We’re in grave danger of pendantic obfusion, but..
“We do things because they are the right thing to do to PLEASE God, not man.”
There are so many ways to respond to this:
What if you’re doing it to please God to get your reward? Not good right?
Now, what if you’re doing it because of compassion - literally sharing their suffering and not wishing them to suffer. Good right?
So doing it “to please God” to me would be a step in the wrong direction. Away from Christ’s commandments.
Does he have to know the theology or if he loves his neighbor as his self, and God (which he in his deepest soul knows only as “good, true, beautiful”), in order for this to qualify as “doing good”?
OK, everybody muddle up.
We do not work to please God to GET a reward, we work to please God to thank him for the gift of grace that he gave us.
If you read my post a little more careful, I use natural man’s inability to please God and saved man’s ability to please God as counterpoints.
Here is a question I have pondered for quite a while: Can a man have true compassion while not knowing God? Or is it a man based compassion?