Because, knowing God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but fell into folly in their thoughts, and their heart without understanding was darkened
Paul has just argued that creation leaves people without excuse. He now goes further: men once knew God and let that knowledge slip, so how did a race that knew God end up worshipping images?
The charge is not that people failed to work out God from evidence. A real knowledge of God, passed down from the past, is in view here. Idolatry only shows up later in the story.
The ground here is not what could be known but what was actually known… A knowledge of God handed down from the past is in question. This knowledge of God belonged to man even after the flood; in fact, not until after that great event do we hear of idolatry. But man was not equal to the task of guarding what God had entrusted to him, and this was because of his moral state. When they did know God, they did not glorify Him as God, and they were not thankful. That left room for empty reasonings, which darkened the heart instead of leading it into light. It was the self-sufficiency, and so the folly, of the creature. Light is only seen in God's light, and man must sink into darkness when he is not lifted up morally by looking to One above him.
This knowledge leaves a person guilty; it does not save. One writer draws the line: it is "not the conscious, living knowledge that comes only from new birth, but the clear evidential knowledge that makes their guilt inexcusable" (L. M. Grant).
Popular accounts of religion move upward — from crude superstition toward one God. The verse reverses that direction.
Those peoples who are pagan today once knew God. Man's course has not been from many gods to one God, as some dreamers would have us imagine, but the other way round. They have sunk out of light into the darkness. Once "they knew God" (v. 21), but the fact is, "they did not see fit to acknowledge God" (v. 28).
Not giving thanks sounds like a small charge beside idolatry. One writer treats it as the point where men lost the light.
It is a great favour to the creature to be given a little light about the blessed God. That is what lifts man above the level of the beast. And how thankful the creature should be for that light! Where a man values the light, he thanks God for it. Where he gives God no thanks, it is a sure sign that he despises the light, and he will soon lose it.
The darkening is not a mood or a misfortune. In Scripture it names one specific loss, and it grows alongside a rising opinion of one's own cleverness.
They did not glorify God in His works, and they did not thank Him for His mercies in this life. So they lost the knowledge of God they had. They refused the witness of Creation and fell back, as men are doing today, on their own imaginations. In this way their foolish heart was darkened — that is, they lost the knowledge of God. In Scripture, moral darkness is always ignorance of God, just as light is the knowledge of God. The more foolish they became, the more they claimed to be wise; and the more they claimed to be wise, the bigger fools they became.
That rules out the excuse that people never had a chance. Men made this darkness; they did not inherit it.
For instance, people often speak of pagan peoples as groping after the light and unable to find it. They treat it as their misfortune, not their sin, because circumstances too hard for them hold them down. Now that is not so… That was the beginning of paganism. This is man, not seeking God, but trying to escape from God — and he has escaped, so to speak, into the darkness. The darkness is the darkness of resisted light, not the absence of light.
This pattern is not locked in ancient history. One writer traces the same line in a soul that stops giving thanks.
The apostle gives it as a special mark of the corruption of the nations that "although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him." Then comes the practical result of this unthankful spirit… The heart that stops keeping a thankful sense of God's goodness will soon become "dark."… This is the line a soul out of fellowship with God will travel. It first loses the sense of being in God's hands for good, and in the end begins to think itself in His hands for evil.
- Known. Their guilt rests on a knowledge of God that men once had and failed to keep. It was evidence they could see, not the knowledge that comes by new birth.
- Unthanked. A man who values the light thanks God for it. A man who gives no thanks despises it, and will soon lose it.
- Darkened. A darkened heart has lost the knowledge of God. This darkness is resisted light: man running from God, not groping for Him.
- Downward. The history of religion runs the opposite way to the popular story. Man did not climb from many gods to one God; he sank out of light into darkness.
- Today. The same slope runs under any heart that stops giving thanks. It first loses the sense of being in God's hands for good, then imagines itself in His hands for evil.
professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Romans 1 does not say that people never knew God. It says they turned away from Him while praising their own cleverness — and this short verse is where their claim meets the verdict.
One writer traces the spiral. What they lost was a knowledge of God they once had.
They did not glorify God in His works. They did not thank God for the good things He gave them in this life. So they lost the knowledge of God they once had. They refused the witness of creation and fell back on their own imaginations, as men are doing today. So their foolish heart grew dark — that is, they lost the knowledge of God. In Scripture, moral darkness is always ignorance of God, just as light is the knowledge of God. The more foolish they became, the more they claimed to be wise. And the more they claimed to be wise, the bigger fools they became.
The very reasoning that darkened them was the thing they held up as insight. That is what makes the profession itself part of the evidence against them.
The inward reasonings of their minds, because bent on following their own wills, dragged them into folly; and their hearts, wilfully without understanding, were coloured by the darkness they chose. What is more, the very reasonings that led them into that darkness they claimed as wisdom! — a claim which all the more thoroughly declared them fools. This was their development — or evolution, if you will — "they became fools."
One writer names the motive behind it all.
The root cause of their fall was that they did not want to give God the glory that was His due, because they wanted to pose as wise themselves — as we see in verses 21 and 22. In short, pride was the root, and God has allowed them to make fools of themselves.
These people did not lack evidence. They had a knowledge of God handed down to them, and they failed to keep it:
A traditional knowledge of God is in question… the outward knowledge of God spoken of here still belonged to man after the flood. In fact we do not hear of idolatry until after that great event. But man was not equal to the task of keeping this holy trust, and the reason lay in his moral state. When they did know God, they neither glorified Him as such, nor were they thankful. That left room for empty reasonings, which then darkened the heart instead of leading it into light. It was the self-sufficiency, and so the folly, of the creature. Light is only seen in God's light. Unless a man looks up to One above him and is lifted, he must sink into darkness.
Read as history, the verse points the opposite way from the usual story of human progress.
They knew God and did not glorify Him. They turned away from the light. Here is the true law of evolution. It is not an evolution upward, as so many teach today, but an evolution downward. The ascent of man is a delusion; the descent of man is the truth. Man has fallen so low, yes, below the beast. The only thing that can lift him is the gospel of Jesus Christ… The next step down is that they claimed to be wise and became fools. They rejected the light and turned away from God. So they became philosophers and tried to find things out by searching.
The fall came step by step, under God's own government:
Their descent has been gradual. First came empty thinking. Then came darkened understanding and gross idolatry. Then came outrageous sins, in which they fell below the level of the beasts. Each generation went beyond the follies of those before them, and so approved for themselves the turning away that had gone before. All this happened under the government of God… If men object to thinking of God and give Him up, they have no ground of complaint when He gives them up. There is an ironic justice about God's government.
One writer applies the verse to his own day, and to any age that sets human intellect against God.
The intellect of our own day leads many astray who claim to be wise. It is only one of the many forms of human perverseness that set themselves up against God. It may be more refined, but its opposition is no less determined than in those who attack God's declared will because He has not written it across the sky… So philosophical explanations of Christianity have arisen. They are all only attempts of man to reach the mysterious doctrine of the cross by human reasoning. That doctrine is either never reached, or, if it is seen, it stays what it has always been — "foolishness."
- Cause — pride. Men wanted the credit of wisdom and refused God the glory He was owed. That refusal, not a lack of evidence, is the root of the fall.
- Effect — darkness. Cut off from God's light, their reasoning gave them no light. Left to itself, the creature can only sink.
- Claim — self-flattery. The claim to wisdom is not the cure for folly. It is part of it. The emptier they grew, the wiser they claimed to be.
- Direction — downward. The verse charts a descent, not a rise. Each generation outdid the follies of the last, and God gave up the men who first gave Him up.
- Remedy — the gospel. Man has fallen too far to reason his way back up. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ lifts him.