Romans 1:20-23 and "evidence for God"

"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. 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.
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the
glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and
birds and animals and reptiles." (Romans 1:20-23, NIV)

   I've read several arguments, based on Romans 1:20, that we ought to
find strong evidence (scientific, rational evidence) for God's existence
in nature. These arguments are typically aimed against the theory of
biological evolution. But if we look at verse 20 in its context
(especially verse 23), and consider the apostle Paul's historical and
cultural context, I think the passage has a different application to
modern times.

   The cultural context: Paul was not primarily concerned with
naturalistic atheism. While there may have been a few Greek philosophers
who believed in naturalistic atheism, the predominant beliefs around
Paul's time were pantheistic idolatry (verse 23).

   One definition of idolatry is: taking some element of creation and
worshiping (basing one's life and hopes) around it rather than the
Creator. The gods of pantheism were personifications of parts of creation
(the sun, the moon, the sea, animals) or aspects of the natural order
(death, fertility, the seasons). I think that Paul is saying here that it
is a fundamental flaw in human beings that, apart from God's grace, we
tend to make idols out of parts of creation rather than worshiping the
creator.

   In light of this cultural context, how does this passage apply to
modern day naturalistic atheism? Well, there is one sense in which
naturalistic atheism turns a portion of creation into an idol. In this
case it is the regularity of natural laws, the regularity of natural
cause-and-effect, which has become an idol. Rather than attributing this
regularity to the Creator's faithful governance -- and giving God the
glory -- some people base their whole world-views, and invest their hopes
for the future, in the regularity of natural laws and our abilities to
understand them. In this sense, naturalistic atheism has something
fundamentally in common with ancient polytheism. I think this is an
appropriate modern application of Romans 1:20-23.

   What does this imply for biological evolution? Scientifically:
nothing. Religiously: everything. When people study biological history,
they are not wrong to see regular patterns of natural cause and effect,
for those patterns are there. The religious mistake of naturalistic
atheists is not that they fail to see scientific evidence for God's
miraculous interventions in natural laws. Rather, their religious mistake
is to take one aspect of the created world -- the regular pattern of
natural cause and effect -- and make an idol out of it, rather than
praising the Creator for it.

   Note: I'm not saying that this passage "proves" evolutionary creation.
I'm only saying that this passage, interpreted in its historical context,
gives no preference for progressive creation over evolutionary creation.

Loren Haarsma
Received on Tue Jul 19 16:46:14 2005