ABSTRACT
What does it mean to give thanks to God? Is this like thanking other people, or is it different because God is not like other people? One important difference would seem to be connected with the Pauline injunction in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 that we should ‘give thanks to God whatever happens.’ In this spirit Job went as far as to say about God: ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.’ Obviously this does not apply to other people. We do not thank (nor trust) them ‘whatever happens’ since many things other people do to us give us cause for resentment rather than gratitude. But are we not similarly resentful of God for many of the things that happen in the world? Or is such resentment excluded by the injunction to thank God whatever happens? In order to deal with these issues, let us start by enquiring what we do when we thank other people, and then see how thanking God differs from this.
