God doesn't believe in atheists

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) Right off the bat, the existence of God is assumed in Scripture. It’s never explained, and no arguments are ever really made to seal the deal. God just is.

The Lord said in another famous place, “I am that I am.” (Exodus 3:14)

The Bible never argues the way we do when we try to convince skeptics. You’ve probably heard some of these arguments, like the Argument from Design, which says that the presence of observable design in nature points to a Designer.

Another one says this: Since everything we see is the effect of some previous cause, the only way to avoid a logically impossible, infinite regress is to believe in an uncaused First Cause.

There are at least two reasons why the Bible never bothers with these “proofs” of God’s existence. The first reason is that, honestly, they just don’t work very well. I’ve seen atheists get confronted with these rational arguments and laugh them off. And then, even if they do agree with one, their new willingness to believe that a god may exist somewhere is a far cry from Biblical faith, or belief in the one, true God.

Therefore, even when they work, which is rare, they don’t do what we’d like them to do.

The second reason no Scriptural time is wasted on them is found in Romans 1:19-21: “For what can be known about God is plain to them (all unbelievers), because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

What this means is that God has already revealed himself to everyone. They may not think he’s done so, at least not to their satisfaction, but he does think so.

The unbeliever’s problem is not that she’s received no evidence. If it was, then we could just give it to her. God’s already shown her, and the issue is that she hates what she’s been shown.

Here is a mistake we make all the time, and I think the Bible says we should stop making it. A man comes to us and claims to be an atheist. The popular, Christian apologist, Sye Ten Bruggencate asks, what do we do when this happens? Well, like dummies, we believe him.

We start trying to feed him evidence and clever arguments. God says he already knows.

In a court trial, whose job is it to judge the evidence and come to a verdict? We invite the unbeliever to sit as a judge over the truth of God when we keep producing evidence. The atheist has already rejected the very same evidence that God says is enough. In fact, it’s enough to leave the scoffer with no excuse.

There is one Judge, the Lord Jesus, and every unbeliever sits in the Defendant’s chair, not the jury box. If you’re interested in what this concept looks like in real encounters with atheists, please look up the video series titled, “How to Answer the Fool,” on YouTube.

Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at:

[email protected]