The views of Freud, Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche have been so widely disseminated in our culture that it is a common occurrence for the theist to have his faith challenged on the basis of psychological charges. Is there any religious man who has never been accused of believing in God merely because he needed a crutch to face the threats of the modern world? That the shoe could be on the other foot or the crutch used for the other leg is rarely considered.
In contrast to the widespread awareness of the psychology of theism, there is a woeful ignorance of the psychology of atheism. It is not common knowledge that the New Testament offers an answer to the question, If there is a God, why is there atheism? The answer to the question is given in what would now be called psychological categories. That is to say; the New Testament maintains that unbelief is generated not so much by intellectual causes as by moral and psychological ones. The problem is not that there is insufficient evidence to convince rational beings that there is a God, but that rational beings have a natural hostility to the being of God. In a word, the nature of God (at least the Christian God) is repugnant to man and is not the focus of desire or wish-projection. Man's desire is not that the omnipotent, personal Judeo-Christian God exist, but that He not exist. The New Testament sees not only atheism but human-fabricated religion as being grounded in such antipathy toward the true God.
So what do you think? Are you suppressing the knowledge of God? Are you trying to convince yourself that God, as revealed in the Bible, cannot exist? Are you telling yourself that even if God does exist, I have nothing to worry about because I am a basically good person? Or if you possess true faith in God, do you buy the idea that unbelieving people are naturally seeking God?
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