The Power of the Imagination

Atheists flatly reject the Genesis Fall, in which we are given the biblical explanation as to why there is disease, suffering and death. So they have no account for the suffering of this world. It is because of this, that they will often quote Monty Python: "All things sick and cancerous, all evil great and small, Putrid foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made them all..." Their thought is that if God did exist, then He alone, not man, is responsible for the pains of this world.

The normal "idolater" creates a version of God to which he can snuggle up. He quote-mines Scripture and creates an all-loving, kind, and forgiving God. He leaves out the fact that the Bible tells us that God is holy and just, and will by no means clear the guilty. He passes over verses such as "Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though they join forces, none will go unpunished" (Proverbs 16:5). Then once he has created his benevolent image of God, he bows before it, and it is to that image that he brings his prayerful petitions. The problem is, his god doesn’t exist. But that is of no consequence to him, because the idolater can easily find a church that preaches the attributes of his idol. Under the sound of the many modern pulpits, his faith will grow as he listens to sermons that confirm his error.

The atheist does the opposite of the regular idolater. He quote-mines the Scriptures and searches out the harsher judgments of God, and builds an image of God he finds to be repulsive. Then, once he has made his idol, he flatly rejects it. And so he should. The image that he has made of God is evil. It is without love and mercy. And so the atheist has the same problem as the idolater. The image only exists in the atheist’s place of imagery...in his imagination,