Does God need our help, love, and praise?
| posted 7/07/2009
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God's love transforms the whole of reality whenever one participates in the Trinitarian life of God. When the Holy Spirit gives us love, we are no longer moved by the self-centered life of our own needs. Instead, divine love moves us to do the will of God in accomplishing his purposes for the world.
It is not necessary to view God's call for our help in doing his will, though, as his "need" for it. God privileges us to help in the same way that a father chooses to allow his children to help him achieve what he could accomplish otherwise.
We are called to work for the world's salvation with the triune God who delights in our praise. There may be disagreements about the meaning of predestination and free will, but there is consensus that preaching the gospel is God's way of reaching the world for Christ.
Laurence W. Wood is Frank Paul Morris Professor of Systematic Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.
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Related Elsewhere:
C. S. Lewis addressed a similar issue in Reflections on the Psalms, saying that he used to see God as a vain woman seeking compliments. But, he added,
The most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.
I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses, but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are, the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.
