Is this what it's all about: keeping God at arms length (or further)? Practical atheism -- seeing as absolute atheism is so hard to sustain -- denies some aspect of God's nature or character.
Deny that he's the creator and then you can do all kinds of evil things and think you're okay. If he didn't create space, matter and time then who does he think he is barging into the cosmos, throwing his weight around, demanding people obey him and then damning to hell those who disagree. Totally unfair, right?
But consider Isaiah 6, Isaiah's vision of God. Judging himself correctly for the first time in his life in the presence of absolute holiness, he cries out, "Woe is me. I am undone." In my own words: I am demolished. Whatever righteousness I thought I possessed is worthless, futile, nothing! I can get by with comparing myself to other people because there's always someone more depraved than me. But here I am before God, the holy, fearsome, righteous God before whom my righteousness is like used bandages full of pus and clotted blood. And there's nowhere to hide. I see him seeing me, seeing all my imagined strength as the weakness it really is; seeing my righteousness as filthy; seeing my wisdom as the babbling of a baby.
And yet, rather than words of condemnation or reproach, atonement is made for Isaiah's sins and rather than being tossed aside he is commissioned for service. As the Psalm 51 says, "A broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise."
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