It Is Immoral to Worship God

/ IT IS IMMORAL TO WORSHIP GOD

One respects a person only if one takes him seriously in some way and grants him some sort of authority.

For example, if I respect

Pierre as a cook, then I shall take his advice abortt cooking seriously; should Pierre tell me that chicken should always be prepared with tarragon, then I would think twice about frying chicken without tarragon.

Moreover, if the expert Pierre really does deserve my

respect as a cook and if I as a novice scrupulously follow a very detailed recipe of his which nevertheless turns out to be perfectly horrid, then I have a right to put some of the blame for my cUlimQ;y failure on Pierre.

It is quite important to be clear on this point.

If as a novice chef I just forge ahead blindly on my own and produce an inedible dish, then the discredit d;'e me is greater than if I had. consulted some acknowledged master cook;

a novice should know better

than to plunge in without any sound advice.

But if I seek such advice,

follow it exactly and yet still produce a botched job, then it is fair for me to plead that the fault is not entirely mine and that some of the blame rests on the shoulders of the expert whom I consulted. some extent, then, responsibility is transferable.

To

While it is an

honor to deserve respect, such honor puts one in an exposed position; tf a tyro follows a master's precept or example exactly and nonetheless makes a mess of things, then the mpster is liable tor part of the blame that would otherwise be due entirely to the tyro.

As it were, a measure

of the extent to which a.man deserves respect is the extent to which his scrupulous followers can transfer blame for their botches to him. It is equally important that there can be grounds for Withdrawing respect from a man.

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Suppose that I slavishly imitate the example or

follow the precepts of someone whom I respect as a cook.

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frequently make awful meals in so doing, if this also happens more often than not to others of his adherents and if his own meals are usually wretched even when he does his best to make a sumptuous feast, then eventually I am justified in ceasing to respect him as a cook. much is obvious.

So

Indeed just because earned respect confers a

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liability for a portion of the blame for the failures of one's devoted adherents, one can deserve to lose some of one's honor should one's adherents typically make a mess when imitating one's best work or carrying out one's best instructions. own work is really very good.

This can be so even if one's

For if that work is not replicable by

others even through the most exacting imitation, then this can be grounds for concluding that one is just standardly Lucky ,.

And while

Lucky people may be enviable, they need not be admirable, honorable or

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deserving of respect.

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Worship is an extreme form of respect. someone more than anyone whom one worships.

It is impossible to respect So given that one who

deserves respect would bear part of the blame for failures by his scrupulous adherents who execute his instructions exactly, one who deserved worship would bear all

the blame for such failures.

More

cheerfully put, one who deserves worship deserves all the credit for good deeds done on his authority.

For consider:

if Chang, say, would

be liable for a greater proportion of the blame for the culinary failures, if any, perpetrated by his exact followers than would be the aforesaid Pierre, then ceteris paribus Chang deserves more respect as a cook (or as a teacher of cooking) than does Pierre.

Now if

someone who merits worship would earn only less than all the credit for successes performed by his devoted adherents, then it is possible

if

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than someone who ·deserves worship, and this is impossible.

In short,

one deserves respect to the extent that one earns credit (or blame) for successes (or failures, were there any) performed on the exact execution· of one's instructions or the exact imitation of one's example. So unless one earns all such credit (pr blame), it is possible that someone else could merit more respect.

But no one could merit more

respect than one who deserves worship.

So anyone who deserves worship

earns all the credit arising from the exact and successful execution of his instructions or the exact and successful imitation of his examples• . God must deserve worship.

That is; it is a necessary truth that

no one could be God. who does not deserve worship.

This fact brings

out a fault in some of the traditional arguments for the existence of God.

Consider the cosmological argument or the ;argument from design.

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Even if they were unimpeachable, at most they would show that there is a' first cause or a designer. object of awe

Perhaps such a thing might be a worthy

as a cause or a person who d.eserves respect as a designer,

and no other cause or designer might deserve more awe or respect as But it has yet to be shown that such a thing or person deserves

such.

worship.

For anyone to be God, he has to be morally perfect.

It

is by no means obvious that either a first cause or a designer must be morally perfect;

indeed, it is obvious that a designer might very

well be morally reprehensible (thus the problem of evil).

. Now moral

worth is the critical variable for deserved respect tout court (i.e., respect as a person);

other variables may be more remotely relevant,

but let us assume that God is unsurpassable in those dimensions. could exceed a morally perfect being in moral worth.

Nothing

So since God

must be morally perfect, God must deserve worship. Therefore, one must be able to transfer all responsibility for some of one's acts to God. .,(:

In the firstllaCe, this is the doctrine

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4. , ii if we have faith in Him, all our sins shall be washed away; deliver us from the .evil we have done. sinners;

He will

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Remember that we are all

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only Christ can deliver us from evil - this means not that we

will not do evil, but that Christ will bear the burden of our guilt.

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That is, the doctrine of salvation can only mean that if we worship (have faith in) God, then He will bear all responsibility for our transgressions.

In the second place, God is supposed to have commanded

some deeds of us (including worship). moral novices before God;

It may be said that we are all

that is part of the substance of our being

Children of God the Father.

An omniscient, omnipotent and morally

perfect creator of us owes us at least some advice, instruction and guidance.

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Thus God the Father ought to have commanded some. deeds

of His children.

And for those acts done on His authority, God ought

to bear all our responsibility.

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For suppose He did not merit all

credit and censure for acts done on his authority.

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Then however much

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less than all He does merit, it is possible that there be someone else who merits even just that little bit more.

(There is no necessary

maxlmun of transferable responsibility which is less than all responsibility; but if there were, the.ologians would owe us a calibration of that extremum.)

But since God must deserve worship, no one could deserve

more respect than God.

(Moreover, perhaps the

nec~ssary

uniqueness

monotheism requires also requires that no one could deserve as much respect as God.)

Hence, God must carry full responsibility for acts

done on His authority. But even if it were possible, it would be evil to transfer to God all responsibility for acts done even on God's authority. would violate the Nuremburg Principle:

To do so

No matter on whose authority a

moral agent acts, that agent must take some responsibility for his act. Even if an authority 1".joins onlYtlg0", f'<\'iI~ d~'/I' ~ "'~"€I'\OO ~ t;I',,~_~(, d\\\ "~_~I\n\~'a h

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• a deed to that authority. of moral agents;

This dilf1ity is essential to the autonomy

one has a duty as a moral agent to preserve the

dignity of one's autonomy.

The Christian doctrine tha.t pride is a

vice and humility is a virtue has at times been perverted in the service of a noxious slave morality;

Aristotle's thesis that megalopsychia or

greatness of soul (as distinct from hubris) is a virtue is a noble view. If nothing else, no matter what is enjoined by authority, one has a duty to determine for oneself whether the act enjoined is wicked. If one cannot see a reason why that act is not wicked, save perhaps that authority enjoins it, then that authority enjoins it is impotent as a ground for transfering all responsibility for the .ac t to tlle authority;

on the contrary, it augments the agent's responsibility.

Thus, for example, Abraham had a duty to disobey God's command to

sacrifice Isaac;

any other view is evil.

find'13atan mor-e lovable than God;

Perhaps like Milton, I

if there were a God, we would have

\ a duty to join Satan in rebellion against Him, since anything less would be undignified.

A god who enjoyed being worshipped and who

punished those who refused to worship him would be contemptible, and his worshippers would be beneath contempt; with Pascal's ,wager.

that is what is wrong

The splendor of autonomy' is its dignity, but

the awesome might of autonomy is its power to impose inalienable responsibility.

A moral agent cannot evade that lonely respons1bility;

such is the austere elegance of moral agency. Thus, even supposing it were possible, it would be immoral to transfer all responsibility for one's acts even to God.

God is morally

bound not to take all'responslbility for our acts, even those done on His authority.

It would have been evil, a crime against human

dignity, for Jesus to have washed aWay all our sins in the crucifixion; the doctrine of salvation is an evil temptation towards the abdication

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dignity.

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Only a being capable of assuming all moral responsibility

for our deeds could deserve worship;

it would only be moral to

worship a being capable of such a burden.

Since it is immoral even

to try to impose such a burden on anyone, it is immoral to worship God •. (The problem of evil is irrelevant here;

the argument goes through

even if this is the best of all possible worlds.)

To put the point

conceptually, the idea of God masks a moral monstrosity, so we have a duty to do away with it.

If God were not already dead, we would have

a duty to kill him.

W.D. Hart, University College London

June, 1975.

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