Ever wonder why people don’t believe in God? Perhaps you have difficulty conceiving how it could be possible for someone to be an atheist. You find the evidence overpowering. God speaks! – night unto night utters speech (Ps. 19:1-4). During the French revolution they were destroying church buildings and all reminders of God. A simple peasant said to Robespiere’s men, “Will you blot out the stars too?”
God has not only spoken through the creation of the universe, he has spoken to us through the prophets of old and through Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:1,2). Why doesn’t the message get through? We may blame the transmitter, but honesty and wisdom insist that we look at the receiver. If I can’t get anything on my radio, is it my radio or is the station down? We can be distracted and preoccupied with other messages. Why doesn’t God just come down and deal with the question of His existence once and for all! Philip wanted such a demonstration (John 14:8) as did Moses (Ex. 33:18). There are a number of reasons why he can’t – or rather won’t ( His glory is overpowering Ex.33:20 – He will come one day with devastating results – 2 Thess. 2:8). Besides, the challenges that face man in the pursuit of truth in every field are alike in that only by diligent pursuit is the truth found. It seems that while truth is hidden to some degree, it can be found and when it is found it can be understood. Someone once said “It is the nature of life to drown out the voice of God”.
First there is the cacophony of suffering. God appears silent when life itself seems to contradict the idea of a good God. In straining to hear His voice we don’t hear God but a world filled with the cries of suffering – so loud is the cry “Where is God?!” that man can’t hear God. This is perhaps the most common objection to the existence of God with atheists, and the most perplexing dilemma for believers – it is where faith and reality clash. The tragedy is many reject God when He is the only hope in suffering. In the preface to The Problem of Pain we read the only purpose of the book is to solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering; for the far higher task of teaching fortitude and patience I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all. (C.S.Lewis) Sometimes God can seem like a mirage. Hurt and confusion can drive us toward God but as we head toward Him he seems to vanish and we wonder how we could ever have been so foolish as to think the illusion reality (Job 23:1-8: cf. vs, 10,11).
Then there is the party music of prosperity. If suffering at one end of the scale drowns out God so can the other end. “Give me neither poverty or riches” said Agur (Prov. 30:8,9). Poverty is not a virtue. Suffering may at least have prompted us to ask and listen to see if there is a God – not much in the pure pursuit of God but in looking for relief because there was nowhere else to look. Suffering may at least get us to check our hearing, but prosperity? – it can be more alluring than either suffering or poverty. One of the ironies of life is that the blessings of God in abundance can be a two-edged sword – that which we want and that which God gives as blessing carries with it a trap. It seems everything of this temporal world has to be held lightly and thankfully or else we fall into a trap and the blessing becomes a curse (Deut. 6:10-12; 8:7-20). Introducing God is like being out playing with your mates when a child and the call comes out for you to return home and feed the dog or whatever – not a welcome interruption. “I didn’t hear you Mum!” It is hard for a rich man to enter Heaven but often the poor are rich in faith (Job 21:7-15)
Another factor is the static of opinion. Look at the dial of your radio and you see there are a lot of stations broadcasting on a whole range of frequencies. It’s not far between each one on a powerful receiver. God appears to be silent when so many claim to speak for Him – confusion is the result and so people ask “Where is God?” The hiss and crackle of human ideas mask the divine signal. For example, one has only to consider the problem of denominationalism and the multitude of religions. But static resides around the true signal – just off the exact frequency. (I remember as a lad listening to static on the radio thinking it was from an aeroplane’s engines but after hours I never did hear any sort of communication between aircraft and tower!) . Atheistic evolutionists often try to use an argument, if it can be called an ‘argument’, to suggest that creationism is a radical idea believed only by the ignorant and lunatic fringe – a decided minority, they insist, amongst ‘educated’ people. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Atheism is a decided minority amongst religions and philosophies of the world and always has been. But I guess they then claim to be the elite.
The first big division of humanity is into the majority who believe in some kind of god or gods and the minority who do not. On this point Christianity lines up with the majority – lines up with the ancient Greeks and Romans, Stoics, Platonists, Hindus, Moslems etc. against the Western materialist. The next big division is between those who do believe:- it has to do with the sort of God they believe in. There is the Pantheistic idea that God and the universe is one and the ideas of “good” and “evil” are purely human, whilst the other idea is that God is separate and distinct from the creation, that He takes sides, hating evil and loving good. Then the division is between whether God has chosen to reveal Himself or simply left man here. Deists are the latter, but the majority view is that God has chosen to speak to man, one way or another, one form or another. Of this group it can be broken down into the Bible versus a range of lesser-known books. Of those who believe the Bible is the Word of God there is a denominationalised approach to what God has actually said in the Bible. It’s much like rotating the dial on a radio to find the right frequency – and we do that don’t we? Why should we think it strange that we have to turn to a particular ‘frequency’ to hear God?
We have to also mention the channel-switching of disinterest. If husbands want to drive their wives crazy all they need is a remote! We love to have a flip! – especially when ads come on or the program is boring. We all have a remote-ability in our mind (which is a good thing – eg. repentance) but it also means that if God is on Channel One we can flip to channels 2, 3, 4 etc. There is so much media that we have endless choices, so much choice in fact that we can keep ourselves engrossed without God. The reason an atheist cannot find God is the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman. We must choose to stay with the thought of God and His revelation to man (the Bible) to come to a rational conclusion. The reason a Christian has no thirst for God is because his heart is elsewhere – other things consume his interest – earthly things, worldly things.
Finally we must mention the deafness of human limitation. It’s possible to have ears but not be able to hear (this speaks of attitude – the use of moral and rational capacities; physical deafness does not limit belief as is evidenced by congregations of deaf people). Many believe that talking of God is all too difficult – but if we are in the image of God then we are human with a touch of divinity and God is divine with a touch of humanity – we do have the ability to relate (Acts 17:27). The ‘natural’ man just cannot attune to God (1 Cor. 2:14 – this is self-imposed though (1 Cor. 3:1ff) for even a child can readily and easily understand God. We cannot perceive all we crave to know because it is the finite wanting to know the infinite. But we can know ENOUGH about God:- I can’t comprehend omnipotence in its entirety, but I do know what it means; I can’t comprehend omnipresence totally, but I do grasp what it signifies: I can’t get my head around omniscience, but I get what it says about God. I remember a Garfield cartoon where his master asks him “Ever wonder about life, Garfield? where we came from…where we’re going…? Garfield chimes in “why it takes two hours to deliver a pizza!”
I have asked many people those questions over the years and it is amazing how many responded saying they don’t think about such things. I wonder how true is that for they are obviously capable. Those who say they do think about such questions nearly always say they do not have the answers. Why? You can spend a lifetime asking questions without ever really wanting answers, and is this to convince oneself one is a serious searcher of truth? Jesus said we can know the truth (John 8:32) and if we seek we shall find (Matt.7:7).
