Psalm 14:1-7 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good.… Thus the Bible ever speaks of those who have cast off the fear of God. They are those whose understanding is darkened, who, professing themselves to be wise, become fools. Such men, who make a boast of their reason, and would fain walk by the light of their reason, prove how little their reason is worth. The epithet is the more cutting because persons of this kind generally lay claim to more than ordinary discernment. There is here rather a practical than a theoretical atheism; not so much a denial of the being of a God as a denial of His moral government of the world (cf. 10:5); and this evinced in their actions rather than in their words. Their lives show what the thought of their hearts is. The "fool" is not the philosophic atheist with his arguments ("subducta ratione vel formatis syllogismis" — Calvin); but the man who by the practice of wickedness so stifles and corrupts within him the knowledge of God that he virtually acknowledges no God. South, in his sermon on this verse, lays a stress on these words, as implying that the atheist dare not avow his atheism, lint only cherishes it within. But the occurrence of the phrase elsewhere — e.g. 10:6, 10, 13 — does not justify this stress. (J. J. Stewart Perowne, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.} The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. |
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