Every year around April Fool’s Day, I see some Christians joking that it is “National Atheists Day,” based on the famous line from Psalm 14:1, “The fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God.'” Setting aside the pejorative nature of the joke, on the surface it is a clever way of pointing out what the Psalmist seems to be saying – atheism is foolishness. But, as if often the case with seemingly clever uses of scripture, our own interpretations have a way of coming back to bite us.
Stanley Grenz, in his book Theology For The Community Of God, offers an illuminating view on this passage:
“Human questioning of the reality of God is not new. Already in the Old Testament wisdom literature we find evidence of the presence of this question among the thinkers of the ancient societies. The book of Psalms, for example, tackles the problem head-on: ‘The fool has said … there is no God’ (Ps. 14:1; 53:1). Yet, we ought not to equate the position of the ancient ‘fool’ with the intellectual atheism of modern Western philosophy. The modern variety simply was not an option in the ancient Near East. The skepticism spoken of by the psalmist did not focus on the intellectual, but on the moral or practical denial of God’s existence; the fool lived as if there were no God.” (p.30)
This statement struck me when I read it. First, it fits the context of the passage better than how we typically read it today. The proceeding verses tell exactly what the Psalmist meant: “They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” The skepticism in view here is not about mere intellectual rejection of the concept of God; this rejection is actively lived out in wickedness.
Secondly, and more importantly, this interpretation struck me because it cautions us against a living atheism to which we as humans are prone, even as Christians. We all likely know people who claim to believe in God, but in no way live it out in their lives; if you took a survey and asked them their belief, they would say they are theists, but this belief has little or no practical value in their lives. Unfortunately, it is not only those outside the church who fall into this trap.
It is all too easy for people to show up to Sunday services and Bible studies, to participate in church events, and to generally claim to be disciples of Jesus while in their hearts not honoring him as King. As Jesus himself said of the Pharisees, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” (Matt. 15:8; quoted from Isa. 29:13). The issue with the Pharisees was not their words, or even their deeds if we are thinking doctrinally, but rather their hearts. On the throne of their hearts sat something other than God.
This still happens among Christians today. There are certainly modern day Pharisees who, like their fathers before them, go beyond what is expressly stated and then bind their reasoning on the backs of others. However, there is another tendency, particularly in the Western church, which is just as dangerous if not more so – an attitude of living atheism which endangers both individuals and congregations. Too many of us in the West find ourselves torn between a desire for God and a desire for worldly living. Like the Israelites of old, we want God’s blessing, but we also want to be like the people of the kingdoms around us.
We must remember that we are citizens of a Heavenly Kingdom (Philippians 3:20). We must also remember that, “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17). There are many joys in this world, but for people of God’s kingdom, these things aren’t the joy of life. The joy of life, for us, is found in being closer to Christ and walking in the Spirit. And so we set that as our goal and focus in everything that we do. In our families, in our careers, in our hobbies – in all facets of life, we seek to honor Christ.
We live in an era of unprecedented convenience and comfort, and this presents a danger to the Christian. It is all too easy to make Christ yet another compartment of life, the icing on the cake of the American dream. Let us be clear: this is idolatry. For the people of God’s kingdom, Christ is to be the whole of life. He is the cake, he is the whole shelf into which life’s compartments are placed; Christ defines our lives, and our deeds, and our entire worldview. We don’t seek to be conformed to those around us, but to be conformed to Christ (Romans 12:2). Regardless of what our words say, when our lives make Christ anything less than the substance of life – anything less than King – we live as the Psalmist’s fool. We say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
