How can we feel gratitude or love or worship towards impersonal matter?
Matter is not impersonal: it is our very substance. If we cannot love matter, then we cannot love ourselves as we are. Almost everyone loves nature, even though it is impersonal, and often seems indifferent or cruel. We can feel gratitude, too, to nature and the universe, for giving us the privilege of conscious life. People love mountains, oceans, stars – even though they know these things are material and impersonal and cannot love them in return. Consider the reverse of the coin: how can Christians feel love and gratitude towards an all-powerful God who has created disease and pain; a God who has given humans the free-will to do evil, and then if they use it punishes them for all eternity; a God who is planning to wrap up creation, destroy the earth violently, and create a new heaven and a new earth?
