Israel Today

Word from Jerusalem
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Everyone Believes in Something
The opposite of a fool is one who has understanding, who seeks after God and believes in his heart that God exists. This means that both the fool and the wise man are believers. The atheist believes that he can prove that there is no God.

However, he cannot do so because everything that has been created must have come from somewhere or someone. So even an atheist can only believe that there is no God. However, since we as humans, created beings, cannot be explained away, the man with understanding realizes that there must be a God, no matter how God Himself came into being. On the other hand, the ignorant man who denies the existence of God denies not only the Creator but also the creation, including himself—and all this because his mind has no explanation for creation. Thus, even for him there is no other choice but to believe that there is no God.

This means that his atheism is based on some sort of faith in the same way as those who believe in God have faith. Because the beliefs of the atheist are also based on faith that there is no God, he would only need to have revelation in order to believe in the existence of God. As an atheist he must constantly defend himself against the facts of creation and that would prevent him from coming to the joy of faith in God.

In Hebrews 11:1 the statement, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” applies also to the atheist, who justi es his unbelief by saying that he cannot see God. e one who believes in God cannot see Him either, but his faith is rewarded and he is saved. For the atheist, on the other hand, not seeing God becomes a disaster and leads to his downfall.

Even the devil believes and trembles before God (James 2:19). Thus we see that we are all believers, even the atheist. It simply depends on whether we believe in God or not and whether we live out our lives with a faith that pleases God or not. For faith without works is dead (James 2:17).