“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God'” (Psalm 14:1).
The most foolish thing is to reject God from your decisions. The reality of God is the greatest truth we have ever encountered, and the most consequential. It would be foolish to dismiss this truth from our thinking, as if we expected it to go out of our way.
Some people ignore God by adopting the intellectual position that He does not exist. He thought deeply about this subject and came to the conclusion that there is no God. In their conduct, they may live as if there were a God and may even practice a certain spirituality, but at least philosophically their position is that a personal God does not exist.
If God exists, such denial is clearly unwise. But many of us ignore it in a way that is no less foolish. We do this when we simply go about our lives without taking God seriously. This is a more practical kind of atheism. We pay lip service to a God who may exist, but we believe that this God can be safely kept aside in the actual conduct of our day-to-day affairs. It has no real impact on our lives. This is the type of fool described in Psalm 14:1. He says “There is no God” not because of his questionable philosophy, but because of his disobedient lifestyle.
There is a sense in which this type of atheism is more egoistic than any other. For example, in Psalm 10, we are shown how pride This is to ignore God: “The wicked does not seek God because of his haughty face; God is not in any of his thoughts” (v.4). “He has said in his heart, ‘I will not be moved; I will never come into trouble’” (v.6). “He said in his heart, ‘God has forgotten; he hides his face; he will never see’” (v.11). “He said in his heart, ‘You will not have to give an account’” (v.13).
When we live this way, we despise God in the most despicable way. Unlike the atheist who believes there is no God to deal with, we believe we don’t actually have to deal with a God that exists. We think that, for all practical purposes, it can be ignored. But if God is our creator, our neglect only makes us look foolish. It does nothing to mitigate that.
“No man can diminish the glory of God by refusing to worship Him, any more than a madman can extinguish the sun by writing the words darkness on the walls of his cell” (CS Lewis).
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com AreYouaChristian.com
