Give Thanks….To Whom?

“Not all people are indebted to God for release from the land of Egypt; that grace was for the Hebrews. But the natural law tradition has pointed out that all people are indebted to God for their being, and held that at some level we all know it. Friedrich Nietzche, originator of the slogan ‘God is dead,’ reported that at times he was overcome by gratitude. This admission is most interesting, because gratitude is not a self-regarding attitude like pleasure, but an other-regarding attitude like anger. It presupposes someone to whom gratitude is owed” (J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know [Dallas: Spence Publishing Company, 2003], 31-2).