What is the purpose of God?  So did someone put it to me earlier this week.  What, really, he said, could it be?
     I could have replied that the idea of God holds the meaning of the universe together; or that the presence of God supplies the cosmos with a purpose it would not otherwise have; or that encountering God brings a person lasting peace with her creator; or that God provides the only reasonable explanation for personality and order in the universe; or that the notion of God indicates an intelligent starting point for a thoroughly intelligible cosmos; and, either way, I would not have been too far off the mark.
     Yet I don't know that this answers the bigger question.  Given everything we know about ourselves and the world around us, what can the idea of God possibly add to our understanding of it all?
     Asking this question, however, forces the issue to a head.  We couldn't ask it, we wouldn't ask it unless we thought we should.  And we will only think we should if we think we have a reason to do so.
     And at one time or another, we all do.  And that says it all.