R.C. Sproul

Now, this story sounds primitive, doesn't it?

It's taken place in a time that we would say is the pre-scientific era.

These people are not that sophisticated.

They're not PhDs in physics, and so we can sort of be amused at their naivete as they're trying to discern the causes of what's going on around them.

But there's something about this story that I find exceedingly contemporary.

and that is that it is a discussion that is taking place among people who are clearly atheists.

It may surprise you because the Scripture has just told us that these people had a temple, they had a priesthood, they had a religion, they were engaged in all kinds of religious activities, many of which indeed were superstitious.

Why then would I come to the conclusion

that this text would indicate that they were atheists.

Let me just backtrack a minute and see if I can make it clear why I assume this is a story about atheists.

To illustrate it, let me go back a few years to a situation I had when I was teaching seminary, and I was responsible to teach a course on the theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the 17th century theological document that was the confessional foundation for historic Presbyterianism.

And we'd come to the place in the confession where I was going to have to teach chapter 3 the following week, and chapter 3 is entitled, On the Eternal Decrees of God.

Now among Presbyterians, they know exactly what that means.

They said, uh-oh, now we're going to talk about predestination.

And you get a bunch of seminary students together, and there's nothing they enjoy better than to chew over questions about predestination into endless discussions into the night.

They love it, and they love to debate that topic.

So I said, I said, next Tuesday night, we're going to take up chapter 3 of the Confession.

I have to understand that this particular class was open to the public.

So every one of my students, you know, who had a friend who didn't believe in predestination, they went out and cornered them and grabbed them by the throat and said, you've got to come hear our professor.

He's going to play paladin, have gun will travel.