Because there is no objective evidence. The Bible is a book of beliefs and opinions not evidence. There are millions of books like this claiming the existence of millions of different things from UFOs to faeries. None of that establishes that any of these things actually exist. If you assume that God exists and created the universe then it is evident from what He created that God is great, powerful, and clever beyond any human being. But it is not evident at all that God exists or that the universe was created by such a God.
I believe God exists and I believe the Bible is the word of God. I believe that now. But if you had told me before I believed this, that I must believe in God because the Bible says so, I would have said that is the silliest thing I ever heard. I don’t believe because the Bible says so and I don’t believe because the existence of God is evident from looking at the world. And I frankly don’t think this is why anybody else came to believe these things either.
The Bible speaks of the Earth being a table with corners, so should we believe the Earth is shaped like a table? The evidence is clear that this is not the shape of the Earth. So shall we think that the Bible is mistaken or should we just realize that it wasn’t talking about the shape of the Earth?
Likewise the Bible talks of God commanding things to exist about 6000 years ago according to the genealogies, so should we believe the universe, the earth, and all the species of plants and animals are only 6000 years old, all created in only six days? The evidence is clear that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, the earth is 4.543 billion years old, and all the species of plants and animals evolved from common ancestors over the last 3.5 to 4 billion years. So shall we think that the Bible was mistaken or just realize that the Bible wasn’t talking about the methods and timing according to which God created the universe, the Earth, and all the living things?
Just like these first two examples, we can look at the epistle of Romans and face the fact that there is no objective evidence for the existence of God to be found by looking at the universe and the earth, and instead of thinking that Paul was simply mistaken that perhaps he wasn’t talking about atheists or about God’s existence but something else entirely. Me… I choose to open my eyes to see the world instead of just blindly parroting what someone has decided some book means. That way when I read a book like the Bible I can look beneath the superficial literal words and see the meaning of the parables instead of being like those whom Jesus criticized in Matthew 13:10-15 as closing their eyes, ears, and hearts so that Jesus cannot heal them.
No. That sentence is nowhere in this epistle. You are rewriting the text to suit yourself.
- The word ignorance is not there.
- It talks of wickedness and suppressing the truth, not unbelief.
- What it says is evident in nature is God’s power and deity not His existence.
So who is it that is really suppressing the truth here? I don’t think it is the scientists who are studying the universe with open eyes and examining every piece of evidence. I think it far more likely to be various religious sects who are simply using both “God” and the Bible as tools of power and manipulation. When the evidence doesn’t agree with what they are doing then they suppress it – and this goes for both the discoveries of science and the things in the Bible that do not agree with what they are doing.