BY MARCUS MOK
Could God hold people responsible for something they didn't know is wrong?
What if someone said, "Sorry God, but I never knew You existed in the first place!" Can our ignorance count as a defense when God judges us at the last day?
I believe the answer to that question is a no and yes. No, because God being a righteous Judge will judge rightly; he will not condemn the innocent. Yes, because no person is truly and absolutely ignorant of God. No one is truly innocent.
Here's what Romans 1:18-20 says:
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,
so that men are without excuse."
Men are without excuse! Now that says a lot about our pretense of "ignorance". What may be known about God is supposed to be plain to us. The attributes of God can be seen from His creation.
Why is it that this knowledge is not obvious to some? Paul argues that, by our wickedness, we had suppressed the truth about God that we know deep within.
Ro 1:21 "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened."
Deep inside each of us, we have a knowledge of God. We knew that God exists. We knew that He is holy and righteous. The problem is not with our brains. It is with our hearts. Our hearts are too darkened to acknowledge what we knew deep down inside us, what we had suppressed all along.
Ro 1:25 "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator".
Ro 1:28 "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile
to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
Verses 25 & 28 show us why. It is because our darkened hearts refuse to acknowledge God. We would rather live with a lie, than with the truth of God.
Sometimes I wonder which one comes first: was it man who desire to live a sinful life, and therefore he reject the idea of God? Or was it that he rejected the idea of God first, desiring to live his own autonomy, and therefore ended up living a sinful life?
The verses above seem to suggest the latter: Man's depravity follows after his decision to reject the knowledge of God. Not before.
Ro 1:32 "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
So, there are several things that we do know about God:
1) His invisible qualities--His divine nature and eternal power (v.20)
2) His Person and thus, by implication, His existence (v. 21, 25, 28)
3) His righteous decree (v. 32)
That's a lot of things we do know! The sense of the divine, or sensus divinatus, in each of us, demands that we face up to our own pretense of ignorance and really acknowledge God for who He is. Either we be plainly honest that we are atheists who reject the knowledge of God outright (despite the evidences, the force of logic, and our sensus divinatus), or we submit to Him in faith and love.
We just cannot plead ignorance.
