Why Did God Create?

God is a perfect being.  Creating humanity out of loneliness is reflective of an imperfect being.  So God did not create humanity because he was lonely.  In fact, it looks as if a perfect being could not be benefited by anything other than himself.  So why did God create?  C.S. Lewis’s distinction between need-based love and gift-based love seems relevant here.  Need-based is reflective of a limitation or a deficiency.  It’s the sort of love humans have of God--we *need* God.  God does not have any love of that sort.  But he does have gift-based love, which seems like it could motivate him to create but does not seem reflective of a limitation within his being.  

Perhaps God creates so that he can be glorified.  But does he need to be glorified by created beings? No.  Perhaps he creates us to glorify him not for his sake, but for our own.  God creates us for our own good, then.  Creation is as much an act of grace as salvation is.

God is perfectly rational.  He acts with reasons.  He had a reason to create.  This reason, so long as it isn’t reflective of a need-based reason but rather a gift-based reason, is not reflective of a deficiency within God.  Nor was the reason a necessitating one, in Leibniz’s sense, but an inclining one, also in Leibniz’s sense. 

Aquinas on why God created; the overflowing analogy?