‘The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.’ Romans 1.18-21 (NIV)
I still remember the first time I was confronted with those words. In response to a question from a university friend about the fate of those who have never heard about Jesus I breezily asserted that, since God is good and loving, he would definitely save all of them. An older, wiser Christian took me aside and simply pointed me to Romans 1: ‘since what may be known about God is plain to them…people are without excuse.’ To be honest, I didn’t instinctively warm to the idea that everyone who denies the existence of God is suppressing the truth by their wickedness. Rather, I was tempted to avoid the claims of Romans 1 by finding a different explanation for unbelief. What I’ve only come to understand recently is that the uncritical adoption of the concept of worldview risks succumbing, even if inadvertently, to precisely that temptation.
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