My friend Dave, who down through the years, often comments on many of my posts once shared a statement that really made me think. He once said: “There are no unbelievers, only suppressors.”
I used to be an atheist, or so I thought I was, but I now realize, thanks to God opening my blind eyes, that I never really was one. What I was in reality was a suppressor of the truth. I used to believe in Darwinian evolution, but if you asked me why, I really had no good arguments to support this belief. I basically caved in to the peer pressure of those I hung out with at college who also believed in evolution. And as far as reading the Bible, I thought that only weak-minded individuals or people looking for a crutch read this old book of myths and fables. Yet while I was quick to trash the Bible, I had never even read a single page myself!
I think that the late apologist Ron Carlson made a very astute observation on why there are really no atheists when he said: “It is philosophically impossible to be an atheist, since to be an atheist you must have infinite knowledge in order to know absolutely that there is no God. But to have infinite knowledge, you would have to be God yourself. It’s hard to be God yourself and an atheist at the same time!”1
And Scripture gives us the most telling observation on why people reject the idea of God when it says: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20)
Not only does Romans clearly say that all unbelievers suppress the truth about God because of their wickedness, as we read from above, but as a result they are “without excuse.” In other words all unbelievers in God, because of their love of sin, willfully suppress the clear evidence, from our amazingly complex and beautiful universe, that God exists. For to admit that there is an all-powerful Creator, that one must one day give an account to for a lifetime of sin, is something that sadly, many choose to suppress, rather than acknowledge.
In the final analysis sin is what separates us from having a personal relationship with God in the present and according to Scripture for all eternity to those who choose to suppress the truth about the God of the Bible – Jesus Christ. God’s wrath, according to Romans 1, will be poured out on all those unrepentant sinners who willfully close their eyes to the clear truths that are revealed about God through the natural world all around them. In addition, God will make known the supernatural divine revelation about Jesus Christ, that is revealed from the Bible, to all those who truly humble themselves and seek after truth!