Psalm 14 begins with the words: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” This company of people, whoever ‘they’ are, lives to themselves, considers themselves accountable only to themselves, and exalts themselves as cosmic experts. ‘They’ were evidently present and active in Bible times, and ‘they’ certainly are still present and active today.
Let’s consider this statement, “There is no God,” from two different angles. On the one side, what does this mean for the believer in “no god”? Then we will consider those who believe there is a God (but, who, according to this statement, are staking their lives on a fairy tale).
If there is no God, then the naturalists are correct. Everything that exists inexplicably arose from a cosmic event that occurred in the far distant past, with no clear cause. This ‘accident’ gave rise to a great many more ‘accidents,’ a very few of which allowed other accidents to take place. As we proceed in our imaginations from the cosmos to the earth, we find that this planet was formed ‘accidentally,’ and that it ‘accidentally’ is suited to support life. Further through time, the erupting of life on earth is one of the greatest ‘accidents’ of all.
We are all then, ‘accidents,’ you and I, and the significance of our being here is, well, meaningless. What you think, or believe, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t really matter that you showed up, and it won’t matter when you are gone. Of course, no one actually thinks or lives this way, because we simply cannot live with the statement, “There is no God.”
For believers in God, if this statement is true, we are wasting our time and energies and resources on things that do not matter. Our prayers are a fiction, as is our Bible, and our hopes, and our message. Now if there is any consolation (and, there is little), since everything in this universe is a waste anyway, …
But then we must come back to the verse that begins Psalm 14 and remember who ‘they’ is: “The fool has said in his heart …”
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