2013 Kantzer Lecture #2 - God as Worthy of Worship
In the second lecture, Wolterstorff explicates what he calls the implicit understanding of God within the Christian liturgy as a whole (or as it accords with the convergence of the five traditions he is considering), the third and highest level of implicitness (see lecture 1). The highest level of implicitness is the assumption that God is worthy of worship. This understanding of God, says Wolterstorff, leads us in Christian worship to acknowledge the...
2013 Kantzer Lecture #2 - God as Worthy of Worship
In the second lecture, Wolterstorff explicates what he calls the implicit understanding of God within the Christian liturgy as a whole (or as it accords with the convergence of the five traditions he is considering), the third and highest level of implicitness (see lecture 1). The highest level of implicitness is the assumption that God is worthy of worship. This understanding of God, says Wolterstorff, leads us in Christian worship to acknowledge the unsurpassable excellence of God. There is a definitive orientation taken on in worship, which he calls an attitudinal stance. This way of orienting ourselves toward God in Christian worship evokes (at least) awe, reverence and adoration of God. Awe is the proper response to God’s creative and redemptive glory; reverence to God’s holiness as untainted perfection; and adoration to God’s love for humanity. Thus, the implicit understanding of God as unsurpassably excellent and thereby worthy of worship is manifest in our attitudinal stance, or orientation towards God in worship.
Nicholas Wolterstorff (PhD Harvard University) is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. He is author of many books, including Reason Within the Bounds of Religion (Eerdmans, 1988), Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008), and United in Love: Reflections on Justice, Art, and Liturgy (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
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