“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to
say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of
ourselves.”[1]
The great theologian of the reformed faith, John Calvin claims that all men
know themselves because all men essentially looked up and beheld as it were,
the face of God. In other words, there are no true atheists. All men know that
God exists. The apostle Paul informed the ancient Christian church at Rome that
God’s invisible attributes have been clearly
seen, being understood through what
has been made so that the unbeliever is without a rational defense for his
unbelief. Paul went on to say that even though they knew God, they did not
honor him as God. All men, according to Paul know God.
Contrary to the claims of certain schools of
apologetics, Paul did not say as some claim, that all men ought to know God
exists if they just examine the facts and let those facts speak for themselves.
Such an assessment is based on a non-Christian view of reality, namely, that
brute facts actually exist and that autonomous human reason is capable of
interpreting those facts apart from God. According to Christian theism, all men
actually are in possession of true knowledge of God. They are not in possession
of enough evidence that they ought, from a neutral examination of that
evidence, to conclude that God probably exists. Instead, they know God exists.
They have the knowledge that God is there, in nature, in their conscience, all
around them.
The apostle Paul went on to say that all men
handle this knowledge of God in the very same fashion. They become futile in
their speculations. The Greek word translated futile is metaioō. Louw-Nida says it means to become useless and worthless. The
word that futile modifies is dialogismos,
which means to think or reason with thoroughness and completeness. The word
appears nineteen times in the LXX canon. It is most often translated from the
Hebrew word maḥăšābă. The basic idea of the word is the employment of the
mind in thinking activity. Reference is not so much to “understanding” (cf. bîn), but to the creating of new ideas.[2]
All men know God
but all men have become useless or worthless in their thought process. Paul
tells us that all men engage in the harmonious “suppression of the truth of God
in unrighteousness.” They’re “foolish hearts has been darkened.” It is
impossible to suppress something that you do not have. To suppress something
means to prevent someone from doing something by restraining or hindering it.
All men must be in actual possession of the truth in order to suppress it. And
according to Paul, they are actually in possession of true knowledge of God
while at the same time suppressing that knowledge.
The unbeliever
engages in the psychological phenomenon known as self-deception. James informs
us that men can paralogidzomai heatous,
delude themselves.[3]
John also mentions this phenomenon in 1 John 1:8 where he writes, “If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Clearly, self-deception is a concept
taught in Scripture even though professional psychologists and philosophers
disagree about its existence. The apostle Paul reveals that Satan has blinded
the mind of the unbelieving so that they might not see the gospel and repent.
(2 Cor. 4:4) He also informed us that unbelievers are governed by the futility
of their mind, darkened in their heart, and excluded from the life of God. He
informed us that the unbeliever is ignorant, stubborn, morally desensitized,
and given over to sensuality. Van Til writes, “The unbeliever is the man with
yellow glasses on his face. He sees himself and his world through these
glasses. He cannot remove them. His interpretation of himself and of every fact
in the universe relating to himself is, unavoidably, a false interpretation.[4]
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