What is atheism?

Infidelity is a term of wide range; its professors are subdivided into many schools, from the man who pretends to believe the Bible but denies its plenary inspiration, down to the depths of the fool who in his heart says "No God." It is essentially negative but with a varying phase, due to the manners of the people and the age of the country where it appears. Atheism denies the being of God. Some question whether any have really arrived at that stage of unbelief. Yet in just retribution a man who has for years openly asserted "No God" may be given up to believe his own lie. The Pantheist imagines God to be in every thing, a sort of essence diffused through all creation, and everything a part of God. That is, he denies the personality of God. Some deny providential arrangement and government, their favorite theme and word is "nature." To such moral evil is an impossibility; and "physical," as applied to evil, a misnomer. For that to which the expression is given is (as they say) nature's means for arriving at perfection. The deist recognises the existence and in a measure the government of God, both which he pretends to know by the light of reason alone. He wilfully ignores the condition and the results of reason when man had no Revelation from God; he derides the thought that his reason is indebted to the light of the Bible for its emancipation from the many gods of Paganism. Like the fabled Prometheus he has stolen heavenly fire and employed it against the Book whence he had it. For him the Bible, however much he may admire its precepts, has no more authority than the Koran or the mythologies of paganism. To him sin is not the effect of enmity against God, but errors of judgment or perhaps the mistakes of nature. It is for him to account for the present condition of man and the earth he inhabits; for if he deny sin as that which brought death into the world, the god of his imagination cannot be the God who is Love, the God of the Bible.

But this case of human reprobation is stated now in detail. Verses 18-23. The wrath of God is directed against all human ungodliness and unrighteousness, and that on the ground of their holding the truth in unrighteousness. The high thoughts of men, bent on their own pleasure, set themselves against the truth of God. Ignorance is not the primary cause of human opposition to God. It is the instinctive force of evil desire, which leads man to gratify the nearer and more importunate lusts of the flesh and of the mind, independently of God. But to act independently of God is practically to deny Him. Atheism is involved, in principle, in the very first departure of the creature from the position of simple dependence upon God. It is the assertion of an independent will, and thus the exercise, as it were, of an independent life. But man is God's creature — his life is God's breath. Hence, to live without God — in defiance, or even in forgetfulness of God — is virtually Atheism. It is the heart-Atheism of the fool, who says in his heart, "There is no God" (Ps. 14; 53).

The Greek is ἄθεος, lit. 'without God,' and so translated in Eph. 2:12. It is used as a description of Gentiles as such by nature, and true of all the heathen world in their ignorance of God: not, as the term is now used, namely, one who wilfully refuses to acknowledge God's existence.

105 Psalm 53, as we know, convicts of entire sinfulness those who have the best advantages. But the secret of this course is old too, and on that a few words. AU the path of the wicked comes from this. For him God is not. Faith does not exist, and God is not seen. This is the secret of all error in practice and in human reasoning. The more we examine the whole course of human action, the faults of us Christians, the various wanderings of philosophy, the more we shall find that no God is at the root of all. Here it is the case that the conscience takes no notice of God. The heart has no desire after Him, and the will works as if there were none. Man says so in his heart. Why should he say it? Because his conscience tells him there is one. His will would not have one; and, as God is not seen in His working, will sees only what it will. God is set aside, and the whole conduct is under the will's influence, as if no God existed. He takes pains to prove there is not if he thinks, because he cannot get on if there is; but he lifts himself up, and, deceiving himself, comes in practical condition to will there should be none - and not to think, but to act as if he thought, and that in purpose as well as act, as if there were none. In a certain sense, he even thinks so; for, being entirely occupied with present things, and blind through his alienation from God, his moral feelings dead, judging from present things, he can draw conclusions, not believe that there is one, and, living in his own thoughts thus formed, live in the thought there is none - says so in his heart. If conscience awakes, he knows well there is; but he lives in his will and the thoughts of his will, and for him there is no God.

But it is wonderful how habitually human reasoning goes on as if this were so. Man cannot look at all that is around him without feeling the mass of evil there is. If he does not accept the fall and salvation, what can he think when there are no immediate present interventions, as in Israel? Men leave God out, and account for all as if there were none. Men will not put all on the ground of truth. If not, they cannot bring God in it at all, and account for all without doing so. And this is called philosophy, and it leads on necessarily to the power of evil, for evil there is, and consequently the power of evil; and if God be not brought in, the power of evil must have the upper hand, for who is to hinder it having so? God does, till His time is come - the time when no more good is to be done by waiting. Evil then comes to a head, which is embodied in this psalm; and the result is, the judgment spoken of at the end. But the principles of the world are such at all times. Whenever I act as if God was not (that is, without reference to His will), I so far say in my heart, "There is no God."

The word again condemns false confidence as to the intentions of our own hearts. The heart of man afar from God thinks to direct his own steps, and decides what he will do, without thinking of the will of God, or even of God at all. Possibly the thing intended may not be evil, it may not wound conscience, nor make it uneasy; but God is entirely forgotten; the man acts without God, as though the earth had been left to man, and God had withdrawn, and as though His will counted for nothing. Such a man, as far as regards religion, in the practical things of everyday life, lives in atheism. God is not in his thoughts; money and worldly ambition govern his heart, though he may not be exactly living in sinful pleasures. He has no sense that he belongs to God - bought, if he be a Christian, with the precious blood of Christ. He lays out his plans according to his own will, his own wisdom, and his worldly interests. God has no place in them, he is without God in the world, he seeks earthly things, and truly it is not in them that God is to be found. It is according to the will of God that we should labour to obtain what is necessary, and His blessing can be sought because it is His will. But this is not the question here. James speaks of one who would dispose of his time, and go and seek gain for himself without thinking of God, or looking to Him for guidance and the manifestation of His will. He does not know what the morrow will bring forth; he does not know whether his life will be prolonged until the next day; it is as a vapour which vanishes away. Such is life down here. It becomes us to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that."

It will be assumed that we all believe that there is a Supreme Being, whom we call God, that He made us and that we belong to and are responsible to Him. Atheists are few and far between, even if there are in truth any real atheists.

With the utmost deliberation God forms man, directly and immediately, from the dust of the ground, and, by the direct and personal impartation of His breath, endows man with a rational and imperishable soul. Adam is thus formed in the image of God. True, of all living creatures upon the face of the earth, Adam and Eve were the last formed. This terrestrial creation, of which Adam was to be the head and lord, was first prepared for him, and then, by a distinct and superior creative act, Adam was placed at the head of it. In the face of this plain yet noble statement of divine revelation, what are we to think of the disgusting and atheistic theory of Evolution? That in other ages of the world men have so utterly given up God, and become so debased in their minds and thoughts, as to propound and believe all kinds of irrational theories, is indeed true; what is so extraordinary and so startling is, that in the light of Christianity, and side by side with the Bible, such atheistic theories can exist and find acceptance. It is infidelity as to the Bible, and as to every truth the Bible contains. In a certain sense and to a certain degree men may persuade themselves to anything; yet we doubt if a man can ever succeed in altogether eliminating from his mind and conscience the conviction that there is a God. We doubt if there is such a being as a genuine atheist. We doubt, too, the possibility of really believing in annihilation. There is that within us all which tells us that the rational soul cannot die, and that to God it is accountable. And why, the gospel being what it is, should men wish it to be otherwise? "Come, for all things are now ready," is the gracious invitation to us all. It is infatuation, and worse than infatuation, to refuse it. It is to reject Divine mercy, and to retain a responsibility which renders men liable to eternal punishment. Throughout the whole of Scripture we can trace, as it were, two parallel threads, which are never separated, yet never confused. These are righteousness and grace, represented in the Garden of Eden by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (responsibility), and by the tree of life (grace). In Christ alone these have been perfectly reconciled, so that God's love and mercy can now have free course. Out of Christ they are irreconcilable, and judgment consequently ensues.

This last circumstance leads us to another important remark: that, while superstition hides the true God, and wholly falsifies our notions of Him, this connection in the mind of the superstitious object of reverence with the idea of the true God attaches the authority of His name and supreme power to the object of our superstition, and sanctions, by that authority, all the moral degradation involved in our connection with it; save in so far as natural conscience revolts, and tells a truer tale of God than the superstition. But then alas! the tendency of this last is to exalt man above what he has made religion, and to produce infidelity and even atheism, if atheism were possible to man's mind, which I do not believe. But it tends at least to make men reason as atheists against the superstition which revolts their conscience, and which they know is contrary to what even conscience would know of God. Human will is always atheistical, for it is not subject to God's will, and will seek to reason against the existence of what it does not like; but God has a testimony in conscience, which, after all, the will can never get over. Where men have reduced what bears the name of God below the standard of natural conscience and feeling, the mind will use this, if it dare, to throw off the authority of the God it dislikes.

The wish that there should be no God—none to exercise full authority over us, or restrain our wills, or condemn our sins, or call us into judgment; none, in short, to whom we should be thus responsible—is latent in every human bosom. Sin has produced that wish; and how easy to advance from the idea to the belief, from the wish to the word, “No God”! Yet, after all, he who should thus speak is called a “fool”; for can there be folly more self-evident than the rejection of God? Could you conceive the unfallen creature making such a denial? Impossible! It is reserved for fallen man to do so. Then, how awfully blinding must sin be!

The knowledge of good and evil, which man acquired in the fall, has so constituted him that judgment is the only action of God’s power which he understands; naturally enough, he resists it, and blasphemes God, because his conscience tells him that he must be the object of His righteous vengeance; so that to calm his conscience he tries to persuade himself that he is not wicked, and he hides himself from God, like Adam, and in his folly seizes with avidity the smallest pretext for denying His existence. “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” (Psalms 14; 53.)