Augustine on the Folly of Human Arrogance (1)

[The natural philosophers’] irreligious pride makes them withdraw from you [God] and eclipse your great light from reaching themselves. They can foresee a future eclipse of the sun, but do not perceive their own eclipse in the present. For they do not in a religious spirit investigate the source of the intelligence with which they research into these matters. Moreover, when they do discover that you are their Maker, they do not give themselves to you so that you may preserve what you have made [namely, themselves]. They do not kill their own pride, their curiosity, their sexual indulgence, so that you, God, who are a devouring fire, may consume their mortal concerns and recreate them into immortality.

—Augustine, Confessions, 5.3.4

The more things change, the more they remain the same. I cannot help but think of the militant atheists, who in their arrogance, attempt to propagate their message of death by denying and attempting to debunk the Christian faith (or any faith for that matter). From this passage from Augustine, folks like today’s militant atheists apparently have been around for a long time since Augustine lived in the 4th century.

Couched in terms of rationalism and reason, their own arrogance cuts them off from the Source of their life. Not all atheists are arrogant, of course, but the most vocal give every appearance to be. Like Paul, I listen to their lies and weep because their arrogance and smug pseudo-intellectualism are the very mechanisms of their destruction. Surely, God weeps for them too because he created humans to have a relationship with him and does not want any to perish. This is why believers should pray each day for any and all enemies of the cross because we should love them enough to want them to enjoy life, now and forever.