Smarter than God?

We’ve all heard the statement, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” or “Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it” or some statement along those lines.  The actual quote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” was written by George Santayana in 1905 in his book “The life of reason”. While Santayana was a philosophical atheist, his words hold true when it comes to religion just the same.

Prior to the “Age of enlightenment” the belief in God just was. The concept of not believing really wasn’t an option, to profess atheism was a death sentence. The state ran the church, and you were required to attend, and in essence your whole life somewhat revolved around it.  Faith was not about personal opinion as much as it was about habit and participation. While people may have struggled with the hypocrisy of the church at times, most people never doubted the existence of God. It was all they knew.

In the late 1600’s a philosophical shift started to take place, very possibly due to the hypocrisy in the State ran churches of the day, especially the Thirty Years War. (One of the deadliest wars in history between Catholics and Protestants) The printing press allowed common people who could read, to be able to read the Scriptures themselves, but it also introduced stories and scientific thought processes and allowed them to be more readily available. There was also the addition of trade routes from other countries that got expanded, other cultures and customs were introduced, with other “gods”.  people started to ask more questions about what reason says, rather than what the Bible or the King said.

As a result, people started to seriously question God, His methods and possibly even His existence.  As science started to answer questions that had been attributed to the miraculous nature of God, people started to think more highly of their own thought process than they did God. Most scientist didn’t see themselves as countering God, as much as explaining how God did things, some would use those discoveries to remove God from the picture. It was obviously a gradual shift, and most still believed in a divine creator, but doubt started to creep in.

As I consider how this all played out 2 Corinthians 4:4 comes to mind.

 2 Corinthians 4:4
⁴ In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

A simple deception, that takes people’s focus off of God and on to themselves.

Genesis 3:5b
and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

There is no need to take God out of the picture completely, all that is required is to get people to believe that they are on the same level as God. Basically, man shifted thought processes from the will of God to human reason, and that evolved into a form of humanism where man has become his own god, whether he recognizes it or not.

While I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate on the side of man, it’s what happens when we are not paying attention to history. When we ignore what happened to Israel when they turned aways from God’s Word

Jeremiah 2:17
¹⁷ Have you not brought this upon yourself
by forsaking the LORD your God,
when he led you in the way?

We need to be alert, the church is in decline, and part of that is on us, because often we choose not to pay attention. Scripture is clear…

Colossians 2:8
⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

If God is who Scripture says that He is (and I obviously believe that he is), then He is worthy of all glory, honor and praise. The enemy will do everything in his ability to attempt to counter that. It’s on us to make sure that he doesn’t succeed.

Thank you for reading this, as always, I would encourage you to spend time in His Word, in prayer and in the fellowship of other believers.  And if you haven’t visited already, I would encourage you to come visit our little church on the hill, it’s worth the drive.

 

Bro. Jason