For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe (1 Corinthians 1:21).
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:21).
I am attempting to put a couple of things together this morning in my mind. 1 Corinthians tells us that nobody in the world knows God. It is only through the preached word of the gospel that people come to know the true God. And then in the Romans passage, it tells us that everybody in the world knows God.
These are my thoughts: The Romans passage is telling us that there is enough evidence in creation to show all people that the true God exists. Nobody (after they leave this earth) will be able to stand before God and tell him that they had no idea he was real, or that they needed to come to him in repentance and faith. God has placed evidence of himself in all of creation. He has placed himself in mans conscience, He has placed himself in the land, the sky, and the animals. The creation screams that there is a designer behind all that we see. It only takes 3 seconds to glance up at the moon at night and wonder how it stays there, or to look at the sun and wonder how a ball of fire does not get any closer and destroy us. So in this sense, all people know God.
The Corinthians passage is telling us that no man can come to know God in a saving, intimate, adoptive, and fatherly way on their own. I can not reason from the general revelatory display of God in creation, to a personal God who loves me, and adopts me as his son. I can not be saved on my own. I can not get to heaven without someone telling me the specific revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in this way, nobody knows God. No amount of human wisdom can make me right with God, and get me to heaven.
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