Since God’s mind is in no danger of breaking from tension, He has no need to frolic, and since nothing can take Him by surprise, it might seem that He would take no interest in humor.

If that’s how it is, I wonder why He created rational beings who do have a sense of humor.  Besides, for someone who doesn’t need to hear jokes, He surely cracks a lot of them, as when he asks at Job’s expense, “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?”

Nor is His humor just in words.  If one of the reasons for making ants was to reprove sluggards with the spectacle of diligence, and one of the reasons for making stars was to fill our minds with awe for the Divine power and artistry, then is it too much to suggest that one of the reasons for making apes and monkeys – or even, as some think, to make us from them -- might have been to humble and amuse us?

Besides, He enacts comedy in history:  Not only in the sense that for all its sorrow, He has ordained a happy ending, but also in the details.  Really, now -- “the last shall be first, and the first last”?  What more unexpected, what more divine comedy could there be than that?  Even though the discrepancy does not catch Him by surprise, He plainly enjoys it.  If we never laugh with joy about His arrangements, we are missing something.

Related:

The Test of Humor

Annals of Limerick

Shaggy Dogs and Historians

Why Only Human Beings Laugh