Psalm 14:1-7 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good.… A belief in God as a self-existent, intelligent, and infinitely perfect Being is the basis of all religion. In what manner and through what means do we come by this conviction? Some have maintained the idea of God to be innate. Others assert the Divine existence to be an intuition — an immediate perception of the reason, independently of any suggestion, argument, or evidence. By others it has been attempted to establish it by the rigid steps of mathematical demonstration. Kant, and those who follow him, insist that the moral nature of man — his conscience and sense of moral obligation — affords conclusive proof of the being and moral government of God. We believe the true statement of the matter to be this: That the human mind is constitutionally fitted to know God, so that the notion of Him and a persuasion of His existence necessarily arise within the soul whenever the faculties are in any good degree developed; and that in its own moral consciousness and in the great variety of facts and phenomena external to itself it finds, on reflection, proofs that He does exist, proofs of a moral nature, yet sufficient to establish the fact as an absolute certainty, in the view of the understanding. 1. It is a well-known fact that the idea of God and of spiritual existence is, and always has been, nearly or quite universal among mankind. 2. A belief in the existence of a God has always been found exceedingly difficult to be eradicated. 3. The more thoughtful, and especially the more virtuous, men are, the more, as a general rule, they are disposed to cherish the idea of a Supreme Being. 4. The atheistical idea, when fully and distinctly placed before the mind, is abhorrent to the moral feelings of the soul. 5. A belief in the existence of one supreme and perfect God is in a high degree elevating and happy in the influence which it exerts on the mind and heart of man, while the views of atheism have tended only to demoralisation and debasement. There is a God; it is only the fool who denies it in his heart. (R. Palmer, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.} The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. |
    |