No excuse for not knowing God

Romans 1:19-20 (NLT)

They know the truth about God because He has made it obvious to them.  For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

 

Paul is harshly criticizing people who suppress the truth of God in an unrighteous manner by their unrighteous lives.  The wrath of God is against these people because they know better.  Why?  Because of what he then writes in these two verses.  No one can use the excuse that he/she did not know that God exists, no matter where they live in the world.  If people choose to act unrighteously, it is because of their rebellion against a known God, not because of a lack of knowledge that there is a God.      

What are God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and His divine nature?  How can people see these invisible qualities?  My family and I vacation one in a while in Breckenridge, CO.  How can anyone be at the top of a mountain overlooking a panoramic view and not believe that there is a God?  Haven’t you ever felt close to God through nature?  Mountaintop views, walking through the woods, observing the ocean and breathing its spray and many other experiences of nature all reveal who God is.

These verses relate to what is written in Psalm 19:1-6. C.S Lewis called this Psalm “the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world”[1].  God’s creation shows His glory and unless you are blind, you have no excuse not to see His glory and believe who He is through His revealed Word.

Albert Einstein was not a Christian believer, and yet as he looked at the wonders of the universe, he knew that there must be a God. When asked by an interviewer if he was an atheist, he replied, no, and explained his answer in this way.

“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”[2]

Albert Einstein understood the eternal power and divine nature of God from what had been made. Why? Because the creation, and especially the heavens, reveal knowledge of God to man.”

When you die and you did not believe in God, you will stand before Him, but you will not have a valid excuse.  He will not accept a statement like, “But God I did not know You existed”.  Take time today and periodically throughout the rest of your life and reflect on God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature.  You won’t see God, but you will see His glorious attributes and character through His creation.

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[1] Reflections on the Psalms, Harcourt, Brace, and World, New York, 1958, p. 63

[2] First published as What Life Means to Einstein, Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929.  Quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe; New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007, p. 386.