Most words seem to get very tricky when they're applied to God.

I get it that an entity like God could be pretty hard to describe using just the language of ordinary discourse. But in that case, whenever anybody purports to tell me something about him, I can't be sure what they're really trying to say about him, still less whether I have any reason to believe it.

"Need" is a tricky word. I think it is safe to say from the point of view of Catholic dogma that creation is completely gratuitous, that is, completely a gift arising out of no need in God.

I don't think your Scriptural citation actually supports your point.

It is true that we cannot fully know the mind of God now (or maybe ever) but St. Paul's larger point is that God's hidden plan is now revealed in Christ and accessible to us through the Holy Spirit.

This secret of God's wisdom is the Incarnation, Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which makes this revelation available to us through the Church.

I'm not saying any of that is true (so I didn't expect you to agree with it), I'm just saying we don't even know what's really going on in each others minds, much less the mind of God. 1 Corinthians 2

7 But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.

It is just that I don't think that God does things out of need, in the sense that everything (?) we do we do out of or to fulfill some need.

So, God has needs in a different sense than we have needs? Or does God have no needs in any sense?

I can't agree with much of that!

It's entirely possible that God sees us as an end to some other goal. This would explain natural evil (volcanoes, disease, ect), and why God makes no effort to intervene on the behalf of those who suffer. The assumption that God thinks like us seems deeply flawed to me. That assumption (that what seems obviously true to us would also seem obviously true to God) is probably the core of our disagreement.

If you think about how long the earth existed before man evolved (4.5 billion years), there must be some reason God allowed it to take so long, there also must be some reason he allows things to continue. It seems quite plausible that God would be much more interested in a much more intelligent species that we would eventually become (assuming we keep passing his survival test). Of course all of this is assuming such a being as God exists.
In general the anthropic bias is hardwired into Christianity.

The claim that God sees man as an end in himself is one for Catholics based on Divine Revelation and reason. There are all kinds of evidence and arguments to support the claim.

Here is one:

I can see with my own eyes of reason that I am an end in myself in my personhood and that I am not to be used as if I were an object. Every person who is psychologically healthy agrees with this. If God exists and he is wise he must see that fact better than I can so he must agree.

That is an argument whose premise is self-evident (to me at least) and whose logic looks pretty solid to me.

Again, you appear not to have read to comments. God sees human beings as ends in themselves.

The problem is I have read the comments and understand them, I think you just don't understand what I'm getting across.

In general, the claim "God sees human being as ends in themselves" has no basis in anything but what a few Church fathers have said. I find it highly problematic when such relatively baseless claims are presented as fact. Such lack of care demonstrates a lack of concern for the actual truth. The truth is no one has a clue how God sees man, assuming the existence of God. To claim otherwise seems like an exercise in pride itself.