The Spirit of Unbelief
Unbelief is a choice that men make. It does not present itself as a choice, however; it shows itself as a necessity, an inevitability, the only way that is truly honest and objective. That is a lie, but those who are deceived by this spirit perceive it not for what it truly is—a grim imposition foisted on the human heart by the father of all deception.
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.” (Psalm 53:1) You will notice that the statement of unbelief, “There is no God,” is stated in the heart. Someone has stated that the fool says this in his heart without the full consent of his mind, for if it be difficult to prove by human reasoning that there is a God, it is utterly impossible to prove that there is not. So the statement of unbelief is said in the heart. Those who choose the path of unbelief choose to have faith in unbelief. It becomes their religion to doubt and be skeptical. They choose to believe in unbelief.
Most people make this choice without a full and impartial investigation of the facts. Quite often they are persuaded to put their faith in a religion of no faith before they are old enough to even began to make anything like a fair investigation. Besides, they are surrounded by the prophets and theologians of unbelief. For in the perilous times in which we live, our world is awash in unbelief. It is an age of unbelief, i.e., an age of paganism revived. This attitude of misplaced faith is everywhere, both in brazen, confrontational form and in subtle, commonly-assumed guise.
We have before us a recent copy of U.S. News and World Reports, the July 3, 2000 issue. In an article entitled, “The next big thing is small,” the author outlines the development of nano technology. Nano technology is the manipulation of microscopic things to change the nature and structure of things that are visible. “Nanoparticles also help make car and floor waxes that are harder and more durable and eyeglasses that are less likely to scratch. As these examples show, one huge advantage of nanotech is its ability to create materials with novel properties not found in nature or obtainable through conventional chemistry” (pp. 32). So far, this is a news items of actual and verifiable developments. But then, on the same page, we have this: “The next stage in the development of nanotechnology borrows a page from nature. Building a supercomputer no bigger than a speck of dust might seem an impossible task, until one realizes that evolution solved such problems more than a billion years ago. Living cells contain all sorts of nanoscale motors made of proteins that perform myraid mechanical and chemical functions, from muscle contraction to photosynthesis. In some instances, such motors may be re-engineered, or imitated, to produce products and processes useful to humans” (emphasis added).
Now this statement regarding evolution is a religious statement, an article of faith with a large portion of the scientific community. It has become an article of faith with a large number of the well-educated portion of the population, as well. It is a statement of faith—no one was there billions of years ago, and no one can verify such a thing. It is a theory, full of large and serious questions and doubtful assumptions, which does not deserve the faith that is placed in it. A great deal of wishful thinking is involved. The “evidence” does not prove the theory. Many of its most blatant conclusions are hidden in a mysterious vocabulary and jargon which are difficult for the uninitiated to perceive.
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20-21) This religion, falsely called science, is a misrepresentation. It has its high priests, its devotees, and it demands its sacrifices. It propagates its myths and legends. The scriptures characterize it as profane (characterized by irreverence or contempt for God or sacred things) and vain babblings.
The religion of science-falsely-so-called does not own up to this characterization, of course. They demand respect, presenting their activities as unbiased, objective, and compelling. They are not nearly as objective as they like to believe about themselves. Especially do they resist anything that would bring them to conclude that there is anything beyond the physical realities. Their creed teaches them to be distrustful of anything spiritual. That the world was created by God from nothing at all is anathema to them.
A small number of scientists, despised and persecuted by the others, have examined the same evidence and reached entirely different conclusions. They have not received the same spirit of unbelief that so greatly influences the majority. They are not prejudiced in the same manner. So they are regarded as heretical, as betrayers of the creed.
The religion of science-falsely-so-called contains such fantastic, even ridiculous, stretches of faith. In all fairness, it could be truly said that it takes more faith to believe certain accounts of so-called science than to believe the Word of God.
To an evolutionist, time solves all problems. But the man who puts his faith in this false creed does not stop to consider that what evolves must first be involved. That is, within the simplest and most basic form of life must be contained the most advanced qualities, somehow. The mental ability of Einstein must be in the original, primitive cell, somehow, if I reject creationism. This is fantastic faith (though false), a faith in luck, in chance, augmented by an incredible imagination of time.
If ten million monkeys, all banging on ten million typewriters for ten million years were to somehow produce the Gettysburg Address that Abraham Lincoln spoke, then maybe the evolutionists might have a point, but it is preposterous! How fantastical is the faith of the adherents of this false religion!
But this is typical of the spirit of unbelief. At the bottom of this path that men take is the ignoring of uncongenial truth. “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” (Romans 1:21) Being unwilling to give God the glory and partaking of the spirit of ingratitude. That is, not wanting to acknowledge our place in the grand scheme of things that God created, thus being unwilling to humble ourselves and unappreciative of God’s goodness, we open ourselves to the spirit of unbelief. It produces vanity in the imagination and darkens the foolish heart. The poor fool who walks this path says in his heart, “there is no God,” (Hebrews 1:28) not because he can prove it or even come close to proving it, but because he wants it to be that way!
Keen was the search, and various, and wide,
For happiness. Take one example more,
So strange, that common fools looked on amazed;
And wise and sober men together drew,
And trembling stood; and angels in the heavens
Grew pale, and talked of vengeance as at hand;
The sceptic’s route, the unbeliever’s, who,
Despising reason, revelation, God,
And kicking ’gainst the pricks of conscience, rushed
Deliriously upon the bossy shield
Of the Omnipotent; and in his heart
Purposed to deify the idol chance;
And laboured hard, oh, labour worse than naught!—
And toiled with dark and crooked reasoning,
To make the fair and lovely earth, which dwelt
In sight of Heaven, a cold and fatherless,
Forsaken thing, that wandered on, forlorn,
Un-destined, un-compassioned, un-upheld;
A vapour eddying in the whirl of chance,
And soon to vanish everlastingly.
He travailed sorely, and made many a tack,
His sails oft shifting, to arrive—dread thought!—
Arrive at utter nothingness; and have
Being no more, no feeling, memory,
No lingering consciousness that e’er he was.
Guilt’s midnight wish! last, most abhorred thought!
Most desperate effort of extremest sin!
Others, preoccupied, ne’er saw true Hope:
He, seeing, aimed to stab her to the heart,
And with infernal chemistry to wring
The last sweet drop from sorrow’s cup of gall;
To quench the only ray that cheered the earth,
And leave mankind in night which had no star.
Others the streams of Pleasure troubled; he
Toiled much to dry her very fountain head.
Unpardonable man! sold under sin!
He was the devil’s pioneer, who cut
The fences down of Virtue, sapped her walls,
And opened a smooth and easy way to death.
Traitor to all existence, to all life!
Soulsuicide! determined foe of being!
Intended murderer of God, Most High!
Strange road, most strange! to seek for happiness!
Hell’s madhouses are full of such, too fierce,
Too furiously insane, and desperate,
To rage unbound ‘mong evil spirits damned.
—selected from The Course of Time, by Robert Pollock
Suspended in thought far above,
The godless longings of the unbelieving heart,
The flimsy structure of human imagining,
Endlessly constructed and reconstructed,
Ever learning, yet never able
To find knowledge of the truth.
And in time of shaking severe
With failing hearts of sudden fear,
And cries of rending despair,
Portions of this Babel tower
Fall and fall and fall
Forever—into perdition.
Swallowing forever
Into eternity’s endless night,
The baseless hopes, the empty dreams
Of carnal humanity’s godless longings,
Down, down forever,
Into—O horror!—
The Bottomless Pit.
Crafted in evil deception,
By Satan’s malice preserved,
Without foundation,
On a mirage of human pride
And vain puffery,
With genius of
Desperate wickedness
And grasping hope.
Above this depthless void,
Unfathomable pit,
Abyss yawning,
The sins of men go climbing.
Seduced by human wisdom,
Intractability,
And the lofty eye,
Resting all on a spider web
Of hypocrite’s hope,
Men lay their future
Upon Naught!
Lo, reason calleth in the streets,
In solemn tones of warning.
Forsake your blindness, willfully wrought.
Before truth, humble and acknowledge.
Build your lives on foundation sound—
Revealed, settled—with heaven’s sealing.