INFERIOR GOD-SUBSTITUTES

When Paul engaged the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens, he had to speak to them in a language that they understood and respected, rather than through the Scriptures. He therefore appealed to them through the wisdom their esteemed Greek poets and through logic. He reasoned that the Creator of humanity had to be greater than what He had created:

·       “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” (Acts 17:29-30)

These Greek philosophers were intelligent and educated. However, they were willfully ignorant and had to repent of their foolish views about God. They believed that their gods were “silver or stone,” but how could such gods create human beings and even a gnat! Clearly, they couldn’t. Science and reason require that the cause has to be greater than the effect, as DaVinci had to be greater than his paintings or as the shoemaker has to be greater than his shoes.

There are many rational reasons to believe that life, consciousness, freewill, the fine tuning of the universe...came from a supremely intelligent Source and didn't just magically and naturally appear uncaused out of nothing, even before the "natural" even existed.

Science is predicated on the fact that every effect has an adequate cause(s). If the effect didn't have an adequate cause, it would mean that part of the effect had been uncaused, a scientific and logical impossibility. It would also mean that science searches for non-existent causes. This means that life had to have a cause greater than itself. Only the eternal uncaused God is adequate to cause such effects or even the smallest atom. And only the God of the Bible is adequate to explain all the phenomena of the universe.

To believe in gods of “gold and stone” might seem to be the height of foolishness and denial, but it is no more foolish than to believe that everything appeared out of nothing. Therefore, we must repent of all of our god-substitutes.