Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:57:31.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Do we owe God worship?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2018

HUGH BURLING*
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB2 1TP, UK

Abstract

This article responds to recent arguments that worshipping God cannot be obligatory. It shows how a respect-based account of worship is compatible with the claim that only God is worthy of worship, and compatible with the view that worship is very different from attitudes we owe to creatures. Then, it develops a respect-based account in enough detail to show how our moral motivations to respect creatures generate an obligation to worship God. The upshot is an analysis of worship which can weather recent arguments that worshipping God is not morally motivated.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, M. McCord (1999) ‘Horrendous evils and the goodness of God’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (supplementary volume), 63, 299310.Google Scholar
Anonymous (1739) The Whole Duty of Man (London: John Eyre).Google Scholar
Aquinas (1920) The Summa Theologiae of St Thomas Aquinas, Fathers of the English Dominican Province (tr.) (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne), <http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3081.htm> [accessed 30 May 2017]. [ST].+[accessed+30+May+2017].+[ST].>Google Scholar
Bayne, T. & Nagasawa, Y. (2006) ‘The grounds of worship’, Religious Studies, 42, 299313.Google Scholar
Bayne, T. & Nagasawa, Y. (2007) ‘The grounds of worship again: a reply to Crowe’, Religious Studies, 43, 475480.Google Scholar
Crowe, B. D. (2007) ‘Reasons for worship: a response to Bayne and Nagasawa.’ Religious Studies, 43, 465474.Google Scholar
Danaher, J. (2012) ‘Stumbling on the threshold: a reply to Gwiazda on threshold obligations’, Religious Studies, 48, 469478.Google Scholar
Gwiazda, J. (2011) ‘Worship and threshold obligations’, Religious Studies, 47, 521525.Google Scholar
Hume, D. (1993) Principal Writings on Religion including Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and The Natural History of Religion, Gaskin, J. (ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Hutcheson, F. (1969) A System of Moral Philosophy (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung).Google Scholar
More, H. (1930) Enchiridion Ethicum: The English Translation of 1690 (London: The Facsimile Text Society).Google Scholar
Rachels, J. (1971) ‘God and human attitudes’, Religious Studies, 7, 325337.Google Scholar
Reardon, B. M. G. (1988) Kant as Philosophical Theologian (London: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Smart, N. (1978) ‘Understanding religious experience’, in Katz, S. (ed.) Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press), 1021.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1993) The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon).Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2005) Faith and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon).Google Scholar
Taylor, M. J. (2005) On Being Required to Offer Acts of Prayer and Worship to God (doctoral dissertation), <http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11573/> [accessed 30 May 2017].+[accessed+30+May+2017].>Google Scholar
Ward, K. (1972) The Development of Kant's View of Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wynn, M. (1999) God and Goodness (London: Routledge).Google Scholar