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The fascinating truth about worship

Regular Network Norwich and Norfolk columnist James Knight looks at why worship is so important to us and to God.

The subject of worship is a very interesting one – it is one of those matters where the more one thinks about it the more accretive it becomes, like peeling the skins of an onion, more and more layers are uncovered. Its full force, when one understands it properly, is perhaps the most powerful force in the world. That might well be why so many atheists are resistant to it, after all, St Paul did talk about an ability to see the real benefits of Godly things while one is on the outside. 

Part of the mystique of worship might be that it is such an anathema to most people with secular mindsets. A rather thick-skinned gentleman with whom I used to debate regularly once said that if the kind of God I believed in was one that required our praise and worship he would decree no interest whatsoever and happily remain an atheist. I can, I think, understand why he felt that way - after all, we humans are set up to dislike any person who always boasts about how clever he is and is constantly clasping for our admiration. Not only do we deride those who are always courting prestige, we also reproach those who try to attach themselves to such people – we have a degree of contempt for those celebrity worshippers who live their lives vicariously through others. 

Of course the first point to which most of us are naturally drawn is that our Supreme God is very worthy of our praise and worship because He did, in fact, create us – so surely He deserves to be worshipped abundantly? I think my answer to that particular enquiry would be yes and no. I think those who contend He is worthy of worship on the sole pretext that He created us are at best only partially right. That is to say, I don’t think that is the best we can get out of worship. 

Before we proceed, two things ought to be considered on this matter. Firstly, we did not ask to be created, so there is no sense of praise for something we have specially requested. God through His grace created us into this world, but that decision was beyond our control, so there is a sense in which we are detached from the cause of our being here. And secondly, when we think of our parents who brought us into this world, we may have lots to thank them for, from childhood to adulthood, but we do not really praise them for our being born. Neither of the points are very germane to the cardinal elements of the subject we are discussing, but they are worth pointing out for one purpose – it is not ‘being created’ or ‘being born’ that preoccupy our dispensing of praise and worship. 

Aside from seeing why atheists might be put off by a God who insists on a ’right’ to be praised and worshipped (although I do think God has that right, which I will come to later) we know very well that the Bible is full of people who regularly praised and worshipped God, and that God tells us to worship Him, as well as affirming that He likes being praised and worshipped. This brings with it the problem of how omnipotence and omniscience can enjoy being praised, but I think this will become clear in a few moments. 

Of course we find ourselves in a sticky environment here, after all, we are going to have to look at the human analogue to see where we might find sense in the notion that God has a right to our praise and that He deserves our worship. As God has an intractable ontology that is hard to penetrate, we must use human examples first because they are simpler. 

Human beings can say they deserve something when there is some law or regulation in place that demarks that desert. If I am at the front of the queue in the fish and chip shop and there is only one more piece of cod left, ordinary codes of conduct state that it is my ‘right’ to the last piece of cod (although in this case ‘right’ it is not a term I like). What we are saying here is that my being at the front of the queue permits me to choose the piece of cod if I so wish. Now of course being a charitable sort of fellow I would probably see if anybody else in the queue had greater needs than myself, and would happily forgo the pleasure of cod if someone else had a better reason for having it. But unless I made this decision wilfully, the system of queuing would become a farce. 

We can use another example to show that someone’s right is put in place if a certain outcome is the correct or appropriate culmination after an event or series of events. If a glamorous woman took her driving test and drove immaculately throughout the test she would have a ‘right’ to receive a ‘pass’ mark on her form. But if she drove abysmally and unsafely, no sensible person would say that she has the right to a ‘pass’ mark because of her glamorous looks, for glamorous looks are not what the test is about. They may well help her in acquiring a modelling contract, and of course, good driving skills would not help her in modelling, but the point is clear – we have a good idea here what we mean by ‘deserve’ and ‘right’

Onto a third example – what about works of art that are highly regarded in one specific field or another - say in literature? No piece of literature has the ‘right’ to be praised, although doubtless, despite the subjectivity attached to critiquing, there are some books that most would insist we were insensible and some might say ‘crazy’ if we did not like them or could not see their brilliance. I suppose in the sense that there exists a commonality in tastes and abilities to appreciate fine art and prodigious talent, we can concede that some things seem too good not to be praised. Yet also there is a reverence for nature that man-made things do not elicit – we would think a man strange if he was awestruck by the Eiffel Tower at noon in the same way that he was awestruck by Mount Kilimanjaro at sunset. With this in mind, it might be the case that the things we find most worthy of praise in the arts are the creations that most resemble the numinous parts of nature – our best praise is, in a sense, a tapping into the numinous.

Of course that won’t explain whether or not we should praise God, but it might go some way to explaining why we feel awe for such things in the first place – they are a by-product of a much deeper sense of praise for the Divine. Yet having said that, if it is not because we were created that we are impelled to praise, what might be behind it? I think the answer is more astounding than we first imagine - it consists of a truth that would startle even my thick-skinned friend who I mentioned at the beginning of this article – God wants us to praise Him because it is ultimately us who will benefit from it. He wants our praise and worship because He loves us and knows that our praising Him is what will make us most content, happy, and blessed. The theme runs throughout His gracefulness – all of the things He instructs us to do are for our own good; God is the cartographer that designs our map of blessedness - why should we have thought that our worshiping Him was any different? And using a human synonym, those that never grasp the extent of why it is beneficial and a huge blessing for us to worship Him, must be a bit like those poor folk who never fully assimilate themselves in the world enough to appreciate its true quintessence; the ones that never gain employment can never know the true delights of finishing a hard day’s work; the ones that are never charitable can never know the true delights of giving; the ones who never fall in love can never know the stupendous pleasures distilled from an earthly beloved, and most importantly, the ones who never get the first hint of God’s majesty never reap the glorious rewards of praise and worship. 

Not only is it in the process of being worshipped that God reveals most of Himself to men, it is almost certainly true that if one fails to worship God he can never receive the full benefits of a relationship with Him. Moreover, while he is omitting this vital element of his relationship he will never be wise to God’s astounding potential; for to worship God is, in a sense, a deep and sublime recognition that God’s Being is so much greater than our cognitive precipitations. With this in mind, worship is the only thing that will suffice. To compound the view that God wants us to worship Him for our benefit not His, we can see how foolish those claims are by those (like my thick-skinned friend) who see God as some egotistical megalomaniac who courts our praise like a male philanderer courts female attention or a pop star courts adulation. If God were really like that we are the last people He would come to – what on earth could wretched creatures like us do to appease the Divine ego? In admitting this we are on uncomfortable ground, for most of us know that horrible sweeping feeling that comes over us when we are praised by someone whose opinion we did not solicit and whose kind (I’m sorry to say) we do not care for and would not gratify us. How much more true this must be of God, not with regard to His unconditional love for us, which we know to be true and stupendous, but that He does not need praise from creatures like us any more than a Pulitzer-winning novelist needs literary approval from his cat.

I presume the other sense in which praise is good for us is that it builds us up into strong characters – or at least, it is a good beacon for progress; we know if we are praising unduly we are probably in a much humbler state. For I have noticed it is the cranky and pessimistic people that have few good words for others – those who are secure in themselves and lucidly worshipping God will mostly have good things to say about people, even those about whom there seems not much worth praising. 

Worship not only helps us enjoy God and distil better benefits from our relationship with Him, it completes the pleasure, in much the same way that beloveds praise each other, not because they notice something worthy of praise, more so because even when there is little to praise it is easy to find something to which a passionate and heartfelt praise can be attached for the purposes of gladness and transferring one’s love. In worshiping God we are not just receiving His love, we are transferring our love back up to Him. Just as we are told to love and be good and kind and generous for our own good, so too will our worship delight in ways that are scarcely imaginable. 

It is, I think, also true that once we received the first hint of the blessedness given to us from our worship, the only reason we could ever doubt the perfect qualities of worshipping God would be because we are so imperfect. If it were possible for creatures like ourselves to tap into the most blessed states of worshipfulness – that is, by some transient miracle experience a state of perfect worshipfulness from us to Him, we would, I imagine, experience the most Heavenly joy imaginable; we would, while it lasted, be lifted into a state of pure transcendence – so much so that I doubt a return to the status quo could produce anything in us but a wholly distraught emasculation. That must be why God holds back – not only because we could not handle the supreme glory, but our return to an earthly state would, I presume, be too much of a fall from grace; it would, I suppose, be as strange as if by some queer circumstances our Pulitzer-winning novelist suddenly found himself transported into his cat but with his consciousness in tact.

To get the first hint of what true worship is and why it is so important, we must get as close as we can to God and find ourselves in a state where we are subsumed by His grace, drowned by His love and captured by His power. In telling us to worship Him, God is telling us to come and get all that He is able to give to our earthly selves. Meanwhile, until we can perfect these states of worship as a precursor to the Heavenly realm where we are told we will be worshipping Him forevermore, we must continue to grow as best we can; for at the moment most of us are still, with God’s help, laying down the foundations for our house. And just as is the case with normal building work, for the man who loves his projects and takes great pride in his work, the rewards he distils from planning the structures will only be a delight if he can anticipate the finished work.