Why Atheism Is Foolish (Part Two) Psalm 14:1-3

"The fool has said in his heart, 'there is no God'. They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." Psalm 14:1-3

In my last post I explained why atheism is foolish. It is a negative belief system that has killed far more people in history than all religious zealots combined. It is also a belief system that cannot be proven any more than a religious one. An atheist cannot say with certainty, "There is no God". That is a statement of faith. He cannot prove God doesn't exist any more than a Christian can prove that He does. The best that an atheist can accurately say is "I don't think or believe there is a God", and that is agnosticism.

In this post I want to further explain why atheism is foolish, and it has to do with the issue of being "good".

Atheists today are working very hard to prove that they are "good" people. Even though history shouts against this, and logically, atheism leads to moral relativism and all kinds of bad behavior, atheists nevertheless claim that they are "good" people.

Now the first problem with this argument is that God says "there is no one who does good, not even one." But, of course, to accept this as true one has to accept that there is a God, and that the Bible is His inerrant Word. So, even though I believe that this is true simply because the Creator God has said it, let's look at this issue rationally, logically and practically.

Do people who are atheists do "good"? I would say 'yes' from a human perspective. I have no doubt that atheists at times do very good things by human standards. Some are wonderful parents. Some are very nice neighbors. Some are honest business people, just to give a few examples. However, why are they "good"? I would say that it has nothing whatsoever to do with being an atheist. Atheism as a system does not logically lead to goodness. Rather, some atheists do good because they were raised according to Judeo-Christian ethics and they continue to live by them even though those ethics are contrary to the tenets of atheism. Some atheists do good out of self-interest. They treat others well because they want to be treated well. Other atheists do good because of the legal and practical consequences of not doing good. They are afraid of getting caught. Still other atheists are proud. They do good to prove that they are just as good, if not better than all the religious folks. Whether it is social conditioning, self-interest, fear or pride, all the goodness done by atheists, and everyone else for that matter, is ultimately not because people are intrinsically good, but because of other much less noble reasons that are not to our credit. That is why God has said, "there is no one who does good." From His perspective, people are not intrinsically good. We are all selfish, sinful and proud! Not just atheists, all of us! That is why Christ had to come and die; to pay for what we have all done wrong in the eyes of a holy God. Christians are not any better or any more deserving of God's love and forgiveness than atheists. It's all grace. The difference is that Christians realize we are not "good" and so we have put our trust in the only person who was ever truly, completely good...the Lord Jesus Christ!

Why Atheism Is Foolish (Part 1) Psalm 14:1

"The fool has said in his heart, 'there is no God".

I don't think about or address atheism very much. Why? Over 90% of Americans, and probably about that same percentage of people around the world believe there is a God. Atheism is not much of a threat to Christianity. Never has been, and never will be. Historically, wherever atheism has been the official "religion", like China or Russia for instance, eventually Christianity makes a comeback and is stronger and more vibrant than before. Atheism as a system of belief has several problems. First of all, it is basically a negation of a positive, life-giving concept. People will embrace a negative for a time. But after a while, they want something positive to stand for, not just something to be against. Atheists have tried to build a positive case for their perspective. But ultimately, it is still a negative, and the positive contributions of atheism are illusionary. The negatives, on the other hand, are huge and a matter of historic record.

Sometimes I hear that tired, old, mistaken canard that more people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause. The truth is a lot of people have killed others in the name of religion, even Christianity. I admit that, and it is a terrible shame. But I am happy to say that when people kill innocent people in the name of Jesus, they are going against His book and His explicit teachings (see Matthew 5:21,22,38,39, 43,44). However, when people kill in the name of atheism, it fits perfectly with a totally godless system. Afterall, if there is no God, there are no moral absolutes, and logically, anything is acceptable, including murder, especially mass murder.

Stalin, one of the most consistent atheists who ever lived, said that "if one person is killed it is a tragedy. If a million people are killed, it is a statistic." He alone killed millions more people than were ever killed by those claiming religion, and that's not even counting Mao Tse-tung and Pot Pol. A lot of people like to call Hitler a "Christian" but as someone who has literally read thousands of pages about him, I can tell you with great certainty, he was at best an occultist. He was not in any way a Christian. He did in fact put many fine Christians to death.

The truth is that atheism has killed many more people than all religions combined. It's not even close. That's the natural, logical outcome of atheism. This is one of the biggest problems that atheism has, but it is not the biggest. The biggest is that atheism which proclaims itself so rational, so intelligent, so logical, actually is foolish. As Psalm 14:1 points out, the person who says "there is no God" is a fool. Why? Because as someone so accurately pointed out to me years ago, atheism cannot be proven with any degree of certainty. When a person says "there is no God", how does he or she know that? In order to state that with certainty one would have to know everything. Really, this is a statement of faith. Unless someone knows everything and has been everywhere in the universe, one cannot say with certainty, "there is no God". Therefore, logically, rationally, intelligently, the best one can say is "I don't think or believe there is a God." One can be an agnostic. But no mere mortal knows enough to say, "there is no God". That is foolishness.

Can an atheist understand spiritual truth? - I Corinthians 2:14

Sometimes I hear Christians say in passing that someone who does not know Christ as Savior cannot understand the Bible. This is both true and false.

It is true in the sense that there are certain spiritual truths that must be taught by the Holy Spirit. This is indicated in I Corinthians 2:12-13 which says,

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual with spiritual."

So, there are certain spiritual truths that require the Spirit to help us understand. This happens when the Holy Spirit enables us to comprehend a difficult spiritual concept by comparing two spiritual truths. The word "combining" here in I Corinthians 2:13 means to "compare".

This occurs in my life when I am studying Scripture and the Spirit brings other Scripture passages to my mind that I have also studied, and He helps me through this process to understand what I am reading and comprehend a new (to me) spiritual truth.

Clearly, the "natural man" (v 14) cannot understand these spiritual truths because he or she does not have the Spirit living within. But that does not mean that unregenerate people cannot comprehend many spiritual truths. I am regularly amazed at atheists, agnostics and other professed unbelievers who can clearly articulate the gospel, the doctrine of election, the deity and humanity of Christ and a host of other biblical doctrines. Sometimes their understanding of these things exceeds that of many Christians I know. The point of I Corinthians 2:14 is not that unregenerate people cannot comprehend and clearly explain many spiritual truths. The point is that they cannot "accept" them. Without the help of the Holy Spirit even though they can intellectually comprehend the truth they cannot accept those things as being true. They cannot embrace the truth and make it their own.

I know many unbelievers who can tell you exactly what the "plan of salvation" is, but they have not by their own admission put their trust in Christ. Do they know the Gospel? Yes, but they cannot accept it as truth because this requires the help of the Holy Spirit. Until the Holy Spirit removes the "veil...over their heart" (II Corinthians 3:15-16), they cannot and will not personally accept the gospel of Jesus Christ as truth.

I have heard so many people say through tears that they wish they could believe the Bible. They wish they could believe the Gospel. They wish they could believe in God. There is a sense that they long to be at peace, spiritually-speaking. They long to have certainty about the big questions of life. I believe they really, truly, want to accept what God has said. But without the work of the Spirit, they cannot. That is why prayer is so important in communicating spiritual truth. It is not enough for us to clearly explain the truth, though that is very important (see Colossians 4:3-4). We have to pray for those who hear the truth to respond to it through the help of God's Spirit. We have to ask God to do what only He can do. Conversion is not just a matter of persuasion or understanding, it requires a supernatural act of God. Let us pray like we never have before!