So I have this maniac in my introduction to Philosophy class. He froths at the mouth with the enthusiasm of his ideas, since his mind is moving faster than his mouth and his mouth is moving faster than anyone else's capacity to respond. He tells me that the world of the internet is the future of ideas and free thought. I am inclined to agree, but my Luddism has prevented me from exploiting the potential of the new media.
But I make a habit of challenging my students to enliven their drudgery with creative sparks and joyous sharing. The insufferable Mr.Bos has sufficiently shamed me with the gravity of my own inspiring rhetoric. I need to share my thoughts, in the hopes that others will join me in this universe of discourse.
I shall start this blog with a question; why worship? Even if I were to acknowledge the existence of a loving, creating and judging God; even if I am willing to accept the strange mythology of the Hebrews, the twisted economy of salvation and the self-defeating imperative for moral striving; even if I concede to these demands upon my intellect and sanity, I still fail to see how any of it entails the righteousness of worship.
My wife is kind and loving and by grace alone gives me more joy than I deserve. She is smarter, morally better and more competant than me. But none of these excellences or benevolences invoke in me a sense of worship. Why should it be any different with respect to God?
To put it another way, I would not worship any God who wanted or needed my worship.
"My wife is kind and loving and by grace alone gives me more joy than I deserve. She is smarter, morally better and more competent than me. But none of these excellences or benevolences invoke in me a sense of worship."
ReplyDeleteReally? Maybe this is where you're different from some people--because who hasn't, in the throes of love, said things like "I worship the ground she walks on"?
Now, I will grant that most people are not being very precise when they say this, but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid connection between the high regard for a lover and the higher regard for God, which has to be expressed in a different mode because he isn't human in the same respect as us.
In other words, I don't see that worshipping God entails a God who needs or wants it; rather, worship proceeds from the desire of the worshippers to express their regard for God.
If people showed their love for God in a manner closer to the way I love my wife I wouldn't have quite so many issues with modern religion. Also, if everytime I asked my wife for guidance she refused to answer I would eventually stop asking.
ReplyDeleteBut I see your point. Maybe God doesn't NEED our praise, he just deserves it. In which case praise cannot be a moral duty for the faithful, it should rather spring from a genuine understanding of the good God has done for us...and the verdict is still out on that account.
Gottesdienst. In German, literally, "God's service," or "divine service" in more modern parlance.
ReplyDeleteThanks to the yuppie theology, we're left with an inversion of the original idea - the inversion being that one offers something in worship. As if I would have anything God might need. If he needs a Mozart, he'll make one.
Gottesdienst embraces the idea that one receives from God in worship. It is something he does for his people (through word and sacrament).
That a benevolent god might want to refresh his people seems like a reasonable idea. One might worship not to offer God anything, but to receive and be reminded of promises of Grace and redemption.
That would be consistent with a generous God, and open-minded of him to boot.
In that sense, one would go to worship, not proudly, or to entertain (or be entertained), but humbly, and thoughtfully, being reminded of our humanity (sans the "...you are so absolutely huge. Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.")
I am generally leery of any understanding that can only properly be expressed in German (ding an sich, schadenfreude, abgrundlicher gedunke).
ReplyDeleteBut, though I too enjoy bashing hippies when I have more hate in my heart than can be exhausted on bigots and zealots, I think their version of worship is the commonly held one.
But on your account, there is no duty to worship. I am not morally required to such genuflection. If all Sunday church amounts to is a gang of appreciative well-wishers saying "Gee whiz, thanks big guy" then again, it is a lamentable waste of time, but not dangerous or pernicious. But then again, people do not fly planes into skyscrapers because they are just really impressed with the magnitude of the Divine.....