"is God selfish?"

September 6, 2003

a girl from pneumatos wrote this question on our message forum a few weeks back, and i wanted to post my response to it. as a reminder to myself, and perhaps as an insight to you. she wrote the following:

We were discussing about how God has a purpose for each of our lives. I know that as a Christian, our first purpose is to worship God. To me, worshipping God is glorifying God. My friend had said something like, "God made us [human beings] to glorify Him. He knew before he created us that some of us will choose to bring glory to Him. Isn't it selfish of God to make something whose purpose is to glorify Him?"

my response was

the simple answer is no. God is not selfish. God's main concern is His own glory. the reason for this is because if He was concerned with anything else, than that thing would be God and not God. in that case, the worship of another thing would place it above God, making it God and not God, God. because God is the only true God, He must be concerned with His own glory for it is in that, that God's Godness is affirmed and attributed to Himself. so to create human beings to glorify God, simply makes God, God. it is not out of selfish motives.

Posted by Leo Chan at September 6, 2003 7:30 PM