Cut away the trimmings and atheism is in head on collision with biblical theism. From the standpoint of biblical theism, atheism is an attempt to escape from the presence of the living God, the fount of all being and reality, and from his command to all that they repent and turn to the Son of God, Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their foolish rebellion. This attempt to escape from God is often made using the strategy of denial. We need to look at this in a little more detail in case you have fallen for this false great escape.

DENIAL I am calling the approach of atheism false because it is a futile way of trying to evade and deny the one who is the very foundation and creator of reality, including the minds that have got the idea that denying God means he is probably not there after all. Yes, I know many atheists assume that the onus is on us Bible-believing Christians to demonstrate the existence of God with sufficiently convincing proofs, and that once we have satisfied that request, well of course, atheists will be only too happy to change their minds.

One way to develop this is to consider the nature of thinking. And as atheists believe in the validity of reason; that given understandable information, logical conclusions can be drawn from it, this is a helpful place to start.

IMMATERIAL One difficulty the atheist has is that generally he or she relies on materialism for their philosophy of science. This then becomes a vital part of their faith system. A 'faith system'? Yes, because there is no scientific proof for it. It is simply atheistic 'faith', which believes there is no such thing as the immaterial, which obviously excludes such a person as God, who the Bible says 'is spirit' (John 4:24). On that basis, our humanity has no value outside of its self-created value. It has no meaning other than that which you think yourself, or what you are told to think. Relationship, love, guilt, truth, life and death are merely sociological constructs or mental models aimed to support people through this frail meaningless journey to nowhere. INFINITE And as the atheist denies the existence of the living God, revealed in Jesus Christ, who came from beyond the space-time-matter continuum and who humbled himself, who laid bare the heart of God; the God of majestic glory, who dwells in unapproachable light. He is the One who claims to be the infinite personal God, who sent his eternal Son to carry the condemnation we rebels deserved, for our salvation. That is the great escape; to be rescued, undeservedly from a just condemnation, and to receive peace with God. Yes, and we accept that this relies on faith, but a living faith with an ample foundation. For instance, the belief in Jesus' resurrection is not a leap into mystical fantasy, but the acceptance of clear eye-witness testimony and circumstantial evidence, including the remarkable witness of changed lives, and the changed course of history. jesus a gospel of love But trying to evade such truths, the atheist prefers to be the final autonomous reference frame by denying God and becoming 'god' him or herself.

And do you know what? This is exactly what the Bible teaches. Scripture is clear - God created the material cosmos and imbued it with a magnificence and marvel that is his signature. That is the reason mankind in general have already seen God's 'eternal power and divine nature' and are therefore 'without excuse' (Romans 1:20). You have already been given sufficient evidence! We are especially created persons, made on a finite level in God's moral, personal and rational likeness. But we are fallen rebels, full of conceit and puffed up with protests and our rights.

The fall in history into our foolish, rebellion and defiance of God is the most basic way of seeing our awareness of being part of a problem world with all its dilemmas and terrible heartaches. Atheistic belief is thus a rejection of final revealed truth given by the Creator, and the creation of the atheistic belief system is a false substitute salvation - an escape from the presence and truth-claims of the great eternal 'I AM'.

AMAZING After all, consider that atheism denies what it possesses; the validity of reason sufficiently powerful to find meaning in an information-packed, understandable cosmos. And remember the one powerful assumption that modern secular science relies on is borrowed from biblical Christianity; that of an understandable cosmos inhabited by persons with minds able to project models of thought onto that reality, which assumes a correlation with a final reference frame? How amazing! I suggest that if you are an atheist, you know your atheistic science must ground the validity of your reason on molecular electro-chemistry and that matter alone is an insufficient base for an understandable cosmos. So, you are left with a choice - atheism, as pseudo-science, or that the living God of biblical theism has already revealed final answers and the way to be reconciled to him by trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross. Time to think carefully about the truth-claims of biblical Christianity.