Stephen Charnock: "There is a threefold denial of God, 1. Quoad Existentiam; this is absolute atheism. 2. Quoad Providentiam, or His inspection into, or care of things of the world, bounding Him in the heavens. 3. Quoad Naturam, in regard of one or other of the perfections due His nature.
Clay Miller: This is pretty cut and dried but worth restating. There are three ways to deny God's existence.
1. Deny He exists at all (Quoad Existentiam).
2. Deny that he knows about, cares about, has authority over this world (Quoad
Providentiam.
3. Deny something about Him, like His sovereignty, omniscience, wrath, love, etc...
(Quoad Naturam)
The first one I think everyone understands. This is the person who refuses to listen to his own reasoning that tells him there is something more, that he is no accident, and that there is a Creator. No matter what you tell this person, he or she does not care. They do not want there to be a God so they will not let their minds consider it, at least not publicly.
The second is more challenging. This is the kind of thinking that says there might be a God but if there is He is not holding me accountable for anything I do, no, he probably does not even know what I do. He certainly is not ruling over the world. And He will not judge me. But it also is the kind of thinking that says, sure there is a God, Yes He hates sin, but I am going to sin anyway, because when the rubber hits the road, I really do not think He will hold me accountable or really punish me. A lot of times this is the result of the third type of atheism...
The third type denies something about God for convenience of ease of mind. Some people deny God has wrath. In doing this they are not believing in something essential about God's character. They may deny His sovereignty. I see this when people say God had nothing to do with some calamity that happened, or that He could do nothing about it, also denying His omnipotence. Some want to limit His sovereignty for the sake of giving man just a little of his own in salvation, not realizing that this leap into philosophy is denying God's actual being as He truly is.
The scary and and relieving thing is, we all can mess up on #2 and #3 with our actions even as Christians. It may not be a deliberate denial, or apathetic denial, but when we choose to sin, at that moment we are acting as an atheist, as if God did not see what we did, or did not care. Or perhaps in those moments we know He sees, and cares, but we choose to think of His grace and presume upon His grace, and ignore His Fatherhood with its discipline. There are many ways to go with this. It is worth thinking about. It worth adding to your arsenal in your fight against sin. More Later...
