Preface: This article follows the previous section, completed in collaboration with Gemini.

Chapter Four， “The Corruption and Destruction of This Knowledge, Caused Partly by Ignorance and Partly by Wickedness.” The following passages are from the original text.

“Experience shows that although God has sown the seed of religion in the heart of every person, scarcely one in a hundred cherishes what he has received; none allow the seed to grow to maturity, let alone bear fruit. Some fall into emptiness through superstition; others, with deliberate intent, choose evil and rebel against God. As a result, all fall away from the true knowledge of God, and genuine piety disappears from the world.

When I say that some fall into superstition through error, I do not mean to imply that their guilt is excusable on the grounds of ignorance, for their blindness is often bound up with pride, vanity, and stubbornness. Wretched people, when seeking God, do not seek Him above themselves as they ought. Instead, following the foolishness of the flesh, they abandon the proper path of inquiry and judge God through empty and curious speculation. Here their pride and vanity are laid bare. Their conception of God is not based on how God has revealed Himself, but on their own inflated imagination.”

This passage suggests that people, because of their own “sin”—namely pride, vanity, and stubbornness—are blind yet overconfident. Human beings constantly attempt to infer God from themselves, while in reality God is nothing like what they imagine.

“Once this breach is opened, whichever path they take inevitably leads to destruction. No matter how they later worship or serve God, it cannot truly be said that they are acting for God, because what they worship is not God but a fabrication of their own minds. Paul speaks explicitly of this degeneration: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22); and earlier, “Their thinking became futile” (Romans 1:21). To prevent anyone from excusing them, he adds that their blindness is deserved, because they did not remain within proper bounds but grew arrogant, indulged in pride, and devoted themselves to vanity and wickedness. Therefore, their folly is inexcusable; it arises not only from vain curiosity but also from false self-confidence and an excessive desire to exceed the limits of human knowledge.”

This section I understand. Human conceptions of God are inevitably limited—much like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, in which one’s understanding of reality, derived from shadows, must necessarily be constrained. However, Paul’s claim that human blindness is deserved is something I am not entirely convinced by. Foolishness is not always a moral failure; sometimes it is simply a matter of limited capacity rather than culpability.

“II. What David says—“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1)—as will be discussed below, refers specifically to those who destroy the natural light within themselves and deliberately settle into foolishness. We see that many people commit sins wantonly, become hardened in character, and strive to erase from their memory the idea of God that their own nature suggests to their hearts. To make their madness appear even more detestable, the psalmist describes them as openly denying God’s existence—not that they abolish His being, but that they strip Him of justice and providence, confining Him to heaven as an idle observer.

Since nothing is more contrary to God’s will than abandoning His governance of the world, surrendering it to fate, indulging human sin, and allowing people to sink into debauchery, anyone who feels no fear of divine judgment and is immersed in worldly pursuits is, in effect, denying the existence of God.”

This passage argues that those who are absorbed in pleasure, excess, and indulgence—who do not hold themselves to higher standards—tend not to believe in God. They rationalize their shortcomings, give in to desire, fear, jealousy, and so on, and describe this surrender as merely “natural law.”

By contrast, to believe in God is to hold oneself to a higher standard: to practice self-discipline daily and to offer oneself in service to others, much as Jesus died for the sins of the world. To give oneself to God is to trust Him to guide one’s path—to regard suffering, loss, and humiliation not as meaningless misfortune but as tasks entrusted by God.

This resembles the Chinese saying: “When Heaven is about to entrust a great responsibility to a person, it first tests their resolve, strains their body, starves their flesh, impoverishes their life, and frustrates their endeavors, so as to strengthen their heart and expand their capacities.” It also bears some resemblance to Buddhist ideas of compassion and saving all sentient beings.

“Once the wicked deliberately close their eyes, God darkens their hearts so that they have eyes but cannot see, as a righteous judgment (cf. Isaiah 6:9). David explains elsewhere: “The wicked say in their hearts, ‘I have no fear of God before my eyes’” (Psalm 36:1); and again, they delight in doing evil, thinking that God does not see them (cf. Psalm 10:11). Though they reluctantly acknowledge God’s existence, they deny His power and thus rob Him of His glory.

According to Paul’s testimony, God “cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Because He is unchanging, those who reduce Him to an empty, lifeless idol are truly denying God. Furthermore, although they strive to suppress their natural understanding and attempt to erase God even from heaven itself, their foolishness can never escape divine judgment. Their reckless defiance of God’s will and submission to blind impulse stem from their dull forgetfulness of God.”

The idea of God as unchanging brings to mind another constant: light. The speed of light remains unchanged under all conditions. Could light be understood as the gaze of God? This passage argues that those who knowingly deny God’s existence are embracing emptiness—but even so, they cannot escape divine judgment. Covering one’s eyes does not negate God’s existence.

“III. Thus, the futile defenses that many raise on behalf of their superstition are entirely overturned. They believe that no matter how absurd their practices may be, a little attention to religion is sufficient, failing to recognize that true religion must take God’s will as its permanent rule. God is immutable; He is not a phantom that shifts according to human imagination. It is easy to see that superstition, in attempting to please God, actually mocks Him through false worship.

Since superstition observes only what God despises, it either contemptuously neglects or openly rejects what God delights in. Those who worship God through newly invented methods are, in fact, worshiping the products of their own imagination. Without first fabricating a god that fits their own foolish and deceptive ideas, they would never dare to treat God so frivolously.”

This section distinguishes superstition from God: superstition misrepresents God. Superstition is fantasy; God is God.

“Therefore, Paul considers vague or unstable notions of God to be equivalent to not knowing God at all. He says, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods” (Galatians 4:8). Elsewhere he says that the Ephesians were “without God” (Ephesians 2:12), because they were outsiders to the true knowledge of the one true God. Whether one imagines one god or many is of little consequence; either way, one has deviated from and betrayed the true God. Having rejected Him, all that remains is a detestable idol. Thus, we must agree with Lactantius: a religion that does not conform to truth cannot be considered true.”

Thus, for Paul, those who lack absolute trust in God—who do not accept His omniscience, omnipotence, and ultimate authority—do not truly know God. Or rather, they have failed to grasp His fundamental importance.

IV. There is yet another sin: people think of God only against their will and would never approach Him unless compelled. When they come before Him, it is not from a voluntary reverence born of respect for His greatness, but from a servile fear driven by the inescapable reality of divine judgment. What Statius said—that belief in gods arose from fear—applies only to such irreverent people.

Those cut off from God’s justice long to overthrow the judgment they know was established to punish the wicked.

With such intentions, they oppose the Lord who holds authority over judgment. When they realize they cannot withstand His power, they tremble in terror. They observe certain religious forms so as not to appear wholly contemptuous of God’s awe-inspiring majesty, yet they continue to defile themselves, indulging in vice and repeatedly committing grave sins until they undermine God’s holy law and justice.

Their pretended fear of God does not prevent them from delighting in evil. They prefer the indulgence of the flesh to submission to the Spirit. Since this is merely a shadow of religious hypocrisy—hardly even worthy of being called an illusion—the difference between such a distorted notion of God and the genuine piety that resides in believers’ hearts is easy to discern.

Hypocrites who are far from God resort to superstitious tricks in order to feign loyalty. Though they ought to serve Him throughout their lives, they betray Him in nearly all their actions, hoping occasionally to appease Him with trivial offerings. Though they should serve Him with holy lives and sincere hearts, they invent petty and worthless rituals to seek His favor. They indulge even more deeply in immorality, believing they can discharge their obligations to God through laughable compensations.

In short, though they should trust in God, they forget Him and instead trust in themselves or other created things. Their errors accumulate until even the faint light that once revealed God’s glory is extinguished, finally swallowed by the darkness of sin. The awareness of God’s existence is an indestructible seed that always remains; but this seed has become corrupted and therefore produces only the worst fruit.

This further confirms my conclusion: the knowledge of God is naturally imprinted in the human heart, for even the wicked are compelled to acknowledge it. When at ease, they mock God and arrogantly diminish His power; but when crushed by despair, that despair drives them to seek God and forces them to pray—proving that they do not truly lack knowledge of God, but that the response which should have appeared long ago has merely been suppressed by stubbornness.“

This section is easy to understand, so I won’t explain it.

(To be continued)