Abstract
St. Paul writes, “whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10: 31 NABRE).” This essay employs the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and the recent philosophical work of Daniel Johnson (2020) on this command to investigate a series of questions that the command raises. What is glory? How does one properly act for glory and for the glory of another? How is it possible to do everything for the glory of God? I begin with Aquinas’ account of glory and the pursuit of glory for God’s glory and Aquinas’s answers to some of the above questions that can be drawn from his discussion in De Malo. I defend Aquinas against criticisms from Daniel Johnson and present his own interpretation of the command. I advance the discussion through adding two additional interpretations that do not rely on a controversial assumption Johnson makes. Next, I address the puzzle of how we can intend everything for the glory of God using Aquinas’s three-fold account of intention. Finally, I discuss the relation between charity and the desire for God’s glory and how regular, actual intentions of one’s actions for the glory of God increases charity.
Highlights
What is glory? How does one properly act for glory and for the glory of another? How is it possible to do everything for the glory of God? I begin with Aquinas’ account of glory and the pursuit of glory for God’s glory and Aquinas’s answers to some of the above questions that can be drawn from his discussion in De Malo
The purpose of this essay was to better understand the command to do everything for the glory of God in 1 Corinthians 10:31
The first was to act with the intention description as attributable to the deeds of God
Summary
Aquinas discusses God’s glory in his Commentary on Hebrews saying, knowledge of God’s goodness is called glory in a most excellent sense, i.e., clear knowledge of the divine goodness accompanied by praise. Such knowledge is possessed by men up to a certain point . A person may desire glory for his or her pleasing appearance from another The glorying in this case is the manifestation of the goodness of one’s appearance that naturally leads to admiration and pleasure that results from seeing the goodness. We might say analogously that God desires His own glory as an end and His desire is not vain.
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