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Does God Believe in Atheists? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Happy Monday. In this new week, a week where we're
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  Speaker 1: reading Psalms thirteen to eighteen together and on the podcast,
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  Speaker 1: we're looking specifically at questions related to two of the
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  Speaker 1: most notable verses in that range, specifically verses found in
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  Speaker 1: Psalm fourteen and Psalm sixteen. We read Psalm fourteen together
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  Speaker 1: tomorrow and it opens up with a very famous line
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  Speaker 1: in Psalm fourteen, one famous line that has only one
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  Speaker 1: passing mention in our whole podcast archive. It's worth focusing
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  Speaker 1: on here for a whole episode. The question comes from
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  Speaker 1: a listener named Angie pastor John, I have a question
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  Speaker 1: for you about the most commonly cited Bible text about
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  Speaker 1: atheists in the Bible, Psalm fourteen to one, about the
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  Speaker 1: fool who says in his heart there is no God.
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  Speaker 1: As I understand it, this is not even close to
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  Speaker 1: the postmodern atheism of our day, which didn't exist In
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  Speaker 1: David's day. Everyone was religious and everyone had a God.
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  Speaker 1: Nor is this text about lacking intelligence. Monotheism isn't the
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  Speaker 1: result of a high IQ. Instead of been told that
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  Speaker 1: the fool here that naball is one who lacks morals,
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  Speaker 1: as in it's only possible the nurtur a life of
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  Speaker 1: sin if the living God gets pushed out of someone's
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  Speaker 1: life as irrelevant to actual life decisions. Practical atheism, I think,
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  Speaker 1: is what it has been called over the centuries. Is
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  Speaker 1: that what some fourteen one means to you? Or how
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  Speaker 1: do you take it? I guess another way to ask
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  Speaker 1: the question is this, does God believe in atheists?
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  Speaker 2: Let's quote the two most obvious places in the Psalms
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  Speaker 2: where so called atheism seems to be referred to, and
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  Speaker 2: then I'll quote what I think is the best New
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  Speaker 2: Testament illumination of those psalms, and then we'll try to
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  Speaker 2: relate this to our present situation. So I'm fourteen. So
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  Speaker 2: this is the one she refers to. The fool says
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  Speaker 2: in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt,
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  Speaker 2: they do abominable deeds. There is no who does good.
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  Speaker 2: The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
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  Speaker 2: to see if there are any who understand, who seek
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  Speaker 2: after God. That's some fourteen. Here's Psalm ten, verses three
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  Speaker 2: and four. For the wicked boasts of the desires of
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  Speaker 2: his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and
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  Speaker 2: renounces the Lord in the pride of his face. The
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  Speaker 2: wicked does not seek him, all his thoughts or all
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  Speaker 2: his plans. You could translate it are there is no God? Okay,
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  Speaker 2: those are the two clearest statements from the Psalms about
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  Speaker 2: this atheism. So Enngi is right that in these two
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  Speaker 2: contexts there is a strong emphasis on the practical implications
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  Speaker 2: of the claim that there's no God. And it may
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  Speaker 2: well be it may well be that the primary intention
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  Speaker 2: of the writer is to say that, practically speaking, the
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  Speaker 2: statement there is no God means I will act as
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  Speaker 2: if there's no God and do what I jolly will please.
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  Speaker 2: That's what Angie is calling practical atheism. But let's see
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  Speaker 2: what the apostle Paul has to say about human beings
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  Speaker 2: and their knowledge of God. Are there atheists? We could
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  Speaker 2: ask Paul. Here's Romans one eighteen to twenty three. For
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  Speaker 2: the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all
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  Speaker 2: ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness suppress
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  Speaker 2: the truth. That's a crucial statement. What truth do all
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  Speaker 2: human beings, apart from Christ and the Holy Spirit suppress?
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  Speaker 1: What is it?
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  Speaker 2: Verse nineteen four. What can be known about God is
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  Speaker 2: plain to them because God has shown it to them.
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  Speaker 2: I think the answer is what can be known about
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  Speaker 2: God is being suppressed by human beings Verse twenty. For
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  Speaker 2: his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature,
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  Speaker 2: have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the
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  Speaker 2: world in the things that have been made, so they
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  Speaker 2: are without excuse. So God has revealed himself in nature,
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  Speaker 2: and his eternal power and his divine nature are clearly perceived,
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  Speaker 2: he says by all. So the next verses, they knew God,
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  Speaker 2: all of them. For although they knew God, they did
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  Speaker 2: not honor him as God or give thanks to him.
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  Speaker 2: So Paul is maintaining this astonishing statement all human beings
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  Speaker 2: know God. That's remarkable. He may be thinking of texts
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  Speaker 2: like Psalm nineteen. The heavens declare the glory of God.
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  Speaker 2: The sky above proclaims his handy work, Like if you
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  Speaker 2: don't see God's handiwork and you only see stars, you're
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  Speaker 2: not saying right. Yes, day to day pours forth speech
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  Speaker 2: night to night. Knowledge. There's no speech, nor are their words.
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  Speaker 2: Whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out all
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  Speaker 2: over the earth, their words to the end of the world.
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  Speaker 2: In them, He has set a tent for the sun,
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  Speaker 2: which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and
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  Speaker 2: like a strong man, runs its course with joy. There
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  Speaker 2: are a lot of messages in the sunrise. Oh, my goodness,
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  Speaker 2: if we only had eyes to see, so Paul says,
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  Speaker 2: his eternal power, God's eternal power and divine nature have
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  Speaker 2: been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
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  Speaker 2: God is a poet, He's working sculpture, he's working poems.
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  Speaker 2: He's writing all over the universe. If we only had
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  Speaker 2: eyes to read what he's writing and saying, so says
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  Speaker 2: all men know God. But in verse eighteen he had said,
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  Speaker 2: because of unrighteousness that dwells in us, everybody suppresses the
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  Speaker 2: truth in one way or the other. So, in trying
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  Speaker 2: to understand Psalm fourteen one, the fool says in his
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  Speaker 2: heart there is no God. We have to ask, in
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  Speaker 2: what ways is the knowledge of God that everybody has
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  Speaker 2: being suppressed? Well, in what ways can it be suppressed?
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  Speaker 2: Let me suggest five different ways that the truth of
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  Speaker 2: God's existence as eternally powerful and having divine nature can
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  Speaker 2: be suppressed. Here are the names I would give to them. First,
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  Speaker 2: the non reality of the existence of God. That's one way,
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  Speaker 2: it just doesn't exist. Two the non effective existence of God.
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  Speaker 2: I'll explain these in just a minute. The non experiential
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  Speaker 2: existence of God. Fourth, the non worthy existence of God. Fifth,
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  Speaker 2: the heretical non existence of God. So here's what I
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  Speaker 2: mean by those five. The non reality existence of God
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  Speaker 2: is the claim that he is simply not a reality
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  Speaker 2: in the universe. He's just not there. The fancy word
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  Speaker 2: would be a metaphysical denial. He doesn't exist period. Second,
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  Speaker 2: the non effective existence of God means he's simply not active.
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  Speaker 2: Whatever existence he has, it's effectively nothing. He doesn't intervene,
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  Speaker 2: he doesn't act in the world whatever he is. Third,
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  Speaker 2: the non experiential existence of God means that whatever existence
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  Speaker 2: he has, it means nothing to me. To my experience,
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  Speaker 2: I have no interaction with him, and he has no
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  Speaker 2: bearing on my life the way I live. Fourth, the
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  Speaker 2: non worthy existence of God means that he may exist,
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  Speaker 2: but he's not the kind of being I want in
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  Speaker 2: my life. I have no admiration for him at all.
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  Speaker 2: He's unworthy of any attention of mine. I choose not
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  Speaker 2: to believe that he's good or wise, or even if
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  Speaker 2: he exists at all, doesn't make any difference to me.
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  Speaker 2: I don't like the God that I think might exist.
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  Speaker 2: That's fourth and the last one. Heretical non existence of
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  Speaker 2: God means, and that's nothing. The most common way of
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  Speaker 2: suppressing the truth believe in God with such false views
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  Speaker 2: of God that he's virtually not the true God. You
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  Speaker 2: may say you believe in God, but the God you
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  Speaker 2: believe in doesn't exist. That's the heretical non existence of God. Now,
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  Speaker 2: the point I'm trying to make is that there is
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  Speaker 2: more than one way to suppress the knowledge of God's existence.
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  Speaker 2: So when some fourteen one says, the fool says in
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  Speaker 2: his heart there is no God, I doubt that we
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  Speaker 2: should restrict the meaning to only one kind of denial.
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  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be as confident as Angie, for example, in
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  Speaker 2: saying that in David's day everyone had a God. Certainly
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  Speaker 2: that was the norm. She's right, I mean, everybody was
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  Speaker 2: more or less religious as far as we know. But Wow,
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  Speaker 2: given the deceitfulness of the human heart and the brazen
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  Speaker 2: pride that crops up again and again, it would not
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  Speaker 2: surprise me if there were people and groups of people
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  Speaker 2: in Israel and other nations that simply said it's just
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  Speaker 2: all one big machine and there are no deities at
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  Speaker 2: least I don't know. I just wouldn't be bold to
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  Speaker 2: say that nobody like that existed. The The relevance for
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  Speaker 2: us is first the realization that everyone we talk to,
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  Speaker 2: truly deep down, have an awareness of the creator and
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  Speaker 2: designer of the universe. That's amazing. Everybody you talk to
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  Speaker 2: on the street, at the office, at home, on the phone,
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  Speaker 2: everybody knows God. And we should pray and speak with
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  Speaker 2: the hope that this God that they know would tap
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  Speaker 2: into this awareness and cause people to take an interest
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  Speaker 2: in the biblical message of God in Christ. And the
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  Speaker 2: second relevance for us is that it is utterly foolish,
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  Speaker 2: and that means ultimately deadly to say there is no
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  Speaker 2: God in any of those five senses that I describe.
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  Speaker 2: It's deadly. Both David and Paul agree with as much
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  Speaker 2: evidence as God has given in the world of his existence,
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  Speaker 2: only a fool would deny it. David says it the
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  Speaker 2: fool says in his heart there's no God. And Paul,
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  Speaker 2: amazingly maybe even quoting I don't know, says in verse
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  Speaker 2: twenty two claiming to be wise, they became fools and
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  Speaker 2: exchanged the glory of the immortal God. We don't want
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  Speaker 2: to be fools, so we embrace God, and we embrace
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  Speaker 2: Him in Christ.
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  Speaker 1: Amen. Thank you Bestor John, and thanks for joining us today.
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  Speaker 1: If you have a question to ask Pastor John, find
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  Speaker 1: a link to email us and find our complete episode
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  Speaker 1: archivet Askpastor John dot com. Every episode with audio and
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  Speaker 1: full transcripts available to you. We're back next time and
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  Speaker 1: back into the Psalms, looking at John Piper's favorite verse
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  Speaker 1: in all the Psalms. One he's going to bring up
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  Speaker 1: and address when we look at the potent Pleasure that
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  Speaker 1: defeats lust. The potent pleasure that defeats lust. That's up
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  Speaker 1: on Thursday. We'll see you then,