1. "The concept of an all-powerful perfect being demanding that his creations worship him seems absurd. It also seems clearly anthropomorphic."

God does not demand anything from anybody, including worship. God, however, deserves worship and desires to be given latria, to be adored (which means for our purposes "an act of religion offered to God in acknowledgment of His supreme perfection and dominion, and of the creature's dependence upon Him") and thanked. God, in a sense, wants to be given credit where credit is due. And we ought to comply, because God is just that kind of a remarkable being, worthy of honor and love. "For in him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28) Further, prayer, be it adoration, thanksgiving, contrition, or supplication, is good for us, as it lifts us up to divine things.

Worship is thereby given to a large extent in order to honor God. This is done by (1) praising Him, (2) being pure and holy, (3) practicing justice with respect to our neighbor. Why should one do this? Catholic Encyclopedia puts it this way: "The rational creature, looking up to God, whom reason and revelation show to be infinitely perfect, cannot in right and justice maintain an attitude of indifference. ... The primary and fundamental element in adoration is an interior act of mind and will; the mind perceiving that God's perfection is infinite, the will bidding us to extol and worship this perfection."

God is not a tyrant as the dictionary implies. He does not violate nature, except during an occasional miracle, and even then such miracles are good; He builds on it. Grace is not divine rape; it is a gift of something good which perfects nature and gives joy. Human tyrants, of which there are plenty, may demand flattery or other sort of obsequious behavior from their "subjects." But God is nothing like them. God is existence, life, truth, joy, love, and much more. To worship God is, on the one hand, to show Him that one is like Him, that he loves Him and trusts Him and His providence, that he is receptive to God's grace, accepts the forgiveness of sins, desires His inheritance which is the kingdom of heaven, and is eager to persevere in virtue, to do good, and to show mercy. On the other hand, in worship one acknowledges God as the highest good, both virtuous, useful, and pleasant, and as the source of human perfection and happiness. Finally, one shows his obedience to God, both out of self-interest; because of God's dominion over the world; and because of His example, as His own Son was obedient to the Father even unto death.

Worship is not "clearly anthropomorphic." On the contrary, even when I think that my cat ought to "adore" me and be good (yeah, sure) for all the love I give him, I experience something "theomorphic." In a way, it is God's feelings that are surging through me.

2. "Perfect beings would not be troubled by anything, including the behavior of humans. Hence, the notion that the gods will reward or punish us is absurd. To be perfect is to be unperturbed. The concept of perfection, therefore, requires that the gods be indifferent to human behavior."

Very good; God is indeed impassable; His happiness cannot be disturbed by any development on earth or in heaven. That does not mean that God does not have feelings; merely that His feelings are not elicited in Him by anything outside of Him. But God, having a will, loves Himself and everything that imitates His perfections to the extent that things do so imitate Him. And one meaning of love, suitable for understanding the divine charity, is "willing good to another." Hence God wills good to His creatures, either temporal or, particularly to humans who have immortal souls, eternal. "And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else." (Acts 17:25) God's willing good to creatures is the source of all their perfections.

A reward is basically glory for a life of heroic virtue and bliss through union with God.

As for punishment, there are a number of ways to approach this problem, e.g., as resulting from breaking the eternal law, or destructive behavior, or due to the need to deter future crimes, but I want to look at it from the following standpoint. Evil in the soul is like cancer in the body. If a person has a small vice, it can be "cut off" or righted and the healthy soul regenerate and retain its identity. But what if malice has claimed most of the soul? Not even the best "surgeon," God, can remove the evil while preserving the good – there is almost no good left. Cutting off the evil will simply kill the patient, destroy his identity. There is nothing to do but to await "second death" and thereafter throw the person into hell. In addition, a person can be sent to hell (or, perhaps, to purgatory) for three other reasons: (1) if he refuses forgiveness; (2) if he rejects grace (which is the beginning of glory in us); (3) if he declines heaven. Why would anyone do these things? One might if he seeks happiness not in God but in his own creaturehood.

3. "The idea of a perfect being creating the universe is self-contradictory. How can perfection be improved upon? At its best, to create is to bring into existence something that makes things better. At its worst, to create is to make things worse, which would be a blemish on perfection."

God created the universe not because He needed anything, e.g., because He was lonely or needed somehow to improve His lot. He created out of overflowing love for His own goodness and for His creatures. God has remained unchanged in His eternal present, even "after" creating. Created things are mutable; they can become better or worse; God is immutable and perfect and cannot change. Nor is our universe a "blemish" on God or even on His "reputation" – "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (Ps 19:1)

4. "Likewise, some conceptions of God are so confusing as to be little more than gibberish. How can one disbelieve in the "ineffable ground of all being"? The expression has no meaning for me and I suspect that those who claim it is meaningful to them don't know what they're talking about."

God is the ground of all being in the sense that he gives and sustains both the existence and the perfections of creatures. The creatures' essences are distinct from their existence, but not so in God: in Him essence and existence are one. Hence God is the source of being, both in the "bare" sense of mere existence and in the "full" sense of the perfections of a created thing. God is the Alpha and the Omega, the first efficient cause and the final cause of all things. He designs a thing's essence and gives it existence. God is the ground of being, because it is not true that after creation there is more being; there are only more things that have being, and they have it by participation.

In other words, God is different from creation in that God can exist and be perfect without the creation, whereas creation cannot exist or be good without God. That is the defect of all created goods, namely, that God can be without it (and therefore, for example, God does not necessarily will whatever He wills).

"Ineffable" means that God's nature or a touch of His grace cannot be described in words. As Ludwig von Mises writes at his most poetic,

This personal experience of wholeness, unity, and infinity is the loftiest peak of human existence. It is the awakening to a higher humanity. It alone transforms everyday living into true living. It is not vouchsafed to us daily or at all places. The occasions on which we are brought closer to the world spirit must await a propitious hour. Such moments occur only seldom, but they are a thousand fold rewarding, and reflection upon them illumines the passing days, weeks, months, and years.

What we experience in these moments of exaltation fills our deepest and most personal thoughts and feelings. They are so private and personal that we are unable to communicate them to anyone else. They are so deep within us that they cannot make a clear impression on our own consciousness. Whoever in the presence of his beloved or in the contemplation of an aspect of nature or in the stirring of his own strength has experienced the power of the infinite finds it impossible to tell either himself or others what it is that moves him and how it moves him. The whole remains ineffable because reason and language are unable to enter here.

And this seems quite reasonable and meaningful to me.

January 7, 2007