God is spirit:
"God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth" (John 4:24).
So, why did He create a physical universe? Why does God the spirit need/want something physical?
If we were created in His image, is that referring to our spirits?

A physical plane was needed in order for free will to exist. God wants us to choose Him of our own free will and that could only be possible in a physical plane with a physical body.

Also I think He created the physical universe (space, stars, planets, etc.) to show us how much He loves us.

There's a branch of philosophy called Idealism that states that all physical objects and laws are just the interface of two minds interacting. For our purposes, you can substitute mind for spirit. Tweak it a bit, and basically we are spirit and God is spirit and our spirits interact using physical reality. We also interact with the spirits of other people using this same physical reality. We can't interact directly with each other's spirits, and reality is the common medium we all use. A computer analogy would be a virtual reality server. People log in and interact with each other in a world with a certain set of rules. In this metaphor God is the Admin that creates the reality and sets the common rules.

Good answers, everyone. I also think that the response "who knows" is perfectly legitimate. It is impossible for finite creatures like us to know the mind of God unless he explains himself to us, and even then we probably only have a tiny fraction of true understanding.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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There's a branch of philosophy called Idealism that states that all physical objects and laws are just the interface of two minds interacting. For our purposes, you can substitute mind for spirit. Tweak it a bit, and basically we are spirit and God is spirit and our spirits interact using physical reality. We also interact with the spirits of other people using this same physical reality. We can't interact directly with each other's spirits, and reality is the common medium we all use. A computer analogy would be a virtual reality server. People log in and interact with each other in a world with a certain set of rules. In this metaphor God is the Admin that creates the reality and sets the common rules.

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Interesting. How do angels interact with God? Or disembodied souls?

Good question. I haven't given it a ton of thought. I just was interested because it is a secular philosophy of existence that meshes really well with Christianity, at least on a macro level

Seems gnostic to me.

How so?

We're not a united body and soul, but rather a soul that makes use of a physical reality not our own.

I see. I guess I just fall into Cartesian dualism by default. To me the Gnostic version is good spirit and evil body, not the separation of the two per se

I guess my question according to this theory is, when I die, where am I "truly"? I'd say I am still both my body on earth and soul in heaven, waiting for the reuniting of the two. This theory sounds like the temporary use the body provided the soul has been jettisoned and of no use anymore.

I might be explaining it poorly or I might understand it poorly. In the idealism of which I speak, your body is your interface with the world. When your body dies, then you are no longer interfacing with the world. When a new world is created, then you receive a new body to interface with that.