We will now consider a biblical statement about humanity’s natural knowledge of God and our purposeful negation of such knowledge.
And lastly, we will consider to what atheism has come as they seek to find meaning in a meaningless universe and seek to prop up their favored ideas upon contradictions of their own making.
Neo Pagan Atheism
Gleaning from Romans 1:18-28 we see that the Bible makes the following declaration:
…men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because the thing which may be known of God is clearly revealed within them, for God revealed it to them. For the unseen things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being realized by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, for them to be without excuse. Because, knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were thankful. But they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness… For they changed the truth of God into a lie…
they did not think fit to have God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.
Let us parse this statement:
men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because the thing which may be known of God is clearly revealed within them, for God revealed it to them. For the unseen things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being realized by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, for them to be without excuse.
I firstly, wanted to note that “the thing which may be known of God is clearly revealed within them” may be understood, at least on one level, is that we humans are not animals; even those who believe that we are animals admit the obvious—that we are very, very different from the animals, or from other animals. Thus, humans have always discerned the imago dei—that humans as being made in the image of God. More directly, God revealed “the unseen things of Him from the creation of the world” as they are “realized by the things that are made.” We often recognize invisible things by their affects. For example, wind is invisible but we see its affect as trees sway, oxygen is invisible but we see its affect as it burns.
I recall a debate engaged upon by Philip Johnson who stated that the evidence for design is all around us. At this point the audience, predictably, laughed at him at which point he quoted Richard Dawkins and Francis Crick who have written:
Dawkins, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose” (The Blind Watchmaker, p. 1).
Crick, “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved” (What Mad Pursuit, p.138).
The evidence is clear to behold but they replace the logical conclusion of design by concocting stories about how thing may have, could have (or, should have?) happened in the form of Victorian Era tall tales. As long as they can tell naturalistic stories about time, chance and matter coming together in unknown and unobserved ways to look like design they are, as Dawkins puts it, “intellectually satisfied atheist[s].” Furthermore, consider what happens when they are confronted by the scientific evidence of a universe fine tuned for life: they imagine unknown and unobserved oscillations and a multiverse in order to deny the evidence set before them—if they can imagine it, that is good enough.
This is why they are said to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” and thus, “be without excuse”—they know better but talk themselves out of conclusions which are inconvenient to their particular, and peculiar, worldviews.
Because, knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were thankful.
Knowing that God is behind creation they ignored Him and, as is typical of humanity, did not thank God but take pride in themselves as they think that they have pulled themselves up by their very own boot-straps. The problem with the self made person is that they worship their creator.
But they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Acceptance of the recognition of divine design lead to imagining scenarios whereby the universe just pops into existence uncaused by nothing and for nothing, life coming from non-life—all without evidence—etc. “Scientific” literature has become saturated with tall tales which, no matter how nonsensical or absurd, are concocted, accepted and promulgated due to adherence to atheism in the guise of Darwinism or the insistence that “science” is not allowed to come to anything but materialistic conclusions. Think about it: science only deals with the material, only considers the material, only observes the material and, big surprise, only concludes the material. It is a set up whereby one stares into one little corner of reality, the material aspect, then one sees only the material, then one comes to material conclusions and then one demands that the material is all that there is—yet, this is because the refuse to turn around from that little corner and behold the splendor of creations various facets.
Note the statement of Prof. Richard Lewontin (whose whole statement is very worth reading):
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.
Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.
Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
The self profession of being wiser than thou is basically a requirement of atheism. It is, in fact, one of their consoling delusions. The atheist is the most erudite amongst us and has based their atheism upon the very best information to date on every topic upon which issues of atheism vs. theism touch (at least this is the talking point which is not the whole story). This is why, for example, they come to the brilliant conclusions that:
It is ignorant and superstitious to believe that God made everything out of nothing.
It is rational and scientific to believe that nothing made everything out of nothing.It is ignorant and superstitious to believe that God is eternal.
It is rational and scientific to believe that matter is eternal.God is an effect and must have had a cause.
Matter is the uncaused first cause.If God made everything, then who made God?
Matter made everything and nothing made matter.
Makes one wonder.
As for “imaginations”; note the words of Prof. Richard Dawkins as he is asked to provide his “most persuasive” argument for his particular Darwinian/Dawkinsian views:
Um, there’s got to be a series of advantages all the way in the feather. If you can’t think of one then that’s your problem, not natural selection’s problem. Natural selection, um, well, I suppose that is a sort of matter of faith on my, on my part since the theory is so coherent and so powerful.[1]
Thus, “their foolish heart was darkened” as they openly display their vain imaginations which are readily discerned as mere excuses for rejecting God.
Changing “the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” is surely a reference to literal idolatry. Yet, such a change is just as prevalent in atheism not via the literal carving and worshiping of images of man, animals and insects but via neo-Pagan-atheism as atheists push the concept of replacing awe in God with awe in nature (I evidence this via quotations here also see here).
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness…For they changed the truth of God into a lie…they did not think fit to have God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind While the texts gets into particular action which followed from the choice to reject God and God allowing them to do so, or respecting their freewill choice, let us focus on the fact that they proceeded to “changed the truth of God into a lie” and “did not think fit to have God in their knowledge” which is why “God gave them over to a reprobate mind.”
This is the mind from which they continue to justify their rejection of God. The more that one wants to reject God the more justification they will find for it as they reach ever closer to what they really want: to be rid of God forever. Succinctly stated; this is, at least part of, the reason that God does not part the universe, appear in the sky and say, “Shalom! I am God and you are not” as this would, essentially, rob us of the freewill to seek and find or reject and feel justified in doing so.
[1] The Atheism Tapes, Part 4: Richard Dawkins and Jonathan Miller
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