Gratitude

[hicetnunc]

What I would like to know from an atheist is what do they do with their profound sense of gratitude for the beauty of the night sky? It does no good to be grateful to a thing. A thing does not care. We can only express gratitude to a creator who is aware of His Creation and of us.

But I suppose an atheist can feel gratitude even if there is no one to receive that gratitude. It seems to me to be a rather lonely experience.

Can gratitude for the universe exist without a creator?

This is a very interesting line of questioning, one close to my heart!

I hank there is a profound misunderstanding today about gratitude, certainly from the Cathoic philosophical perspective.

First of all, gratitude is not a feeling. It is a virtue. St. Thomas includes gratitude under the cardinal virtue of justice, and among a sequence of virtues of indebtedness including obedience, piety and religion. There is no more virtue or coherence in “feeling grateful” than there is in “feeling generous” or “feeling courageous.” One could conceivably feel generous or courageous and yet never do anything to make one actually generous or courageous. Feelings may accompany acts of virtue, but they do not constitute them, nor are they either sufficient or necessary for a virtuous act. One could be courageous and actually feel afraid…or feel nothing for that matter.

So, if gratitude is not a feeling, what constitutes a grateful act…especially a grateful act to God? How can a mere mortal, finite, sinful and limited, do anything grateful for God?

Throughout antiquity and the history of Christianity, gratitude has always been understood as an act of praise or worship. In pagan societies, such as in Rome or Greece, acts of gratitude to the emperors or persons of dignity were expressed in panegyrics, or hymns glorifying the beneficence of the benefactor. In Judeo-Christian theology, gratitude has a liturgical character–a character of ritual. We show our gratitude to God through the mass and liturgical life of the Church. It is for this reason that “Eucharist” literally means, from the Greek, “thanksgiving”. Since the Eucharist has been given to us by Christ, namely God incarnate, we are able to give infinite and eternal thanks through the merits of a high priest offering thanksgiving to God on our behalf.

So, the question “can an atheist be grateful for creation”, the answer is a resounding “no.” Atheists have no means to respond to an eternal gift, and certainly how they or we might feel has no bearing on the matter.