Post by Josh on Jan 10, 2014 18:28:57 GMT -8
Romans 1:18-23
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 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.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
"Now there's spiritual warfare, flesh and blood breakin' down, you either got faith or you got unbelief and there ain't no neutral ground
The enemy is subtle, howbeit we're deceived, when the truth's in our hearts and we still don't believe" Bob Dylan, Precious Angel
I was thinking about the concept, found in Scripture and elsewhere, that the truth about God is buried in all of us, even the most steadfast atheist. And I was thinking about this from the atheist's perspective, how insulting that might seem. It's basically being told you don't know yourself as well the Bible does.
Still, it occurred to me that even an atheist, though they disagree, shouldn't think the concept all that strange. In fact, many would probably say we Christians know deep down there is no God but just spend incredible amounts of energy convincing ourselves otherwise. But whether either side is right on this, I think we can all acknowledge that there are indeed many truths in our hearts we hide from our minds (or vice versa) on a daily basis- and that we all have remarkable skill at doing so. Ultimately, I don't think any of us should take it as an insult when accused of this possibility.
That said, this cannot be a major persuasive argument for either side and we shouldn't rely on it. It's simply a descriptive observation about a reality we must arrive at through other evidences.