Frost at Midnight.” Coleridge rejoices that when you attend to creation,
. . . so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
Creation is God’s “eternal language” — his never-ceasing speech act. Through this cosmic story, God “teach[es] Himself” to all with ears to hear. And the more he tells the tale, the more we desire to know it.
When Macbeth says life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, he’s only partially correct. Reality is indeed a story, but a perfect narrator, full of goodness and glory, tells it. God never struggles with his story, unlike even the greatest human authors. He never reaches for the right word in vain. He never fails to connect plot points. He never suffers from writer’s block. He never wearies of filling in the details of his characters — from tears shed to hairs on their head (Psalm 139:16). He is the perfect wordsmith. And because creation captures the story of his glory, because the tale ends in the happily ever after, he takes divine delight in the telling. He is the Author of joy (Hebrews 12:2).
4. The Pleasure of a Father
Finally, as a happy Father, God delights in sharing the goodness of his creation with his children. He rejoices in sharing his joy with us because he’s that kind of father. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). All of it! Every square inch of creation — all that God has declared “very good” — he gives to his people.
Dads get a taste of this pleasure when we share new joys with our kids. I recently introduced my two-year-old to chocolate chip cookies, and — let me tell you! — that moment was far sweeter for me than for him. But there are two ways God’s pleasure as a father outshines mine. First, in giving us creation, God gives himself. The trajectory of our joy goes beyond creation. Like bright sunbeams, the goodness, truth, and beauty of creation give a glimpse of and guide to the Sun. In inviting us to delight in the tiny theophanies of creation, God gives us God.
Yet there is a deeper magic still. God invites us into his own joy. God put his joy in us by giving us his Spirit so that when we rightly delight in creation, we do so with our Maker’s own pleasure. Augustine explains, “When people see these things [creation] with the help of your Spirit, it is you who are seeing in them. . . . Whatever pleases them for your sake is pleasing you in them. The things which by the help of your Spirit delight us are delighting you in us” (Confessions, 8.31.46). It boggles the mind, but when saints enjoy creation for God’s sake and by God’s Spirit, God himself is delighting in the sunshine of his glory through them. Here indeed is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore in the presence of a happy Father!
Your Maker’s Pleasure
God does not simply tolerate creation as if it were an unsavory means to a good end; he takes divine delight in the worlds he has made. His is the pleasure of an Artist, an Architect, an Author, and a Father. And our God is no miser, hoarding his happiness away. The whole point of creation is sharing his fullness with creatures for their joy in him. To borrow the words of Aslan, in creation, everywhere and in everything, God bids us, “Enter into the pleasures of your Maker. You are not yet nearly as happy as I mean you to be.”
Desiring God