After a greeting and introduction, the apostle Paul opens the book of Romans with a powerful condemnation of humans. Though talking first about the gospel, and the power of God to save, Paul then goes into a sharp depiction of the apostasy and evil of humanity. What makes this evil so bad is that, according to Paul, people should have known better—and that is because they could have known who God was and what he asked of them.
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
Without excuse?
Wow! In other words, God has revealed enough of Himself through the creation that those who reject Him and fall into evil will, in the day of judgment, be “without excuse.”
Not something that you want to be without, is it?
And about all these people today, the self-proclaimed atheists, those who openly reject the existence of God, and who claim to have found scientific evidence, proof, that he doesn’t exist. Victor Stenger wrote a book called, God, the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows God does not Exist. That’s kind of an interesting thesis, especially because many scientists would argue that questions about God’s existence are really not scientific questions at all.
Be that as it may, in light of what Paul wrote in Romans, Stenger and other self-proclaimed atheists—though they would utterly and passionately and vehemently deny it—must be fighting conviction.
And what a struggle it must, be, too.
