Friday, April 30, 2021

Edward Leen on God being Glorified not being an Act of Egotism on His Behalf

 

 

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)

 

Compare the above with the following representative texts from uniquely Latter-day Saint texts:

 

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)