Belief in God and Consciousness of Sin
In this short chapter, Machen zooms in on the major differences between Christianity’s belief of God and man and liberalism’s belief on these topics.
The belief that God exists is presupposed in the New Testament. Jesus and the culture he was in believed in God and it was not argued. Everything that Jesus taught was presupposing that God is real and that there are implications to this belief.
Liberalism, Machen says, challenges this core belief. Doubting the reality of God opens up for the challenging of the basic beliefs of Christianity, namely, the belief that sin is a problem that puts man at enmity with God.
I was enjoying this chapter very much because it was very simple in breaking down how to understand the influence that liberalism has on understanding life through the lens of discounting the existence of God. The existence of God is essential to leading the righteous life.
Liberalism draws into question objective truth through this question of God’s existence. Machen, writing about this in the 1920s, accurately describes the state of liberalism philosophy in the 21st century. Objective truth, proponents of liberalism say, is non-existent; truth is defined by culture.
The first part of the chapter spends its time discussing the folly of liberalism in its belief of deity. Machen gives a small amount of text to pantheism, and the small amount of pantheism in defining truth through culture. Liberalism makes light of objective morality and brings the power of morality to the ever-changing culture of the world.
When the world can define what makes a man good, the good in a man will change when the culture changes.
The second part of the chapter was dedicated to how liberalism influences negatively the view of man. The biblical understanding of man says that man is a creature made by holy God and he has fallen from his God and is not good when held against the light of God.
Liberalism casts this away with the challenges against the existence of God. The consciousness of sin disappears with liberalism. There is no seeing the evil of man through an eternal lens. Liberal preachers do not emphasize the wickedness of the heart, but laud their hearers with praise over their goodness.
The effectiveness of the gospel is diminished on ears that do not even see the wickedness of its heart. Granted, the Lord can work in mighty ways in the heart of man. But, as Machen writes in this chapter, our knowledge of God drives our actions and emotions towards God. Emotions that appear to be “for God” from a person who knows nothing of their sinfulness cannot know the true gospel. The god of their mind is what liberalism produces.
Consciousness of man’s sinful condition and God’s holy existence is what liberalism removes from the mind of man. In liberalism, the gospel is darkened and the heart of Christianity is lost.
This chapter was scary to read and to see the text accurately depict the state of the majority of Americans in the 21st century. How can we see God through the worldly, cultural lens that is liberalism? Machen writes, I would argue, that you can’t.