Excellent! Thank you. There is someone in my life who is struggling with this, who falls into the beaten and abused category. This article makes sense.

In what way does anything you just said prove God does not exist?

Robert:

Huh?

Robert, he wasn’t giving the argument that God exists, he is merely pointing out that what Paul had said here was that it can be proven with reason that a God exists. Paul wasn’t making the argument God exists or proving Christ was God, he was scolding pagans for worshiping creatures when THEY KNEW, from the use of their reason, that their was a true God.

Mr. Shea, can you tackle the actual argument on God’s existance next, please?

“If my reader’s friend has trouble with those arguments, the solution is not to complain about one’s feelings, but to refute the argument.”

Of course this is true. My guess is that the online skeptic has not been skeptical very long, and still has conflicting feelings about losing his faith. After all, most of us associate all kinds of powerful childhood emotions with religious belief—terror of hell, relief after going to confession, peace after praying to someone bigger than us about a seemingly insoluble problem, resentment (maybe even hatred) due to treatment meted out by some sick individual who is unluckily in a religious position of authority. Fear of hell was traditionally instilled in children before they have reached the age of reason. It is difficult for reason to eradicate that kind of fear. One can rationally conclude that there is probably no God, but that’s not going to help with the fear and anxiety inherited from the child. Those feelings just have to fade. It doesn’t help, of course, that neither the existence or non-existence of God can conclusively be proven. I wouldn’t be surprised if the skeptic was angry at being saddled with the fear after reason has taken away the antidote offered to offset the fear.

I know that nowadays parents and religion teachers soft-pedal the concept of hell with children, appealing instead to childrens’ natural need to feel loved and cared for. What you will never find is a believer who does not press his or her beliefs on the child before the age of reason, and who waits to present St. Thomas’s arguments for the existence of God on their merits to the intellectually mature youth. They do not trust reason unboosted by emotion to make religion’s case conclusively.

An interesting thing about St. Paul’s assertions is that they are not directed at skeptics or atheists. They are directed at people who worship lots of little gods, each representing some particular aspect of nature. It was obvious to Paul that a god that claimed no universal power was inferior to one that claimed to be THE GOD, Master of the Universe. Naturally he scorned the feeble types content to worship a sub-god.

Paul is explicitly referring to those who suppress the truth in wickedness. So, unless all atheists suppress the truth in wickedness, Paul’s argument isn’t relevant to all atheists. But, who knows what Paul considered to be a good argument for God’s existence. Further, even if we were privy to what Paul thought was good reason to believe in God, given all the advances we’ve had since Paul in things like metaphysics and logic, I’m not sure atheists should lose any sleep.

God has many attributes.  When people discuss the existence of God, for the most part they are speaking of a Creator God.  But one can be aware of some of God’s attributes without knowing them all.  If you believe in justice, mercy, love and sharing, then you believe in much of what God is. Are you then an atheist because the Creator God is not being acknowledged?

I suspect Paul would reckon “atheists” for what they are: another species of pagan who worship the exceedingly small god that is the three pound piece of meat behind their eyes.  There is no such thing as a human being who does not worship something.  The choice is between worshipping the Creator or some creature.  We are not capable of not worshipping anything, any more than we are capable of inventing a new primary color.  People who imagine they have no god, are just people of extremely limited self-awareness.  When you stop worshiping God, you don’t worship nothing.  You worship anything.

This guy is OFFENDED by Romans 1:20?  I am OFFENDED by his OFFENCE. And I am sure that he will be OFFENDED that I am OFFENDED. Which means we are both OFFENDED and it’s a wash.  “Me thinks thou art offended to much” !!

Hi Mark,
This is yet another example of the problem with “apostolic authority”. Why is it that Moses, the prophets, and God’s own word in the flesh, whose words we have in scripture and the gospels, isn’t our focus? Does Paul claim his rhetorical arguments in Romans, were given verbatim by God and not Paul?
As other comments have pointed out Romans was written to those living in a god filled culture, where even the emperor’s past had temples erected to their honor as gods. Without a good knowledge of scripture(Moses & the prophets), and some idea of the doctrines & traditions held in the culture of the Gentiles, Paul’s words can be used to “invent” so many different denominations, among those without a good grounding in scripture, as is evident today. What is most apparent to me, is how this emperor worship, and apostolic authority have become one with the RCC. Even among the Evangelicals, Paul’s words have reached a point of authority that some have deemed “The old testament is the old covenant, it’s all done away with”, a complete rejection of what Jesus, and Paul, himself referred to as scripture.
When we say we read the Bible everyday, do we mean we reread a few “inspirational” verses? the same ones to the exclusion of all others, over and over? Only the ones that support the “doctrines and traditions of men” we adhere to?
When you stop worshiping God, you don’t worship nothing.  You worship anything…Well said Mark

The true atheist has the impossible problem of proving the negative against what the vast majority readily perceives is clear from observation and reason. But atheism isn’t the problem for your online skeptic. Back in the eighties I attended a “Death of God” series given at the University of Rochester. Their most challenging point involved the extent and degree of evil allowed by our “Good God”, their contention being that any good god should have and could have done “it” (human creation & interaction) in some other way (perhaps making us less vulnerable to one another in the harm we can impose).
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Today is me birthday and I’m fortunate to bear the Confirmation name, Joseph; Thank you, dear St. Joseph for all your help!  So, I must go for now but will peek later and in coming days to see what your readers might offer about how God could have done it differently while keeping His choice to be a “hidden” God and also having His Son ask Jesus’s perhaps most intriguing question—“When the Son of Man comes, will he find FAITH?” And, it seems, there is this human, logical question: ‘can God create reason-endowed, free-will agents competing for earth’s “desirables” yet who *feel* uncontrollably constrained from fighting to the death and from delivering lesser though still serious harm to another human competitor*?
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Facing our shared current threats these days I must get back to what we Catholics can do to spare our children & grands a second-term President Obama which, however, could yet be God’s disciplining of America. Look at how He allowed his Chosen people to be dispersed, for example. We have less than eight months to spare our loved ones from *avoidable* tyranny. Although truly great Cardinal Dolan is actively on the problem with prayer & sacrifice requests, refined Church language, legal & legislative pursuits and is urging lay participation, will he be willing to ALSO describe it “like it is” at the gut-level:
President Obama is treating Christians as if we are merely Lower Animals without consciences! There is no way Mr. Obama and all his staff can get around that and so we need to demand his reply constantly throughout his campaign already underway.
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A bonus for the “Lower Animals” approach is that contracepting Catholics can join the open, vocal resistance without fear of having to explain their disobedience to Church teaching. Further, during these crucial ~ 8 months to E-Day, lay Catholics will have opportunity, together with all our American Catholic bishops, to react positively to what Pope Benedict XVI is seeking: Bishops more clearly explaining why artificial contraception is against God’s will, their explaining how Natural Family Planning (NFP) shows God’s *Planning and Goodness*—and lay Catholics beginning to return to fuller fidelity to God’s Church as means to a much better future for American society.
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Remember, NFP, properly used, works *statistically* well enough to be adequate concerning, say, over-population worries governments often have. At the same time, statistical variations in body processes CAN mean occasional unexpected pregnancy for some individual couples; God then expects the couple to accept that and not abort.  Pope Paul VI who wrote Humanae Vitae was mocked and ridiculed for stating “each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life.”  Some critics, correctly observing that periodically the woman’s cycle itself is naturally 100 % CLOSED to life-formation, confidently assigned FALSE to Paul VI’s statement—thinking they had the pope in a logic-inconsistency trap before the entire World! However, they simply failed to observe that popes logically address people (here, the couple engaging in the acts) and not their mindless body-systems. Respect for God’s laws are reflected in the soul and *spiritual posture* a person takes toward God’s laws!

Might I suggest “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Spirit”  by Henry Edward Manning Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. (1808–1892).

The book is available as a pdf download at
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL14024733M/Temporal_mission_of_the_Holy_Ghost_or_Reason_revelation

Here is a link to the Cardinal Manning Society.
http://cardinalmanning.wordpress.com/

Manning said (p26-27)

The Church teaches that faith is an infused grace which elevates and perfects the reason ; but as rationalists allege that faith detracts from the perfection of reason, my object will be to show :
1. That to believe in revelation is the highest act of the human reason.
2. That to believe in revelation, whole and perfect, is the perfection of the reason.
3. That to submit to the voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church is the absolute condition to attain a
perfect knowledge of revelation.
4. That the Divine witness of the Holy Spirit in the Church anticipates the criticism of the human
reason, and refuses to be subject to it.

(p31et seq.) 
...4. Fourthly, Christianity, in its perfection and its purity, unmutilated, and full in its orb and circumference, is Catholicism. All other forms of Christianity are fragmentary. The revelation given first by Jesus Christ, and finally expanded to its perfect outline by the illumination of the day of Pentecost, was spread throughout the world. It took, possession of all nations, as the dayspring takes possession of the face of the earth, rising and expanding steadily and irresistibly. So the knowledge of God and of His Christ filled the world. And the words of the prophet were fulfilled, ’ The idols shall be utterly destroyed not with the axe and the hammer only, but by a mightier weapon. ’ [Is 2:18]  Are not my words as a fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces [Jer 23:29] Idolatry was swept from the face of the world by the inundation of the light of the knowledge of the true God. ’ The earth shall be filled, that men may know the glory of the Lord, as waters covering the sea.’ [Hab 2:14]  The unity and universality of Christianity, and of the Church in which it was divinely incorporated, and of Christendom, which the Church has created, exclude and convict as new, fragmentary, and false, all forms of Christianity which are separate and local. Now these four truths, as I take leave to call them first, that it is a violation of reason not to believe in the existence of God ; secondly, that it is a violation of our moral sense not to believe that God has made
Himself known to man ; thirdly, that the revelation He has given is Christianity; and, fourthly, that
Christianity is Catholicism these four constitute a proof the certainty of which exceeds that of any other moral truth I know. It is not a chain of probabilities depending the one upon the other, but each one morally certain in itself. ..
This wisdom of God has its base upon nature, which is the work of God, and its apex in the Incarnation, which is the manifestation of God. The order of nature is pervaded with primary truths which are known to the natural reason, and are axioms in the intelligence of mankind. Such, I affirm, without fear of Atheists, or Secularists,or Positivists, are the existence of God, His moral
perfections, the moral nature of man, the dictates of conscience, the freedom of the will. On these descended other truths from the Father of Lights as He saw fit to reveal them in measure and in season, according to the successions of time ordained in the Divine purpose.

If anyone is offended with any part of scripture, remind them that “all scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, rebuking, etc”. You/we did not write or sanction the Bible - we just live and quote it. If anyone is offended, it means the Spirit of God in them is being stirred into flame - they may deny that the Spirit of God lives in them too, but that’s their problem because God’s spirit won’t go away. I pray that they believe God, live for God and no longer be offended by the truth.

A suggestion to y’all:
At the link below one can find ‘additions’ to Ro 1:20, as in “... is inexcusable, for instance ...”
http://www.watchtower.org/e/archives/index.htm#science

On that page you’ll find links to topics like
•Awesome Universe—Where Did It Come From?, The
•Earth—Just Right for Us, The
•Why I Believe the Bible—A Nuclear Scientist Tells His Story
•Life—A Product of Design
and, of course,
•Is There a Creator?

Now, you’ve noticed that these are *[gasp!]* Jehovah’s Witness pages. However, the science is excellently researched from atheist-acceptable sources and the bible stuff is also accurate. So, any Catholics wishing to reply to “I used to be a Christian” and his kind can put on noseglasses, visit the site, and copy/paste the parts that don’t mention Jehovah onto a presentation.
Beware, though, we enforce copyright laws, so make suitable alterations as your RCC-trained conscience requires. :-)

Dear Mark,
Since you asked for thoughts, I offer them: thank you for asking and I hope they can help in any positive way.
Roman 1.20 is true. A good look at history can poin that out to demonstratively. Ontologically, it is also true. God can be known through creatures in itself and to others period (Aquinas) However, it is also true that although the capacity remains to know (i), the fist point remains too, creation (ii) and third, God himself remains (Eternal). But the conditions of God is not the issue although he is the beginning of both things and the one knowing. So the issue remains with the person and/or the creatures (irrational ones) so let’s look at the fact that person itself can have a hard time because of any spiritual and intellectual simplicity and abstraction. Things themselves can’t be blamed…they are capable of directing us to God, but there is a middle way: both when the human being falls victim to its own creations, like artifacts, which are imitations of nature, those God made…the layer is increased. See how many people no longer know what is nature…all they know is abstract knowledge of nature…they do not take time and space to be around nature as much as previous generations and other countries todays still can do that. Mostly every artifact made by men is electronic…more abstract from nature and although not wholly far from it, God becomes a less real and true cause of all things, hence distractions or disruptions of nature must first be overcomed and from there conclude safely that God exist. Artifacts too can lead us to know God, but the argument of the existence of an artist or ‘creator’ of the artifact must first be established. Aristotle and Aquinas should also help in logical thinking so as too also avoid fallacies and equivocations of what is meant be “God”, “Proofs” and “existence”, etc. Roman 1.20 remains valid today all along. No excuse, because all the evidence is in front and all around us and all of that can be inside of us! (Aristotle and STH).

Can’t remember if it was Chesterton or Lewis, but one of them said:

“There are two kinds of people in this world.  Those who say to God “Thy will be done” and those to whom God says “Fine. Have it your way.”

Posted by Mark Shea on Monday, Mar 19, 2012 1:24 PM (EST):
“We are not capable of not worshipping anything, any more than we are capable of inventing a new primary color.  People who imagine they have no god, are just people of extremely limited self-awareness.  When you stop worshiping God, you don’t worship nothing.  You worship anything.”

If “worship” is taken to mean “displaying uncritical reverence towards” I know that this is not true of every skeptic and atheist. It is true that atheists and skeptics, just like Christians, have values and that they prefer some experiences to others. That doesn’t mean that they don’t think critically about their values and pleasures. No doubt skeptics and atheists have the same difficulties as believers in balancing their values and their pursuit of pleasure. No doubt skeptics and atheists fool themselves as readily as believers about how well they are doing at achieving balanced lives. But atheists and skeptics have no corner on hypocrisy and failure to live up to their values. I know that all Christians are fully aware that many who call themselves “Christian” do not really put the God they claim to believe in at the center of their lives, and they are supremely unaware of their true object of worship.

what does romans 1:20 have to do with christianity? Obviously this guy is confused and probably mis quoted scripture.

@ mk: Lewis, “The Great Divorce”: “There are two kinds of people; those who say to God ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says ‘THY will be done!’”

We Christians are just as capable of worshiping things they shouldn’t without thinking as any atheist. I think both you (I don’t know, obviously) and I would be shocked If we knew how often we erected our own false gods, but the point was that we never worship nothing.