Fools

 

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. (Psalm 14:1)

 

 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20)

 

I’m reading Knowing Christ Today by Dallas Willard, but even if I weren’t, the first line of this psalm wakes the debater in me. In my mind, I hear someone charging that calling someone a fool is wrong (unless they are doing it) and that the Bible should show more tolerance for the diversity of beliefs out there. However, the Bible is absolutely accurate in its claim. Unless the person making the claim was somehow omniscient, to make the claim “There is no God” is unsupportable. They simply can’t know it. So, making the claim shows them to be fools.

The statement about their corruption and vileness touches on their motives. Why would someone say, “There is no God”? A number of reasons come to mind. They want to win a debate. They want to lower the person with whom they are debating to their moral level. I knew one person who not only tried to argue that if I got some “good sex” that I’d stop believing in God, but also that if I stopped believing in God I would slip into the use of foul language and alcohol and other drugs, which he apparently thought a good thing. In short, he thought that if I stopped believing in God, he would become my moral model. A third reason is that they want to be God, as demonstrated by their desire to be the one who chooses what morality (if any) to follow.

The one thing the statement “There is no God” never attempts to assert is that there simply and factually is no God. There is always a reason – even if they won’t admit it – that they want there to be no God. It should be noted that in the time that this psalm was written, the generally issue wasn’t the existence of a God. It was with the multiplicity of gods from which they could choose: Baal, Chemosh, Molech, and later Jupiter, Zeus, Odin, and their more broad-spectrum but specialized kin (gods of different small specialties, rather like the doctors of today.)

          One of the great arguments that there is a God is the fact that others insist that there is not, and that it is best and right for us – instead – to conform ourselves to their way of thinking.  If there is no God, why do they want to take His place? Why do they take such great offense at the claim that there is? Why is the claim that God exists any more enraging than the claim that black holes exist?

          Some would say that black holes have been scientifically proven, and therefore there’s no sense in debating it, but I don’t think that’s the issue. Instead, the  problem is that if God exists, He has the right or ability to impose His will on others. Black holes aren’t near enough to be a threat, but God can be anywhere and everywhere. In other words, one doesn’t really have much need to be able to respond to a black hole, but God can demand that we take responsibility. That is the crime for which He must be executed as many times as it takes. Unfortunately for them, they can’t execute Him effectively enough no matter how many times they try. He’s shown that death can’t keep Him in the ground. So, instead, they pretend and demand that others bow to their pretense.