Can we talk about thanksgiving? No, not the holiday, the attitude. Or we might say, the desire. That is, there is in each of us the innate desire to be grateful for the good things in our lives. We want to give thanks. Is it possible that the gratitude we feel when we experience goodness is itself evidence for God?
I propose that the gratitude we feel–the very desire we have to want to give thanks to someone or something for gifts such as life, love, and the magnificence of human experience–makes no sense without God. To the extent that gratitude wells up within us when we admire a starry night sky or a freshly snow-covered field this winter, we experience something we are created to feel. We see that we were created to give thanks to God.
This is true when we feel grateful for things not given by other people.
Richard Dawkins, best known for his work as a̶ ̶s̶c̶i̶e̶n̶t̶i̶s̶t̶ an atheist, said back in 2009 that, when he regards the Milky Way or natural wonders, he experiences, “a feeling of sort of an abstract gratitude that I am alive to appreciate these wonders… When I look down a microscope it’s the same feeling. I am grateful to be alive to appreciate these wonders.”
Grateful indeed… but grateful to whom?
While Dr. Dawkins and other unbelievers may describe their feelings of gratitude or thankfulness as “abstract,” does abstract gratitude really make sense? “Thank” is a transitive verb. A grateful subject wants an object to thank.
But for these grand things in life, and the experiences we have while enjoying them, we know they haven’t been given by people. We know it’s not right to thank the Grand Canyon for its beauty; it didn’t create itself.
Even when we are grateful to another person for some gift, aren’t we also grateful for that person being in our lives? But again, even the unbeliever does not believe that people create themselves. So again we have to ask: grateful to whom?
All gratitude ultimately leads upward and outward, beyond this world to the one who created it. Gratitude for anything is ultimately thankfulness to God. Gratitude, then, presupposes God.
The Biblical worldview makes sense of our desire to give thanks. The Bible says that, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). Christians are a̶s̶k̶e̶d̶ commanded to give thanks to God at all times and in every circumstance (Colossians 3:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:18, etc.). And Christians have the most to be thankful for: not only did Jesus give us life but new life. Not only did he give us this world but also the world to come. He laid down his own life to save everyone who comes to him in faith. And what is faith without gratitude?
It’s good to feel gratitude, and it’s good to give thanks. We all feel it, and we all do it. And it makes no sense without God.
^This is apologetics.
JOEL M. SETTECASE 