Romans 1 declares that God has communicated to man the fact of the Creator’s existence so that man is without excuse for his denial or rejection of that Creator. Precisely how God communicated that to man, we do not know. We only know He did because He said He did. He says “that which may be known of God is manifest, or declared, in them, for He has shown it unto them.” How did it get in them? Or us? God put it there, information about Himself. His eternal power and Godhead was revealed to man, leaving him without excuse. This is information that is not written, phoned, wired, texted, or tweeted, but is spiritual in nature, not discernible by any empirical or scientific method. That’s the nature of the spiritual, yet it’s still real, as real as the physical. Man’s receptivity of this information seems to constitute his cognition and intuition. When we say we know or understand something intuitively, we usually mean we don’t know how we know it, we just know it, and we know we know it…didn’t consciously learn it, weren’t aware of being taught it. We just know it.
The dictionary says intuition is “the direct knowledge or learning of something without the conscious use of reasoning, immediate apprehension or understanding.” The key here is not that we do not reason but that we do not consciously or intend to reason something out. It’s what we might call a “no-brainer”. The issue is intuitively obvious without having to even take the time to think about it. The stove is hot. Don’t debate with yourself whether you’ll get burned if you touch it. You know you will, and it is intuitively obvious. The possession of intuition is God-given, and it appears to work in tandem with God-given volition. We still have the ability to touch the hot stove if we choose to do so, because what we know intuitively does not override our volition. That’s why one who intuitively knows there is a God can volitionally deny Him.
Only man, of all God’s creatures, is endowed with volition and intuition. Animals don’t have this. Animals have instinct; people have intuition. Animals have no moral base for determining right from wrong. Animals do not experience guilt or remorse the way people do. You will never find a lion apologizing for killing and eating an antelope. He merely follows his instincts. He is programmed to behave like a lion, and he does what comes naturally. And, if the antelope gets away, he will not feel guilt over depriving the lion of a meal. He instinctively wants to survive. Conversely, man has a moral capacity that produces guilt and remorse because he has an innate, intuitive sense of right and wrong. Where did he get that? It is programmed into our human spirit by God, the Programmer. We just know, and we know because He put it there. Can we prove all of this? No, we can’t…scientifically. But we do insist it fits the facts reflected in human behavior and the biblical record. Man is without excuse.
CC 09-07
Published by