The Unknown God | Sunday, August 8, 2021

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you... that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us." (Acts 17)

What can creation, consciousness, and conscience tell us about the God the Athenians called "unknown"—and why is He not unknowable?

From Persecutor to Preacher

In about 36 A.D., a Jewish rabbi named Saul experienced a radical conversion to Christianity. I say radical because of the context. Saul was on a mission to persecute Jewish converts living in the ancient city of Damascus in Syria. This put him in direct opposition to his own mentor, the rabbi known in history as Gamaliel the Elder, the leading authority in the Sanhedrin, the religious ruling council of Judaism in Jerusalem.

When the Christian movement first began in the early 30s A.D., it began among Jews in Jerusalem, and the Sanhedrin initially sanctioned a shutdown of this new movement. But Gamaliel spoke wisdom to the council. In Acts 5, as they wanted to put early leaders like Peter and John to death, he said:

Men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men... keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.

Saul was Gamaliel's student, but he didn't heed that counsel. He set out to destroy this movement of people following a crucified man from Nazareth. Yet while on his mission to Damascus, he encountered the very Jesus who had been crucified. Jesus was not dead—He had risen, just as His followers said. In glory and power, He appeared to Saul and asked, in Acts 9, why Saul was persecuting Him.

In that moment, Saul of Tarsus was converted. Not long after, he became known as Paul, and the one who formerly persecuted Christians began to preach the very faith he once tried to destroy. It's one of those amazing transformation stories you'd expect to become a feature film. Paul went on to be one of Christianity's greatest missionaries and one of the foremost authors of Scripture—13 New Testament books are attributed to him.

Paul Comes to Athens

About a decade after his aborted mission as a persecutor, Paul went on his first missionary journey with Barnabas, bringing the gospel to the region called Galatia—the cities of Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe (Acts 13). A short time later he went with Silas on a second journey into Macedonia and Greece (Acts 16). It's one of the most fascinating sequences in Scripture to follow.

On that second journey, Paul went to Athens and spoke to the intelligentsia of Greece at the Areopagus. You can still see this very rock outcropping in the ruins of ancient Athens today. Two thousand years and many thousands of miles removed, I believe Paul's message there is an important one for us.

I once thought—and even taught—that Paul's message in Acts 17 was less than effectual. After Athens he went to Corinth, and his methodology seems to have changed, as if he decided his approach to the philosophers hadn't worked. In one way that may still be true, but I don't think it's good to minimize the importance of what Paul said in Athens. His Athenian discourse was important 2,000 years ago, and I think it is at least as important—maybe more—for the cultural moment we find ourselves in today. This month we're stepping back to revisit the basics of our faith, and I want to key in on this passage.

The Religious Impulse Toward Transcendence

Humans throughout all of history, in every place and under virtually every culture, have looked out at this world and concluded that there is something more than what we can see or perceive on the surface. Even in this postmodern, science-saturated, hyper-technical culture of the 21st century, we want to get beneath the surface, beyond the bubble of this universe, to see what is behind it.

Why do we do this? Why is there this impulse toward transcendence—what some call a religious impulse? No matter our background or culture, at virtually every time in human history we conclude there is more to reality than what our senses perceive. Study ancient cultures like the Greeks, and you see this impulse acutely. You have to wrestle with that question. Even atheists and those focused on science as the answer for everything have to wrestle with it—and they don't always have the greatest answers.

The biblical answer is rather simple. Four thousand years ago, King David observed it in Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

Theologians call this general revelation. Paul writes about it in Romans 1:

What may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

The Bible answers why we have this impulse by saying that creation, consciousness (our awareness of life), and conscience all beg us to look deeper—deeper than subatomic particles, fermions, and neutrinos, and further than black holes and dark matter. God made us and everything in such a way that we would be compelled to seek. This is exactly what Paul says in Acts 17:27—God did this so "that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us."

Why We Default to the Wrong Conclusions

Here is the problem—and according to the Bible there is a reason for it. When we are confronted with the evidence of creation, consciousness, and conscience, we default to the wrong conclusions. Back in Romans 1, after saying the invisible things of God are clearly seen, Paul writes:

Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

The problem isn't the stunning evidence; the evidence is there. The problem is that, when presented with it, we stand in awe of these things and of human ingenuity rather than the God who made them. As Paul continues in Romans 1:25, we "exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."

The Unknown God of Athens

This is exactly what the people of Athens did. Right above the Areopagus where Paul spoke is the most prominent feature of the city, visible from everywhere—the Acropolis, the center of Athenian worship, scattered with temples and altars. The Athenians believed the world was governed by a pantheon of gods: Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena (for whom the city was named), Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Dionysus, and more.

But they were concerned there might be other gods they had forgotten or missed. So, in case they overlooked one, they even built an altar—Paul mentions it in Acts 17—to the unknown god. That's what I want us to consider: the unknown God.

Though we consider ourselves advanced and progressive in 2021, we still worship the same things the Athenians did. We just call them by different names and worship them in different ways. The gods of Greece had different names in Rome and have different names today, but they're basically the same things people are in awe of, the things people think govern the world or believe they must give themselves to in order to succeed.

So Paul said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious." We really are no different. Even someone at work or school who says they don't believe in God is still very religious. In our seeking, we tend to arrive at the wrong destinations. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. You tried to find transcendence, peace, meaning, or fulfillment—your consciousness and conscience compelled you to look for something bigger—but you came to many wrong conclusions along the way.

Why General Revelation Is Insufficient

Why, though everything compels us to seek, do we find ourselves in the wrong place? Because as good as the evidence of creation, consciousness, and conscience is, it is incomplete. General revelation is powerful but insufficient.

We spend billions of dollars and tremendous human capital studying creation, consciousness, and conscience, and our studies have yielded amazing things. This universe is awesome, and we keep making remarkable discoveries. But as the wise philosopher Bono observed, we still haven't found what we're looking for. The greatest answers are not found in the box or bubble of this cosmos—the answer transcends it.

Not only is the evidence insufficient, but the instruments we use to study it—our brains, our abilities—are broken and faulty. We tend toward wrong conclusions because of wrong motives and wrong presuppositions. Consider one example: the evidence for design is phenomenal. The fine-tuning of the universe, the complexity of DNA, the structure in physics all look intentional, intelligently and teleologically designed—designed with a purpose. But if you come to these things with the presupposition that there is no God, as much of the scientific community does, your conclusions will always be off. Even when you find fine-tuning or apparent design, you assume it can't possibly be God, because your conclusion was settled beforehand. We like to say "follow the science," but often we don't.

So the evidence can be insufficient, and those assessing it—you and me—are broken and biased. We need something more than general revelation. Yet general revelation is still wonderful: it can tell us there is something more, and that we should expect certain things about that something more, even if it gives us an incomplete understanding of what it is.

What General Revelation Does Reveal

If we are careful and sincere in our search, we will discover the true and greatest truths of reality. General revelation reveals several important things. First, that God is—that He exists. Second, that God is powerful, with the resources and ability to make everything we see. Imagine what kind of power a God would need to make all of this. Third, that God is intelligent—He knows how to put everything together. At the very least, then, general revelation reveals that God is, that He is powerful, and that He is intelligent.

Furthermore, from creation, consciousness, and conscience, we can infer what this God is like. From our conscience—our innate sense of right and wrong—we infer that He is moral. This is a real challenge for the atheistic community: where do we get this moral sensibility? I'd suggest it tells us something about the Creator. From our being gripped by beauty, we infer that He loves beauty. From the fact that we thrive in relationship, we infer that He is relational, and that He wants to be known, to love and be loved, because His likeness is imprinted upon us. There are many more things we could infer, but my goal is to introduce you to the unknown God.

He is the unknown God Paul speaks of in Acts 17. Paul is aiming to help the intelligentsia of his day know who this God is, what He is like, and why they should know Him. And though God is the unknown God, He is not unknowable. Many people still don't know Him, and that's exactly what Paul endeavored to make clear in Athens:

Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious... the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you.

Why I Believe in God

Several years ago someone asked me, "Why do you believe in God?" Everything I've shared came to mind. Creation, consciousness, and conscience tell me there is a Creator who exists, who is powerful, and from whom I can infer that He is true, good, beautiful, and loving.

Since both the Bible and science tell us this universe is not eternal—that it had a beginning, however differently they describe it—notice the implications. Buddhism is out, because it believes everything is eternal. Since God must exist independently of a universe that had a beginning, Hinduism is out, because its gods exist within this cosmos. If God is loving, as Scripture reveals and as your conscience makes you aware, then Islam is out. If God is moral, as your strong moral sensibilities suggest, then the pagan gods—Dionysus, Athena, and the rest—are out, because they were not moral.

All of these things are as they are because they are meant to stir you and me to seek, just as Acts 17 says—so that we might grope for the Lord in the dark and find Him, and in Him find the answers to life's biggest questions.

The Questions Only Christianity Answers

What are the biggest questions every person wrestles with, even alone? The question of identity: who am I? Purpose: why am I here? Origin: where did I come from? Destiny: where do I go after this? Truth: what is true? Morality: what is right? Goodness and beauty: what is good and beautiful? Every worldview and philosophy must give adequate answers to these.

And it's not only the right answers that matter, but the right solutions to our most challenging problems. We live in a world that is not perfect—a world of suffering, evil, and wickedness. Any coherent and compelling worldview must address both the deep questions and these deep problems. I want to suggest that only Christianity answers these questions and brings solutions that are both coherent and compelling.

Going Back to the Basics

Next week we'll move further into Acts 17 and consider what happens as we move away from general revelation—the heavens declaring the glory of God—into what theologians call special revelation. What do we learn about God as we move from observation and inference to revelation?

This series is called First Things First. Last week I made the case for why we need to go back to the basics; now we're looking at what the basics are—why we believe there is a God, what it means that He exists, and how He reveals Himself. Just as Esther's cousin said, "for such a time as this," I believe God has a work for us to do. People in our lives who don't yet know the unknown God have real questions, and we need to be able to articulate answers.

My encouragement is to read through Acts 17, beginning around verse 22, slowly, carefully, and prayerfully over this next week. As we look at creation, conscience, and consciousness, we begin to see that God is, that He is powerful and intelligent, and that He is relational, loving, good, moral, true, and beautiful. These are the important truths we need to grasp as those who believe in Him and follow Him.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would take these things and stir interest in whoever is listening to or watching this message—that we would begin to open the pages of Scripture and be a little more thoughtful about what we know about You and why we believe You exist. God, reveal Yourself to us through Your creation; the heavens show forth Your glory. Lord, help us to come to know You, because You are not unknown insofar as You desire to be distant from us. You desire that we would know You and have a relationship with You. So I pray that we would move away from not knowing You—because we've not looked into these things—and that as we look into them we would get to know who You are and how You've revealed Yourself to us. For we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.