Here
there is question of the secondary end of creation. The primary end is the
glory of God. It is only for shallow thinkers that this proposition savors of egotism.
Were God’s life not a self-conscious life, it could not be a happy one. To be
conscious of the beauty of the divine reality and to exult in it—this is God’s
happiness. That consciousness of, and exultant joy in, the Godhead is the
intrinsic glory of God. Man, called to grace and glory, is thus called to
participate in this conscious life of God. To share God’s life is to share God’s
exultancy. To behold the Divine Beauty, to extol it and to exult in it, is true
beatitude. But this exultant apprehension of, appreciation of, and joy in the
Godhead revealed, is the extrinsic glory of God. It is obvious it is coincident
with the creature’s beatitude. The extrinsic glory mirrors the intrinsic glory.
God does not create to acquire beatitude, but to impart beatitude. When, then,
God is said to have created the world for His own glory, thus must not be
understood as if God were moved to create in order to secure the admiration,
the applause, and the adulation of creatures. The glory that they give is not
something extorted from them, but something that arises spontaneously from the
perfections with which they have been endowed. (Edward Leen, Why the Cross?
[New York: Sheed and Ward, 1938; repr., New York: Scepter Press, 2001], 116 n.
10)
There
are those among you who have sinned; but verily I say, for this once, for mine
own glory, and for the salvation of souls, I have forgiven you your sins.
(D&C 64:3)
For
behold, this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and
eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)
