Why would God create us to worship and glorify Him?

[nicholasG]

We call a person who wants to be glorified and worshiped a narcissist, yet find it ok with God?

I can understand God wanting us to love and know Him; parents want that from their child, but not to be worshiped and glorified.

Am I misreading the words glorify and worship?

 

[stpurl]

You’re misunderstanding the whole thing.

God is not some narcissistic being who just wants to create worshipping robots.

God is God. He is Almighty, All Good, All Loving.

IOW, just by being God He is by His very nature adorable and glorified. He doesn’t need us at all. The whole universe He created glorifies Him BY its creation —by Him.

So your premise is wrong from the start. God did not create us to worship and glorify Him; we do that simply BY His creating us, and then, not for HIS sake but for our own sakes we have the incredible privilege of having a voice and a mind which we can use to praise Him freely.

He created us to have a voice in the gladness of worship by our own free will.

I can’t imagine a greater gift.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

I can understand God wanting us to love and know Him ; parents want that from their child, but not to be worshiped and glorified.

Am I misreading the words glorify and worship ?

He didn’t create us to do that, doing that is a natural response to our creation. It is natural to worship the one who created us, and so we will do so because it is what God deserves.

 

[Aulef]

I would just add that it would be wrong and evil to workship anything or anyone other than God

 

[Vico]

We call a person who wants to be glorified and worshiped a narcissist, yet find it ok with God?

I can understand God wanting us to love and know Him; parents want that from their child, but not to be worshiped and glorified.

Am I misreading the words glorify and worship?

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. …

347 Creation was fashioned with a view to the sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God. …

1204 The celebration of the liturgy, therefore, should correspond to the genius and culture of the different peoples.70 In order that the mystery of Christ be "made known to all the nations . . . to bring about the obedience of faith,"71 it must be proclaimed, celebrated, and lived in all cultures in such a way that they themselves are not abolished by it, but redeemed and fulfilled:72 It is with and through their own human culture, assumed and transfigured by Christ, that the multitude of God’s children has access to the Father, in order to glorify him in the one Spirit.

70 Cf. SC 37-40.
71 Rom 16:26.
72 Cf. CT 53.

350 Angels are spiritual creatures who glorify God without ceasing and who serve his saving plans for other creatures: “The angels work together for the benefit of us all” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I, 114, 3, ad 3).

2416 Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory.197 Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.

 

[Hodos]

We call a person who wants to be glorified and worshiped a narcissist, yet find it ok with God?

Who said that is what we were created for? Genesis 1 gives a very functional purpose for man. It occurs to me that fulfilling that purpose in accordance with God’s command is the means by which God is worshipped and glorified.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

It seems to me our purpose was to reflect the image of God to all creation in stewardship over it in accordance with His will. That is our act of worship and glorification, and through the fall, we distorted the image of God to all creation and as a result the creation is completely out of whack. It is Christ who restores us to our original purpose, and it is through him that all of creation will one day be made new.

 

[quaestio45]

As has been said, God does not need us to worship and adore him, nor does he want us to worship him for his own betterment or liking; instead, he wishes us to progress ourselves towards him and rest finally with him because he is the good, the ultimate final cause.

It is said that human beings are creatures to which may never find fullness in satisfaction or liveliness, and this is due to our never holding of that which is source of liveliness and satisfaction. Instead we fall into putting finite material as our highest worth. Yet, were we to seek out that which is himself goodness and liveliness and satisfaction, and were we to put him as our highest worth, and were we to finally find ourselves in the presence of our ultimate final cause (God; the complete perfection of being, which follows satisfaction and happiness necessarily) then our eternal thirst and hunger, as some say, will be ultimately and finally quenched.

As such, God loves us so much that he wishes that we find him so we may know goodness and ultimate satisfaction, not so that God himself may benefit.

 

[PennyinCanada]

1 Peter ch 5

…7 Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in your faith and in the knowledge that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.…

We have an adversary who wishes our destruction. To worship and glorify God weakens his hold on us. It is an effective way to ‘resist him’ who hates us. We are in a battle, not just for ourselves but for our families and neighbours and friends. We can be a force for good in this world.

 

[fhansen]

We call a person who wants to be glorified and worshiped a narcissist, yet find it ok with God?

I can understand God wanting us to love and know Him ; parents want that from their child, but not to be worshiped and glorified.

Am I misreading the words glorify and worship ?

You don’t need to be a narcissist when you really are that good, infinitely good in this case. God is the center, the highest good, all that we could possibly want and desire for absolute satisfaction. He quenches our thirst for goodness and fulfillment. He’s the goal, the reason we exist, the source of complete and uncompromised happiness for man. He has no ego, no pride, only sheer love. To the extent that we truly adore and worship and are bound to Him our orientation is right; we’re finally over self-worship, or worship of any other false idol. We exist in a state of rectitude; we’ve now attained our perfection; justice and the right order of things is restored. Truth and peace and well-being reign in God’s creation. This disposition is perhaps best understood by the Greatest Commandment: to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. It’s for our own good.

 

[stpurl]

Well since I said a lot more than that little ‘clip’ there, why the emphasis on ‘YOU” to me?

And what exactly, in trimming what I said, are you trying to accomplish?

 

[stpurl]

But YOU only snipped the first part of what I said.

If I had said something like, “There is no God” and claimed that to be in the Bible, it is. It is in psalm 14. HOWEVER, before that comes this: The fool says in his heart: (and THEN come the words “there is no God”.)

You did the same thing with my words, clipped out the “God does not create us to worship Him” and ignored the rest of how we worship Him simply by The fact of His having created us in the first place, etc.

Free will is definitely a teaching of the church. God’s creating us not simply to have, as I ALSO said, “mindless little robots to be His ‘yes men’, but to have the joy of creating all in addition to ‘making man in His image and likeness” is also a teaching.

But it is certainly not a teaching that humans were created to worship God because He demands worship like some narcissist *which was the original claim by the OP.

 

[nicholasG]

God does not need us to worship and adore him, nor does he want us to worship him for his own betterment or liking

This contradicts your statement:

CCC 347 Creation was fashioned with a view to the sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God.

 

[quaestio45]

This contradicts your statement:

CCC 347 Creation was fashioned with a view to the sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God.

It does not. Read what I said more carefully friend. I said that God does not NEED us to worship him, nor will it benefit him. Besides, as true as the quote may be, it doesn’t contridict my reason as to WHY God wants us to worship him (which is ultimately for our own goodness).

 

[nicholasG]

As such, God loves us so much that he wishes that we find him so we may know goodness and ultimate satisfaction, not so that God himself may benefit.

Isaiah 42:21
The people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.

Another instance that seems to affirm the reason for my original post.

my reason as to WHY God wants us to worship him (which is ultimately for our own goodness).

Worship does not necessarily equate to Love.
If you said that to Love Him is ultimately for our own goodness I may agree.

 

[quaestio45]

Isaiah 42:21
The people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.

Can I assume that ‘the people’ stated in this quote is the people of Israel? The chosen people to whom were meant to spread the word of God? Because if so, it seems that the reason God would want his praise declared is so that the message of God might be spread, yes? And if that be so, the question of “why would he even want us to praise him in the first place” might be a reasonable response, perhaps?

Worship does not necessarily equate to Love.
If you said that to Love Him is ultimately for our own goodness I may agree.

What do you mean by worship? For what I mean by “I worship x” is that “x” is the thing whose worth you highly regard (perhaps even most highly). That be so, if you see God as the most highest worth in both intellect and action then that means you love God and wish to follow in his good nature. As such, it will be for our own goodness that we worship God, for it’ll bring us the highest good and therefore the highest satisfaction. Nothing we do can possibly effect God, that is a simple fact if you hold to him being Actus Purus and the good, so it only makes sense that he ask for the praise of humanity if it is in our best interest, to move us towards the good (for, moving something towards the good is good, as you can imagine, and thus in full alignment with the nature of God).

 

[aThomist]

God didn’t create us “to worship or glorify him”

Because first of all he has no need of adoration or glorification.

He created us simply because he is good.

 

[Philthy]

As has been pointed out, God is perfect in every respect including love. He is entirely worthy and justified in being glorified and worshiped. But more to your point, and hopefully addressing what I think you are getting at, try and think of his “wanting” to be worshiped and glorified not merely as a state of justice, but as an act of love toward us. Our worshiping and glorifying God is the best thing we can do and it completes us and is an ultimate good for us. Out of his love for us and wishing the very best for us, it is only proper that He wishes to be worshiped by us because it is in our best interest, which He has at all times, perfectly. I hope that helps.

 

[Wesrock]

Regarding God the reason why God created, the Catechism says:

[293] Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: “The world was made for the glory of God.” St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it”, for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: “Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand.” The First Vatican Council explains:

This one, true God, of his own goodness and “almighty power”, not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel “and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . .”

[294] The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us "to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace ", for “the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man’s life is the vision of God: if God’s revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word’s manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God.” The ultimate purpose of creation is that God “who is the creator of all things may at last become “all in all”, thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude.”

Continued in next post.

 

[Wesrock]

Catholics understand God to already be perfect in his beatitude and goodness. The act of creating does not further perfect him. Our worship does not increase his perfection or his joy. If it were so, then that would mean God lacked perfection in some way which only creating and worship could fulfill. God also, therefore, does not have an ego that needs to be boosted. Our existence and worshiping him doesn’t increase his satisfaction or self-esteem in any way.

As God is perfect in his goodness, insofar as his subsistence is perfect goodness, all other being is an image of that goodness in some finite (or conditioned) way. In so far as all things are ordered to their own goodness they are also ordered towards God. Insofar as the very object of the intellect is truth itself and the object of the rational will is the good, we are ordered towards knowing and loving/adoring God. That isn’t an arbitrary imposition, that’s the only possible natural ends of the faculties of intellection and the will. All creation is ordered to God in some way as their final end, intellectual beings all the more so. Yes, we are ordered towards worshiping God, but that’s just the nature of intellectual being and being itself. The key point to reiterate, though, is that unlike any human monarch or fashioner of things (who are not Truth or Goodness themselves), such adoration is not ordered towards God’s own fulfillment. It’s nature’s fulfillment. As I said, God is already fulfilled. There is no motivation to boost his ego or satisfaction. His creating act is selfless; God does not get any increase of any sort out of it. It’s just a free communication of his own goodness to creatures.

 

[nicholasG]

Thanks for the clarification.