I recently received a book entitled The Existence and Attributes of God. It is a long book (1100+ pages). The author of the book is a 17th Century Puritan by the name of Stephen Charnock. You can actually order it online from the Christian Book Distributors for only 12.99. It is an excellent book and one that we will be going through on our blog. You do not have to buy it or read it--although that would be beneficial.

Today we will be looking at Discourse I--The Existence of God (from page 23-25):

"The fool hat said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." Psalm 14:1

Charnock notes that Pslam 14:1 is not speaking of the Gentile only but, as St. Paul helps us see, to the Jew as well. For "all are under sin". Charnock then begins to expound upon this text by noting that "the fool" is referring to the wicked man--"one dead in sin, yet one not so much void of rational faculties as of grace in those faculties, not one that wants [=lacks] reason, but abuses his reason." Here Charnock is standing with the apostle Paul in saying that it is not that the "fool" is actually an idiot (lacks reason) but he is a "fool" because he abuses his reason.

Charnock further points out that it is in the fools heart where his atheism is made manifest. It is not as if he has put together an elaborate scheme and has went to great lengths to develop a sophisticated argument to disprove God. Rather he "tampered with his own heart to bring it to that persuasion, and smothered in himself those notices of a Diety; which is so plain against the light of nature, that such a man may well be called a fool for it". In other words it is so obvious that there is a God and it must be supressed so violently that one would be said a fool to deny it. One would think of a foolish person that would argue while staring at the color blue that it is in fact the color green.

We further see that it is not Jehovah God which is denied but is instead Eloahia [Elohim] which name signifies the providence of God. It is then, "not that he denies the existence of a Supreme Being, that created the world, but his regarding the creatures, his government, and consequently his reward of the righteous or punishments of the wicked." Charnock then helps us to see that there are three types of atheist. The absolute atheist, the atheist which denies God's providence [probably considered agnostic in our day], and the atheist in regard to one or more of the other perfections due his nature [the "open" theologians in our day who in some form deny his omniscience]. Charnock then says that the type of atheist spoken of here in Psalm 14 is more the type of Atheist that denies the providence of God. But, Charnock notes, to deny God's Providence is "to in effect deny the being of God".

But lest we become prideful and think that we ourselves are not fools because we believe in the existence of God, Charnock points us to the truth that "the fool" is in the singular but the plurality of the evil practices displays that their is a "secret atheism" in us all. "No man is exempted from some spice of atheism by the depravition of his nature...though there are indelible convictions of the being of a God, that they cannot absoultely deny it; yet there are some atheistical bubblings in the hearts of men, which evidence themselves in their actions". What it appears Charnock is saying here is that by our actions we deny God. This text then shows us how fully man is corrupt--in our mind and in our other faculties as a result.

In the coming weeks Charnock is going to display for us that God does indeed exist and the folly in thinking otherwise. He will also give us advice for battling these "atheistical bubblings" in our hearts. It would be advisable to check back frequently to see our discussion on Charnock. As we do this let me give you one tip: It can sometimes be difficult reading the writings of the Puritans--they had a different writing style and sometimes even the language was different. Therefore, it would be advisable to slowly go over the sentences in bold (those by Charnock) read my explanation and then go back and re-read the bold words to see if you can see how the explanation corresponds to what Charnock is saying. And, as alwasy feel free to comment and e-mail any questions.