What is Worship?

Part I, Part II, Part III

Some time ago I posted an article titled "What is worship?" I asked for comments and through email got several, from both Protestant and Catholic friends. The Catholics were more active. So, in response to my (slightly) increased understanding I have re-written the article. What follows in as extended, I hope both in length and in substance, version of my original article.

References are to Jaroslav Pelikan's five-part marathon history of the development of Christian doctrine. Reference 4:45 would mean book 4, page 45.

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There was one question that loomed large in my mind as I read through Pelikan’s monographs. In fact there were two, but the second – “What is the point of dogma?” – has been discussed in a separate article. Both questions are theological questions that seem simple. Almost too simple to entertain seriously, but when further reflected on, they prove to be absolutely fundamental for a Christian, whether layman or theologian. I was hoping to find, if not proper answers to them, at least a satisfactory articulation of the questions themselves. The one I must discuss here is:

What is worship?

Indeed, what is worship? What exactly do we mean when we say we “worship” God?

We Christians believe that worship is the proper response of creature towards Creator. We believe that worship is the primary calling of man in relation to God. One could say that love is this primary calling. Yes, for our purposes here worship and love may be treated as one. Both overlap each other, and both are prerequisites for happiness in the truest sense (“human flourishing”).

We also believe that the object of worship must be the “true God”, not our construction of him, otherwise we worship and idol (in other words we are “idolizers”). Also, not only the object of worship but worship itself must be “true” or “right”, otherwise it is imperfect at best and meaningless at worst (making us unjust towards our Creator to whom, and only to whom, true worship is due).

Now, what constitutes worship? Or, put another way: How does worship towards God differ from a proper disposition towards other things, like people?

Catholics and Orthodox make a distinction between “worship” and “veneration”. The first, when applied to God is proper, and when applied to creatures (mainly to the saints and foremost to Mary) is not only improper but also a mortal si. The second, when applied to saints is proper, and when applied to God is either proper or meaningless apart from worship.

Thus far this distinction, however, is only object and of terminology. Where lays the “real” difference in the act itself, the difference in terms of “substance”, the difference that counts, the difference that can be experienced and observed in reality?

Or is what is “given” in worship and veneration the same, but just directed to different objects? Or if not, then what, exactly, is reserved for God only that is constituent to worship and not veneration?

Difference of degree or quality?

Let’s assume there is a real difference between worship and veneration. Is the difference a difference of degree or a difference of quality? To use an analogy, is veneration a mild electric current which, as it grows stronger, approaches worship (difference of “degree”), or is veneration a mild electric current and worship something quite different, like fire (difference of “quality”)?

What, then, if the difference is that of degree?

In traditional theology of love we speak of an “order of loves” (ordo amoris/caritatis). Loving objects in the proper order and in the right way is the (or a) key of right worship.

Is this backed by Scripture? It would seem so. The disciples asked Jesus of the proper “order of commandments”.

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31.) Implicit in Jesus’ answer is an order of loves: the most important thing is to love God, and secondly, you must love your neighbor as yourself.

Since we have treated worship and love as partly interchangeable, what follows is some kind of “order of worship”. “Proper worship” would be “a proper order of worship”: God merits our highest form of reverence (which we call “worship”), and lesser things merit a lower form of reverence (which we call “veneration”). The right order is the “measure” and difference of proper worship and veneration. If the order is wrong, worship and veneration become corrupted in some sense.

So, we’ve established an order of things. What else can be said? By connecting worship to love and by establishing an order of worship we’ve found part of the answer to our question. But, the core of the question still remains: What, exactly, is worship (or love)?

Jesus provides another key when he says that: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15) and: “The person who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me” (John 14:21). This is helpful. Love/worship is doing the will of God. (Here I am not going to ask if obeying, “works”, is merely the fruit of love, “faith”. I take it that they are organically connected.)

Continuing with the degree paradigm, we can add sacrifice as one constituent of worship/love. It is remembered that agape, the love which “God is”, is self-sacrificial. Now, what is sacrifice? This is a difficult question, and though I will address it here and again at the end of this article, an exhaustive answer cannot be offered.

But our presuppositions imply that if worship belongs to the degree category, and if sacrifice is constituent of worship, it follows that sacrifice also belongs to the degree category (if not also to “quality”). From this it follows that, if the “order” is right, sacrifice can be directed and offered both to the Creator and to the creature. This makes sense: humans often “make sacrifices” for each other, especially for spouses and children, and we commend them for that.

But we have to return to the sacrificial character of worship later: it might be the crux of the question.

We left many important questions unanswered. But, if the difference between worship and veneration is that of degree, at least we’ve established a few things. We know that worship, veneration, and love are all intimately connected. Their legitimacy or illegitimacy depends on the proper order of their objects. Worship of God implies doing God’s will. Lastly, worship is sacrifice (whatever that is).

So, when we say that we “worship God”, if our words are backed by our whole being, we are saying at least the following: that we love him, that we love him above all else, that we love our neighbors as ourselves, and that our love is sacrificial. We understand that we haven’t said what “sacrifice” is, and we understand that worshiping God requires knowing him (we cannot worship what we don’t know – worship and love require the right object).