Rom 1:18-21 says:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who by their injustice suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made. So they are without excuse, for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless hearts were darkened.
Engage in discussion and debate with Evangelical apologists long enough, and Romans 1 is sure to come up. The moment an atheist or other unbeliever denies the Evangelical God’s existence, Evangelicals will quote Romans 1, saying that unbelievers KNOW the truth because God has revealed it to them, so they are without excuse.
According to Evangelical apologists, God revealed himself to all of us several ways:
- Creation
- Conscience: the law of God written on our “hearts”
- Divine revelation:the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God
The thinking goes is that all any of us need to do is look at the wonders of creation and conclude, “God did it.” Fine, I always say. Which God? Why do apologists assume the creator God is their deity? I have yet to have an Evangelical connect the dots between the God of creation and the triune God of the Christian Bible.
All of us have a conscience, but there’s a lot we don’t know about it. Evangelicals, on the other hand, are convinced that their deity has written his law on the conscience/heart/mind of every human being. This is how mortals determine right from wrong, Evangelicals say. However, left unanswered is the question, “What law?” The Ten (or nine) Commandments? The law of Moses? Where is this “law” so we can know exactly what God expects of us.
Evangelicals will confidently state that God supernaturally gave us the Bible so we can know exactly what it is he requires of us. The Bible is the divine blueprint for life, teaching believers everything they need to know about life and godliness. If this is so, why are so many Evangelicals stupid as a brick, showing that they know very little about what the Bible says? You would think Christians would make studying, knowing, and understanding the Bible the most important priority of their lives. But, they don’t. Why is that?
As an atheist, I am not suppressing anything. I am willing to embrace truth wherever it is found. If Christian apologists can provide compelling evidence for the existence of their God, I’m listening. Whether I would convert remains to be seen, but I would, at the very least, give their evidence a hearing. Unfortunately, I remain unconvinced. I haven’t heard an Evangelical apologist give a compelling argument for the existence of God and the veracity of Christianity in years. Same old arguments over, and over, and over again. Setting aside esoteric philosophical arguments for which I have zero interest, Evangelical apologists use a handful of arguments to justify their beliefs. Some of these defenses of Christianity are “interesting,” but none of them close the deal — at least for me, anyway.
Maybe Evangelicals should ask themselves whether they are the ones suppressing the truth; that conditioning and indoctrination keep them from hearing any other arguments but their own.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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