- Feb 5, 2002
- 166,520
- 56,190
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
God has no need for our praise. We praise him because we are creatures, and he is worthy of praise.
An atheist whose material I have now refuted more than 50 times has contended that the notion of God receiving praise casts aspersions upon his nature. He argues that a “desire for adulation” is a thing that (by analogy) human beings should shake off as they grow older and mature; yet God (according to him) doesn’t show that trait.
He doesn’t comprehend the rationale for such praise and worship, because we are telling God nothing he doesn’t already know: that is, that he is infinitely superior to us, as our Creator and the Supreme Being of the universe. He sees it as a manifestation of insecurity; as “sycophantic praise” for a “narcissistic” God. He thinks it makes God the equivalent of a “spoiled child” and “petty.”
How melodramatic, and how very ignorant. Wouldn’t you think that if God was as this anti-theist atheist zealot portrays him, that we could and would find explicit indication of it in the Bible? Surely if his account is true, and God is a cosmic narcissist and egomaniac Who exists in order to receive human praise, which is to him like blood to the mosquito and applause to an overconfident, self-important opera star, then the Bible would be filled with descriptions such as God desires praise, or needs it, or wants it or demands it, right?
In fact, when I went to do a search for such phrases with the online Bible that I use, I could find no such thing: zero, zip, zilch. It can search phrases and also “proximity” searches, where you put in two words and see if they are found within 80 characters of each other. I did both kinds of searches for the following words:
And we don’t because the fact of the matter is, that according to standard orthodox Christian theology regarding God (what we call “theology proper”), it’s not only true that God needs no praise, but also that he needs nothing whatsoever. If the atheist in question had gotten to first base in his study of Christian theology, he would know this. But the Bible does teach that:
Continued below.
Does God Have Any Need of Praise?
An atheist whose material I have now refuted more than 50 times has contended that the notion of God receiving praise casts aspersions upon his nature. He argues that a “desire for adulation” is a thing that (by analogy) human beings should shake off as they grow older and mature; yet God (according to him) doesn’t show that trait.
He doesn’t comprehend the rationale for such praise and worship, because we are telling God nothing he doesn’t already know: that is, that he is infinitely superior to us, as our Creator and the Supreme Being of the universe. He sees it as a manifestation of insecurity; as “sycophantic praise” for a “narcissistic” God. He thinks it makes God the equivalent of a “spoiled child” and “petty.”
How melodramatic, and how very ignorant. Wouldn’t you think that if God was as this anti-theist atheist zealot portrays him, that we could and would find explicit indication of it in the Bible? Surely if his account is true, and God is a cosmic narcissist and egomaniac Who exists in order to receive human praise, which is to him like blood to the mosquito and applause to an overconfident, self-important opera star, then the Bible would be filled with descriptions such as God desires praise, or needs it, or wants it or demands it, right?
In fact, when I went to do a search for such phrases with the online Bible that I use, I could find no such thing: zero, zip, zilch. It can search phrases and also “proximity” searches, where you put in two words and see if they are found within 80 characters of each other. I did both kinds of searches for the following words:
- desire praise
- want praise
- demand praise
- need praise
- praise me
- command praise
And we don’t because the fact of the matter is, that according to standard orthodox Christian theology regarding God (what we call “theology proper”), it’s not only true that God needs no praise, but also that he needs nothing whatsoever. If the atheist in question had gotten to first base in his study of Christian theology, he would know this. But the Bible does teach that:
Continued below.
Does God Have Any Need of Praise?
