Psalm 14:1-7 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good.… The denial of the existence of God may be either theoretical or practical. It is theoretical when we affirm that no such being as God exists. It is practical when, professing to believe that He exists, we act in all respects as though we believed that He does not exist. Theoretical folly may manifest itself in two forms, either in that of absurd credulity, or of absurd incredulity. 1. It is an evidence of absurd credulity to believe an assertion, respecting any subject whatever, when no evidence is brought forward to sustain it, and when, from the nature of the case, the evidence, if it did exist, is beyond the reach of the human understanding. Anyone who reflects upon the fewness and feebleness of the faculties of man, and then upon the boundlessness of the universe, must be convinced that the assertion that God does not exist involves within itself all the elements of the most revolting absurdity. 2. Atheism is equally absurd in its unbelief. It disbelieves a proposition of which the evidence is interwoven with the very structure of the human understanding. (1) The idea of power, of cause and effect, is the universal and spontaneous suggestion of the human intelligence. It springs tip unbidden and irrepressible from the first perception of a change. (2) The mind not only asks for a cause, but for a sufficient cause. (3) If we arrive at the notion of underived causation, may not several independent causes originate the changes which are taking place around us? Everything that we behold is manifestly a part of one universal whole. The cause of causes is everywhere one and the same. (4) When we reflect upon human conduct we find that we always connect the outward act with the spiritual disposition, or intention, from which it proceeds. In every action we perceive the quality of right or virtue, or of its opposite, wrong or wee. As the characteristics are universally the same there must be a single and universal standard. We see the perpetual acting of the Almighty and learn the moral attributes that compose His character. (F. Wayland.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.} The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. |
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