Yesterday I had a conversation with another guy in our church who had the opportunity to begin speaking about spiritual things with a young lady. He asked her what she believes, and she said that she doesn’t think it is possible to really know the truth. He asked her what her view is of life after death, and she said that there is no way to know until she gets there. Essentially, her position is, “I don’t know – and I can’t know – what is true or not, and therefore I’m content to just live for the here and now.”
How should a Christian respond to this? When someone claims that the truth is not knowable, what can we say? How do we respond when someone says, “I don’t know if there is a god, I don’t know if there is life after death, and therefore I don’t care”?
We may think to ourselves, “How can I convince this person that there is a god, that there is life after death, and that they should care?” The thing is, if we think we need to convince them of these things, we are denying the teaching of Scripture. That teaching is as simple as this: They already know.
Romans 1 says, “What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
To understand what this verse is teaching, imagine the scene at the day of judgment. An agnostic – someone who claimed that they didn’t know and couldn’t know if there is a god – is now before the throne of God. Every thought and every act of their life is exposed. They have lived their life in sin and evil and idolatry, and God pronounces a guilty verdict. What Romans 1 teaches is that in this moment, the former agnostic will not say, “But I didn’t know! I didn’t know that you existed! I didn’t know there would be judgment! I didn’t know that my life was supposed to be lived for you and not for me!” Rather, the former agnostic will not say anything. They will have no excuses, because they did know, and “by their unrighteousness they suppressed the truth . . . for although they knew God, they did not honor God”.
There are no atheists. There are no agnostics.
Everybody knows. And everybody suppresses the truth.
When we encounter “agnostics” or “atheists”, therefore, we don’t need to spend time trying to convince them that there is a God and that they are accountable to Him. They already know this and they are suppressing it in sin. While they claim that God does not exist or that they don’t know if He does, we know that they know!
How do we respond, then? We need to give them what they don’t know! We need to give them the only thing that can cut to their hearts, expose that they are suppressing the truth, convict of sin, and bring new life: the Gospel of Jesus Christ!