Claim. SMM’s account of why God created humanity is unusual: the omnipotent God deliberately located the root of love outside Himself, in the object partner, so that love could only be actualized through union with that partner. The purpose of love, on this account, is the loving union of God and man — not a love God already possesses internally.
Elaboration. The passage is striking: “God likes love, but what kind of love does God like most? It is true love. Then, where does true love keep its love-root? It does not keep its root in God. This is strange, isn’t it? Although the omniscient and omnipotent God is the master of true love, He does not want the root of love to start from within God. God thinks of planting love’s roots in those who can be an object of that love” (1.2. The purpose of love is the ideal of the loving union of God and man, 177-269, 1988.5.20).
The implication is asymmetric reciprocity by design: “When it comes to love, if God is the artery, we human beings are like the veins, so we have the value of having the privilege to be God’s equal” (ibid, 109-146, 1980.11.1). Creation is not God overflowing with pre-existing love into containers; it is God deliberately locating love’s actualization in a partner He must depend on.
This sharpens csg-god-cannot-love-without-a-partner from “love requires a partner” to “God chose this constraint” — the partner-dependence is built into the design, not a metaphysical accident.
See also. csg-god-cannot-love-without-a-partner, csg-parent-child-relation-is-center-of-universe