But if God is so clear, what's the real problem?
So let me start here. In the last chapters, we
saw that God really has made himself known. He
speaks through creation. He speaks through conscience.
People are left without excuse. So if that's
true, you might ask, then why doesn't everyone
believe? Is God still too vague? Is the evidence
too small? According to the Bible, the problem
is not that God is unclear. The problem is us.
Sin does not erase what we know about God. Sin
makes us reject what we know. Romans chapter
1 verse 18 says people suppress the truth in
unrighteousness. Think of someone pushing a beach
ball underwater. It keeps wanting to come up,
but they keep forcing it down. That's what sin
does with God's truth. So the big question is
this. What is sin and how does it cause people
to suppress what they clearly know about God?
So then, what really is sin? Most people, if
you ask them, will say sin is doing bad things,
lying, stealing, cheating. That's part of it.
But the Bible goes much deeper. Romans chapter
3 verse 23 says, All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. Notice, sin is not just
breaking a rule. It is falling short of God's
glory. It is failing to honor him as he deserves.
1 John chapter 3 verse 4 calls sin lawlessness.
That is not just one bad act. It is an attitude.
I will not have God's law over me. I will be
my own law. Go back to the very first sin in
Genesis chapter 3. Adam and Eve were not only
eating the wrong fruit. They were listening to
a promise. You will be like God, knowing good
and evil. Genesis chapter 3 verse 5. That means
you decide what is good and evil. You don't need
to listen to God. So sin at its core is trying
to live as your own God, refusing to listen to
God's word, insisting I will decide what is right
for me. We can call that autonomy self -law.
Even saying I'm neutral, I'll stand back and
judge God's word for myself is really the same
thing. Our thinking and living were created to
be under God's word, not above it. So when we
talk about sin, we're not just talking about
a list of bad behaviors. We're talking about
a posture of the heart, my will be done, instead
of your will be done. How does that kind of sin
affect how people think? Now here's the next
question. Okay, if sin is rebellion, what does
that do to the mind? How does it change the way
people think about God and reality? The Bible
says something important here. Sin does not destroy
our reason, but it bends it. Listen to Romans
chapter 1 verses 21 to 23. Paul says that people
knew God, but they did not honor him as God or
give thanks. So what happened? Their thinking
became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Although they claimed to be wise, they became
fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal
God for images. That means the mind still works,
but it runs in the wrong direction, away from
the true God, toward idols and self -justification.
Ephesians chapter 4 verses 17 to 19 says something
similar. Paul says unbelievers live in the futility
of their thinking. They are darkened in their
understanding and separated from the life of
God because of the ignorance that is in them
due to the hardening of their hearts. Notice
the order there. A hard heart leads to darkened
understanding, leads to a life chasing whatever
feels good. So sin affects both. What we want
are desires, and how we think are reasoning.
Let me put it in simple pictures. A person may
be very smart. They can do advanced science,
business, philosophy. Yet, when it comes to God,
They use their intelligence to excuse their own
sin or to build elaborate arguments to deny the
God they actually know deep down is there. It's
not a lack of IQ. It's a heart that does not
want to bow, using a sharp mind to protect its
independence. So when the Bible says people's
minds are futile or darkened, it does not mean
they cannot think at all. It means they misuse
their thinking to serve a wrong worship. What
does it mean to exchange God and suppress truth?
Now let me ask, what exactly are people doing
with this bent mind and heart? Romans chapter
1 verse 23 says they exchange the glory of the
immortal God for images made to look like a mortal
human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Verse 25 says they exchanged the truth about
God for a lie and worshipped and served created
things rather than the creator. So sin is an
exchange. They trade God for idols. They trade
truth for lies. They trade the creator for created
things. That might look like bowing to statues
in one culture or worshipping money, success,
sex, politics, family, or self -image in another.
On the surface, it changes. Underneath, it's
the same. Something in creation will be my God,
not the true God. And how do they manage that
when God's reality keeps pressing in? Romans
chapter 1 verse 18 says they suppress the truth
in unrighteousness. Suppress means hold down.
Think of that beach ball again. It wants to pop
up, but you keep forcing it under the water.
People do that with the sense that God is there,
the tug of conscience, the weight of his glory
in creation. Why? Because letting it pop up would
mean facing him, and facing him would mean admitting
guilt and surrendering control. So unbelief is
not a neutral lack of information. It is a moral
choice of the heart that then shapes the mind.
It is the heart saying, I don't want this God,
and the mind saying, let me explain why that's
reasonable. Are people just uninformed or are
they blind? At this point you might ask, so are
people just missing data or is something deeper
going on? Are they actually spiritually blind?
The Bible says they are blind. 2 Corinthians
4, verse 4 says, The God of this age has blinded
the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot
see the light of the gospel that displays the
glory of Christ. In verse 6 it says that the
same God who said, Let light shine out of darkness
at creation, has to shine in our hearts to give
us the light of the knowledge of God's glory
displayed in the face of Christ. Jesus explains
it in John 3, verses 19 and 20. He says, Light
has come into the world, but people loved darkness
instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Everyone who does evil hates the light and will
not come into the light for fear that their deeds
will be exposed. So the picture is, The light
is real and bright, people love the dark, and
there is a real blinding at work. That means
facts and arguments are important, but not enough.
Something has to happen in the heart. God's grace
has to open eyes and soften hearts. Those are
the noetic effects of sin, the way sin affects
knowing. The clearest truth can be in front of
someone, and they still will not embrace it unless
God changes them. objections, and questions we
need to face. If people are this blind, shouldn't
the church, not scripture, be our main light?
If sin really blinds minds, doesn't that mean
people need the church's teaching and sacraments
as the primary light rather than scripture alone?
Isn't personal Bible reading unsafe for darkened
minds? I want to answer this carefully. First,
it's true. Sin blinds. And yes, we need the help
of the church. God didn't design us to walk alone.
We need pastors, teachers, and a community of
believers. But we also need to ask, what does
the Bible present as the main light? Psalm 119
verse 105 says, Your word is a lamp for my feet,
a light on my path. Jesus prays in John chapter
17 verse 17, Sanctify them by the truth. Your
word is truth. 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17
says, All Scripture is God -breathed and equips
the servant of God for every good work. In Acts
17, verse 11, the Bereans are called noble because
they examined the Scriptures daily to see if
what Paul said was true. So even an apostle's
message is tested by Scripture. Faithful teachers
and councils in church history, at their best
moments, understood themselves as servants of
the word, not replacements for it. Their authority
came from their faithfulness to scripture. Now
think presuppositionally, from the ground up.
If we say individuals are too blinded by sin
to hear God's word directly, we must put final
authority in the church. We also have to admit
church leaders are sinners too. affected by the
same blinding power. If sin makes individual
judgment untrustworthy, it also makes institutional
judgment untrustworthy, unless there is a higher
fixed standard above both. That higher standard
is God's written word. Take that away, and you
have moved final authority from God to a sinful
body. That is unstable. So yes, we need the church.
But both the church and the individual must always
stand under scripture as the primary light. If
people suppress truth, why not just say they
need more information? Here's a common thought
from a Mormon or fallen but not totally blind
perspective. We agree people sin. But we say
they still have enough light to recognize latter
-day prophets and new scriptures. Why not say
they just lack information instead of accusing
them of suppressing truth? Let's go back to Romans
chapter 1. There Paul says, people know God.
but they do not honor him or give thanks. Romans
chapter 1 verse 21. He says they suppress the
truth. Romans chapter 1 verse 18. He says they
exchange God's glory and God's truth. Romans
chapter 1 verses 23 and 25. That is not a picture
of innocent ignorance. It is active resistance.
When God answers their blindness, what does he
do? He sends his son and the apostolic gospel.
Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 says God spoke
in many ways by the prophets, but now he has
spoken by his son. Jude verse 3 says the faith
was once for all entrusted to the saints. The
response to suppression is to preach Christ and
the completed gospel, not to open the door to
new correcting scriptures. Presuppositionally,
there's a tension if we say sin deeply bends
the mind. And at the same time, but people can
still reliably judge which new prophets and books
are from God. We are trusting fallen judgment
at the very point where we should be most cautious.
The safer ground is to trust what God has already
given once for all, not our ability to sort through
competing modern claimants. If sin bends the
mind and will, doesn't that destroy free will?
Here's another worry, often from Roman Catholic,
Orthodox, or other synergist viewpoints. If sin
blinds and bends our minds, doesn't that wipe
out free will and human responsibility? We need
a careful answer here. The Bible does not say
people lose their natural ability to think and
choose. People still make real decisions, use
their minds, have desires, and act on them. What
it says is that people have a moral inability
to submit to God apart from grace. Jesus says
in John chapter 5 verse 40, you refuse to come
to me to have life. That is a real refusal. Romans
chapter 8 verses 7 and 8 says, the mindset on
the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit
to God's law, nor can it do so. Those who are
in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
So what's going on? People freely choose according
to what they want. but what they want is twisted
by sin. James chapter 1 verses 14 and 15 says,
each person is tempted when they are dragged
away by their own evil desire. Ephesians chapter
2 verses 1 to 3 says, we were dead in transgressions
and sins and followed the cravings of our flesh.
So, natural ability remains, we still think and
choose. Moral ability is gone, we will not, on
our own, choose to bow before God in faith and
love. Presuppositionally, if we soften sin so
much that people can, by nature, move toward
God and embrace Him apart from His special work,
then we shrink the need for the cross and grace.
Scripture paints a more serious picture of our
condition, so we see how radical God's rescue
must be. Isn't it rude to say unbelievers suppress
the truth? Many seem sincere. One last objection
from a secular or humanist side. Isn't it arrogant
and insulting to say unbelievers suppress the
truth? Many are sincere, thoughtful and moral.
Isn't this just name calling? We have to answer
this with humility. First, this is God's diagnosis,
not ours. Romans chapter 1 verses 18 to 23 says,
people suppress truth and exchange God for idols.
John chapter 3 verses 19 and 20 says, people
love darkness rather than light because their
deeds are evil. God sees beneath the surface.
Second, sincerity does not remove bias. We all
protect what we love. If someone deeply loves
their independence from God, it will feel natural
and honest to build a view of the world that
protects that independence. Third, everyone has
presuppositions, basic starting points, and blind
spots. No one looks at the world from nowhere.
The real question is, which starting point makes
sense of reason, morality, meaning, and value
without falling into contradiction? The biblical
claim is that if we deny sin and deny God's revelation,
we lose any stable ground for calling anything
truly true or truly good. That's what some theologians
mean by the impossibility of the contrary. The
alternative to admitting sin and revelation is
a world where truth and goodness float unanchored.
And remember, this diagnosis of suppression is
not just about them. It was true of us before
God's grace opened our eyes. That should keep
us from pride. So what does all this mean for
us personally? Let me land this in three simple
ways. First, let this teaching expose your own
suppression. It's easy to apply Romans chapter
1 to those people out there. But even as believers,
we can try to hold certain truths underwater.
Truths about our money, our relationships, our
habits. Ask God, where am I trading your truth
for a lie? Where am I trying to keep the ball
under the surface? Second, let it give you compassion.
not arrogance. If unbelievers are blind and suppressing
truth, they don't just need sharper arguments.
They need God's mercy. That should shape our
tone. We explain, we reason, we appeal, but we
do it with patience, kindness, and prayer, knowing
only God can say, let light shine in this heart.
Third, let it shape your evangelism and apologetics.
Because sin affects mind and heart, we don't
only dump facts on people. We show how they already
know more about God than they admit, gently expose
the ways they are pushing that knowledge down,
and keep pointing them to Christ, who is the
only one who can forgive free and open blind
eyes. In the next parts of the book, we'll talk
more about how God through his special revelation
in scripture and by his spirit, actually overcomes
this darkness. But for now, remember this. The
problem is not that God has failed to shine.
The problem is that sin loves the dark. And the
hope is that the same God who said, let there
be light, can and does speak light into human
hearts.