“The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good” (Psalm 14:1).
Stephen Charnock: “4. This universal consent is not prejudiced by some few dissenters. History doth not reckon twenty professed atheists in all ages in the compass of the whole world: and we have not the name of any one absolute atheist upon record in Scripture; yet it is questioned, whether any of them, noted in history with that infamous name, were downright deniers of the existence of God, but rather because they disparaged the deities commonly worshipped by the nations where they lived, as being of a clearer reason to discern that those qualities, vulgarly attributed to their gods, as lust and luxury, wantonness and quarrels, were unworthy of the nature of a god. But suppose they were really what they are termed to be, what are they to the multitude of men that have sprung out of the loins of Adam? not so much as one grain of ashes is to all that were ever turned into that form by any fires in your chimneys. And many more were not sufficient to weigh down the contrary consent of the whole world, and bear down an universal impression…”
Clay Miller: At first, when I read this, I did not quite understand what Charnock meant that not 20 professed atheists in all ages are reckoned in the whole world. But truly, in his time, there was very little evidence of any true atheism. And what there were, like today, were men who were disenchanted with the religion they saw because they felt that the deity that existed was not at all what that religion presented. Even today “atheists” who argue with me try to use the Bible against God. They don’t like the idea of “that kind of deity”, i.e. a deity that is not palatable to their sinful conception of what God should be like…if there were a God of course. They have a knack for trying to force a moral standard on the God of the Bible as if morality actually existed in a world of evolutionary origins. They hold God to a standard outside of Himself, as if they are God’s judges. They try to define what is evil and good, which contradicts their whole worldview of relativism with no absolute morality. The truth is, I have never met a consistent atheist. I have never met a consistent relativist. I have never read of one either.
"Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God" (John 8:47).
