All theists will agree that it is good to worship God. But why, asks the atheist? What and who is it good for? Is it good for God? Then He must be a very imperfect deity that His self-esteem needs such elaborate reinforcement. “No, no!” we say. “God is the plenitude of being (and, in the Trinity, the plenitude of love); He certainly has no need for our worship.” Well then, if He is just as well off without it, why not just sleep in on Sunday? One answer suggests itself, and has become quite popular: “Worshiping God is good for us! It’s what we were made to do, and what we find our completion in.” And this is quite true. On the other hand, it’s the secondary thing, not the primary thing. No one who gives himself in adoration to God is thinking of a benefit to himself. Not that wanting benefits from God is wrong–Christ Himself taught us to petition God. Still, glorifying God is something different; one’s eyes are not on oneself. It is what von Hildebrand called a “value response”. We worship God because that is the proper response to His goodness. It is good for us, but above all, it is good period, that is, it is just. It is the correct and just relationship between creature and Creator. Not every “good” has to mean “good for…”
Proph is one of the few people I’ve seen to get this exactly right. Here he is critiquing an atheist internet video:
He declares there are “many problematic qualities” we’re asked to accept about this God that proves its falseness, but then provides perhaps the stupidest sample of what those “problematic qualities” are: “No being can be regarded as perfect,” he says, “if it needs to be worshipped.”
Agreed! Such would be a contradiction in terms. God, being perfect, has no imperfections in need of realization and therefore no “needs.” So we should not presume to worship God because we think He needs to be worshipped. We should worship Him because he deserves to be worshipped, and moreover, because it is good — that is, consistent with our natures as created beings who owe their creator a debt of gratitude and obedience — to worship Him. The argument as expressed by QS is stupid and he is right to call it such. But he is wrong to call it a “problem” for theism because no one, to my knowledge, has aksed anyone to accept that argument.
Of course, for rational creatures, there is a tight congruence between “good for us” and “good period” (i.e. just), since the telos of our rationality is to make appropriate judgments, above all value judgments about the highest things.
Filed under: Defense of Christianity, The sacred |
Throne and Altar 
We ought to worship God for the same reason that we ought to appreciate and enjoy and admire sublime art.
“No being can be regarded as perfect,” he says, “if it needs to be worshipped.”
Here is a perfect example of what you (I think) posted about not too long ago: the need to have patience with dumb arguments not merely the second or third time you hear them, but also the fiftieth time. It’s frustrating for you to deal with the same baseless objections over and over again, but not everyone has encountered a proper response before.
Nice try. Why does god “deserve” to be worshiped?
You can’t just replace one ridiculous claim with another ridiculous claim with the same exact amount of support (zero) for it. “No no no, he doesn’t ‘need’ to be worshiped, he ‘deserves’ it”. “Oh, well then, now that you’ve changed one verb for another, it makes all the sense in the world”.
Also, if he doesn’t need it, merely deserves it, why does he send us to hell if we fail to do so?
Finally, what on Earth do you mean by “good”? You theists tend to mean “good” in the sense of “god requires it”. If that’s how you mean “good” this time around, all you’ve done is replaced “needs” with a wordier synonym and pretended like you’ve made some great theological discovery.
I like this comment.
The theists are guilty of the same circular reasoning and rhetorical legerdemain they claim “nihilists/materialists” use.
And the burden of proof is on people who claim that god exists.
My post presumed a minimal level of knowledge of theology and philosophy that is clearly as missing in your case as well as QS’.
If you want a full treatment of the issues involved, consider picking up a book. Edward Feser’s “Aquinas” is a good place to start.
Read “Aquinas”. While he is certainly better at this than anyone on this blog, his entire “theology” is based on begging the question.
Oh, and your response basically admits that you cannot answer me. I expected as much, I was just presuming you’d at least pretend to give it a shot before surrendering. My bad.
The impulsion to worship, in its subjective context, comes out of the nature of our normative being. It is an aspect and consequence of man’s virtue – which is to say, his deiformity. One recalls the arresting line from the film “Shadowlands”, when Joy Gresham, the wife of C.S. Lewis, has been stricken with cancer:
Harry: “Christopher can scoff, Jack, but I know how hard you’ve been praying; and now God is answering your prayers.”
C. S. Lewis: “That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QdnzM04i_0]
To quote Frithjof Schuon, “The noble man feels the need to admire, to venerate, to worship; the vile man on the contrary tends to belittle, even to mock…” [Frithjof Schuon, “The Transfiguration of Man,” p.117] Schuon carries this understanding further in the following passage regarding virtue:
“Virtue in itself is the worship that attaches us to God and attracts us to Him, while radiating around us; the primordial and quasi-existential worship which declares itself above all by the sense of the sacred… The sacred is the perfume of Divinity, it is the Divine made present; to love the sacred is to be penetrated by the perfume of pure Being and its serenity. The soul of the Blessed Virgin, prototype of every sanctified soul, is made of inborn worship, and this actualizes the Real Presence as a mirror reflects the sun; the virginal soul is consubstantial with this Presence just as space coincides with the ether that it contains. The one and only virtue, or the substantial devotion, is to repose in Being, which is both transcendent and immanent while being sacramentally present, ‘hic et nunc’ [here and now]. And every virtue, through participation in its own essence, is a mode of worship, and thus of beatitude. God has put into our substance all the virtues; they derive from the nature of our substance, and this nature is primordial worship. This is why, and we repeat it, a virtue is never an acquisition or a property, it always belongs to God, and through Him to the Logos; our concern must be to eliminate whatever is opposed to the virtues, not to gain virtues for ourselves; we must give free passage to the qualities of the Sovereign Good. And in transmitting this message we must become it, by a sort of active extinction or extinctive activity; we must become it because we are it, within the depths of ourselves and, above all, within the creative intention of God.”
[Frithjof Schuon, “Esoterism as Principle and as Way,” p.114”]
“Read Hitchens, Dawkins, and Bertrand Russell. While they are certainly better than the atheists posting here, their entire atheism is based on begging the question.
“Oh, and fafsa’s response basically admits that he cannot give a reason for his atheism. I expected as much. I was just presuming he’d at least pretend to give reasons why he rejects the evidence for God before surrendering. Me bad.”
Come on, folks, don’t cast pearls before swine, or feed the trolls.
Fafsa, I don’t think too many of us here are interested in your antagonistic brand of misotheism.
There are lots of things that I admire and venerate and do not belittle. Jewish carpenters that supposedly walked on water and rose from the dead just don’t happen to be among them. And surely no one could argue that the impulse to become hysterical at the thought of an unborn fetus getting aborted or teh gays getting married, as many Christ Cult geeks do, “comes out of the nature of our normative being.”
Sam, I don’t really care whether or not you’re “interested”. Of course you’re not. I’m just enjoying periodically deflating the fantasy bubble that tends to percolate here. Dumb statements should not always go unpunished, I fee.
Oh, and Alan, doing the “parroting” thing should have been outgrown by age 8. It’s sad your development seemed to have stunted before then.
“That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.”
If this is not the most obvious admission of “I’m a useless, pathetic piece of crap”, I don’t know what is. If you replaced the word “pray” with ANY other verb in the English language — sing, masturbate, ski, drink, drive, smoke, whatever — every last one of you would say “this guy needs to get a life or, at least, a 12 step program”. But you stick in the magic word “pray”, and suddenly this wretched admission goes from utterly pitiful to totally sublime.
if all children raised by homosexual couples turned out to be screwups who would’ve been better off placed with a heterosexual couple, would the right of them to have a family still trump that for liberals?
i don’t believe that by the way, but it’s an interesting hypothetical, as i also don’t buy the premise that so long as something’s innate it is of no consequence. i wouldn’t favor banning homosexual adoption but i don’t think a small preference in favor of married heterosexuals, or allowing Catholic Charities to refer homosexuals to other agencies, is a tyrannical affront to the God of Equality.
the funny thing is if that we were all “really bisexual” as some queer theorists would have it, the question of whether kids’d be better off with a mom and a dad wouldn’t even be a question. i doubt even many homosexual marriage supporters buy into the absolute gender egalitarianism/neutrality the most hardcore activists push.
as for abortion, the God of Science happens to be on the pro-lifers side on that one, the only question is where to draw the inevitably somewhat arbitrary line at where “personhood” begins.
As St. Isaac of Syria explains “It is the presence of God’s splendid glory and love that is the scourge of those who reject its radiant power and light. … those who find themselves in hell will be chastised by the scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this torment of love will be! For those who understand that they have sinned against love, undergo no greater suffering than those produced by the most fearful tortures. The sorrow which takes hold of the heart, which has sinned against love, is more piercing than any other pain. It is not right to say that the sinners in hell are deprived of the love of God … But love acts in two ways, as suffering of the reproved, and as joy in the blessed” (Mystic Treatises)
God himself is both heaven and hell, reward and punishment. All men have been created to see God unceasingly in His uncreated glory. Whether God will be for each man heaven or hell, reward or punishment, depends on man’s response to God’s love.
I would much prefer that Bonald filtered and deleted all Kevin-the-teenager comments from this blog.
There is important stuff we want to discuss, but this will not happen if the comment section is cluttered with adolescent trolls who still think it’s cool and clever to write the rude words they’ve just learned.
I know we’ve all been through that phase, but let’s not allow this blog to become a sophomore’s playpen.
Mr. fafsa,
This is not parroting. It is demonstrating that you are committing exactly the error that you accuse us of.
In fact, it is you, not us, who commits circular reasoning. Since you are not omniscient, you cannot simply assume that the supernatural does not exist. We theists observe the ample evidence for God and allow ourselves to draw the obvious conclusion. You atheists dismiss the evidence and arguments because you think you know a priori that no God can exist.
No, Alan, that was parroting, since what *I* said made actual sense, what you said didn’t. Your post was precisely parroting — repeating something back to the original speaker in order to annoy him, not to make a point.
Also, Alan, please point out where I claimed to be omniscient, or where I assumed that the supernatural does not exist. And “you theists” do not observe “ample evidence” for god, because to you anything and everything is evidence for god. None of the supposed evidence presented has ever stood up to even most perfunctory investigation. None of the hypotheses are falsifiable. There are no criteria for what constitutes “evidence for god”, nor any explanation for why that criteria should count as such. And atheists, like every sentient being, do assume something does not exist, until shown sufficient evidence that it does. That’s how these things work. If you were not brainwashed to believe first and ask questions later you would see that the evidence for your god is no different from the evidence for any other god ever invented.
“Read “Aquinas”. While he is certainly better at this than anyone on this blog, his entire “theology” is based on begging the question.”
Oh, OK!
Fafsa, tell us more about the ample evidence that Bantus are as intelligent as Koreans.
Hard liquor, Vondo? Before noon? You do start early, dontcha?
I gave fafsa a chance to prove that (at least on this issue) he is not a troll. Since he refused to offer an intelligent argument (or any argument), I submit that he ought to be banned.
Your graciousness, Alan, is beyond overwhelming.
Oh, and running to daddy because mean old man made you a booboo on your feelings just sews up my assertion that you have the emotional stability of a 9 year old.
P.S. I *did* answer all your questions. And everyone on this board knows it.
“if all children raised by homosexual couples turned out to be screwups who would’ve been better off placed with a heterosexual couple, would the right of them to have a family still trump that for liberals?”
Studies seem to indicate that children raised by homosexual parents are no worse off than those raised by heterosexual parents.
“i wouldn’t favor banning homosexual adoption but i don’t think a small preference in favor of married heterosexuals, or allowing Catholic Charities to refer homosexuals to other agencies, is a tyrannical affront to the God of Equality.”
And if the Christ Cultists left it that, I don’t think many people would care. But they don’t. And you know they don’t. And I think even Bonald would admit that he categorically opposes gay marriage and adoption.
“i doubt even many homosexual marriage supporters buy into the absolute gender egalitarianism/neutrality the most hardcore activists push.”
I don’t. I’ve certainly never felt any serious homosexual temptation. But that doesn’t mean I can’t laugh at the Christ Cultists who think this ranks among the Most Important Issues of Our Time.
“as for abortion, the God of Science happens to be on the pro-lifers side on that one,”
Oh yeah? Who is this God of Science? And when did he declare that we should give a damn about a fetus in the first trimester (which is when around 85% of abortions are performed)? Not that I care. I think even infant exposure might be justified in some circumstances, as was the case in the noble pre-Christian Greek and Roman societies. And I definitely support euthanasia. “Sanctity of life” is sentimental nonsense.
Agreed Alan.
Excellent suggestion.
two things to the dude who responded to me.
one, “many people” may not care, but professional activists do. if homosexual marriage is allowed there’ll be absolutely no exceptions for religious adoption agencies who want to refer them to someone else, as has already happened everywhere it or civil unions are adopted (ha, pun)
two, the God of Science was just a dig at people who view science as being 100% tied to morality. scientism if you will.
and three, at your last paragraph…lol well alrighty then
It’s never too late to repair your relationship with your father.
Aquinas? Plato? Socrates? Morons!
How many times have you kissed a girl? (relatives count)
take time answering, friendo
My relationship with my father? It seemed to be fine last we spoke, which was on Monday. Did something happen since? I mean, he did send me a birthday present which I have not yet thanked him for… but other than that, what’s wrong?
Does your mom count?
How’s his husband doing?
I’ll take that as zero then
I respect your struggles in the atheism movement
Oh, did your mom have the operation already? Does he look good now?
Bonald,
do you ever find it sad that your supporters on this blog have the average emotional development of a 4th grader? Shouldn’t that tell you something?
Hear, hear!
Freedom of speech is a bad idea. So, yes, Bonald, please delete comments from people who are obviously just trolling.
Guys, this comment thread has just degenerated into insults, so I think it’s time to close it up. Thank you for your time and passion.
Some interesting issues were discussed, or at least alluded to, in the early discussion. (I admit I stopped reading this discussion last night–it was getting too unpleasant.) We should return to the Euthyphro dilemma–the relationship between God and moral goodness. It’s an important and subtle issue–our atheist friends are perfectly right to push on it–and one that I think classical theism resolves in a profound way.
[…] the devolution of the Why Worship God thread at fafsa’s instigation, I was thinking of suggesting that all such trolleries be met with a […]