St. Paul the Apostle
Many Christians today are confronted by atheists in their culture. While most are mild and gentle, many of them are aggressive and want nothing more than to destroy the faith of Christians. In response, many Christians have gone to Christian bookstores and purchased the latest and greatest books in refuting atheism. While this is a great tactic, you don’t need to look that hard for the answer. It is right in front of you in the pages of Scripture.
In approximately 60 AD, St. Paul writes to the Church at Rome. This Church is made up of both Jewish and gentile converts. While the Jews would be familiar with the history of the God of Israel and its prophets, the gentiles would be fairly new to this concept. How did they know that the God of scripture wasn’t a Jewish national deity but the God of every single human being on Earth?
St. Paul, in Romans 4 after addressing both groups in previous chapters, gives a brilliant argument. To prove that the covenant of circumcision was not the only covenant and that God cared about others, St. Paul takes us back to Abrahams faith in Genesis 15:6. This was given several chapters before the command to circumcise was given. This was a reminder that God cares for all of humanity and not a certain group of people.
Verses 9 and 10 state:
This blessedness then, doth it remain in the circumcision only, or in the uncircumcision also? For we say that unto Abraham faith was reputed to justice. How then was it reputed? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.
In the next few verses, St. Paul expands on his theme but in Romans 4:15 he makes an astonishing statement which reflects the moral argument for the existence of God. He clearly states:
For the law worketh wrath. For where there is no law, neither is there transgression.
Similar passages can be found in Romans 5:13 and Romans 7:7 but in my opinion Romans 4:15 is the silver bullet that atheism fears.
Many times you hear people like Richard Dawkins or the late Christopher Hitchens harp on the immorality of religion. They make many other moral statements as well. What is their standard? Modern 21st century western morals? According to who? Those are not universal laws but conventions. If you go around the world, everyone has different conventions. This is true whether you be in China, Russia, Serbia, Greece, Egypt, South Africa, Brazil or even subcultures within these nations. I should point out that I am only referring to the present. Different times in history have offered different conventions as well.
Dawkins speaks as if his claims are absolute. Ironically, he cannot do this without a Creator to give an absolute moral Law. He needs the God that he rejects to reject the morality of Christians. If you push these raging atheists hard enough, they’ll admit that morality is not absolute. Even though they say this, they don’t act like it and only concede this to avoid losing an argument. It just shows how far some atheists will go in their criticism of their Creator. Where there is no law, neither is there transgression. No Law, no transgression. No God, no Law.
Sorry atheists, you can’t have it both ways. You’ve just been refuted by a first century Jew.
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