Do Only Vain Gods Demand Praise?
Does God need our worship?
Few objections to Christianity are as common, or as misunderstood, as the idea that God somehow demands worship because He needs our admiration. To many, the command to praise God sounds like the behaviour of a vain king, desperate for constant affirmation from his subjects.
C. S. Lewis once wrestled with this very objection. In Reflections on the Psalms, he wrote:
“The miserable idea that God should in any sense need, or crave for, our worship like a vain woman wanting compliments, or a vain author presenting his new books to people who never met or heard of him, is implicitly answered by the words ‘If I be hungry I will not tell thee’ (Psalm 50:12)… But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise… The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game… The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.”
Praise Is the Overflow of Joy
We praise whatever we enjoy. The more we enjoy a thing, the more likely it is we’ll sing its praises. People praise a beautiful sunset. They praise their favourite music. They praise a great book, a great meal, a great game, or a great holiday.
When something genuinely delights us, praise comes naturally. It isn’t forced from us. There’s no sense of compulsion or obligation. In fact, it feels incomplete not to express it. And we instinctively want others to share in that enjoyment. That’s why it’s often more enjoyable to holiday, listen to music, watch a movie, or attend a stage play with others. We want not only to enjoy things, but to share that enjoyment with the people we care about most.
Praise, then, isn’t merely the result of enjoyment; it is the completion of it. As Lewis later explains:
“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. The delight is incomplete till it is expressed.”
He illustrates the point with familiar experiences: discovering a wonderful new author and wishing you could tell someone about him, or stumbling upon a breathtaking mountain valley and longing for others to see it too. Joy seeks expression, and expression invites others to share in that joy.
For this reason, Lewis observed, praise fills the world:
“The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles… Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.”
The psalmists were not demanding that we flatter the divine ego. They were doing what every human being does when they encounter something awe-inspiring, something glorious: inviting others to share in that joy.
In a sense, it is not unlike sharing a beautiful photograph. We hope others might feel the same sense of awe we felt when we first saw it. It’s an attempt to capture that moment and invite others in on it too.
God Doesn’t Need Our Praise
The Bible makes it clear that God doesn’t depend on human worship. He doesn’t need our prayers, our songs, or anything else for that matter.
Psalm 50 rebukes those who imagine their offerings somehow sustain Him:
“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.” (Psa. 50:12)
The Apostle Paul makes a similar point when preaching in Athens:
“Nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” (Acts 17:25)
God is not in need of anything because everything we have to give already comes from Him. The command to praise Him is therefore not about meeting some divine need for affirmation. Praise is about directing us toward the truest and highest object of joy.
The Right Object of Praise
The problem we have is not that we don’t praise, but that we often praise the wrong things.
Our culture overflows with praise—praise for celebrities, achievements, ideologies, possessions, pleasures, and comforts. Yet these things cannot ultimately give what we foolishly think they offer. Our problem is that we are aiming far too low.
In his famous sermon The Weight of Glory, Lewis observed:
“It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
As such, the Bible redirects our instinct—and our deep need—to praise toward the One for whom we were made: the Creator Himself. It is not a call to artificial, heartless flattery. It is not about pretending to feel what is not there. Rather, Scripture points us to the greatest reality in existence—God Himself, His goodness, power, and love.
In effect, the biblical authors are relaying their vision of God and inviting us to come, see, and marvel with them.
Praise as Participation in Reality
For this reason, the Bible so often calls individuals, communities, and even creation itself to praise God:
“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!” (Psa. 150:6)
Praise is not merely a religious ritual. It is participation in the truth about the world. When we praise God, we acknowledge what is ultimately real: that all things come from Him, exist through Him, and find their meaning in Him.
In that sense, praise is an inherently humble posture. It is the recognition that everything we have, we have graciously received.
Seen this way, the biblical commands to praise God are an invitation to fulfil our ultimate purpose: to enjoy God. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism famously states, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Praise is the completion and overflow of our enjoyment of God.
So when the Bible commands us to praise God, it is not akin to a vain ruler looking for compliments. It is more like a traveller lost in the desert who has finally found water and eagerly shows other thirsty travellers where they too can drink.
As the psalmist writes:
“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!” (Psa. 34:8)
Or in the words of the prophet Isaiah:
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isa. 55:1–2)
We all praise something. We were made for it. Our problem is not that we praise too much, but that we praise the wrong things, content with mud pies in a slum. We may not yet be able to imagine the holiday by the sea, but with the Psalmists the Bible assures us: once we taste and see that the Lord is good, we will never look back at the slums again.