{"id":301,"date":"2012-03-31T15:59:28","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T19:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realbiblestudy.com\/?p=301"},"modified":"2012-03-31T15:59:28","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T19:59:28","slug":"causes-of-unbelief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/?p=301","title":{"rendered":"Causes of Unbelief"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

I have a book on my shelves by Dr. Wilbur M. Smith titled Therefore Stand<\/em>. The subtitle is: “A Plea for a Vigorous Apologetic in This Critical Hour of the Christian Faith.”<\/p>\n

Chapter 3 is titled “Some Reasons for the Unbelief of Men and Their Antagonism to God.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Wilbur Smith published this book in 1945. Most readers today might find his writing long-winded. I will therefore give only some of the chapter subheadings here, and perhaps a sentence from the text for a very few of them.<\/p>\n

But, in my own words, I find that the most significant reason for unbelief is that those who disbelieve the Bible know almost nothing about the Bible and what it says. Unbelievers disbelieve a caricature of the Bible and Christianity, not the Bible itself.<\/p>\n

Unbelievers have received what little knowledge of the Bible they think they have from sources that have “poisoned the well.”<\/p>\n

The cure for unbelief is a level-headed and careful study of the Bible itself. Read the Bible independently for yourself. I suggest you start with the New Testament book called the Gospel of John. If you have never read it repeatedly for yourself, it would help you to do so.<\/p>\n

Among the causes of unbelief Dr. Wilbur Smith discusses are:<\/p>\n

(1) Man fallen away from God has a bias against God.<\/p>\n

(2) The darkness of the mind of natural man.<\/p>\n

(3) The pride of man.<\/p>\n

(4) The determination to live without God.<\/p>\n

(5) Early manifestations of hatred to God.<\/p>\n

(6) Educational influences that by their character must create an attitude of skepticism.<\/p>\n

(7) The increasing supremacy of the material means the subordination of the spiritual.<\/p>\n

(8) The exaltation of science.<\/p>\n

There is a positiveness, definiteness, and promise about mathematical equations, physical laws, and chemical formulae, which make men feel that here their feet are on solid rock, that their minds are grappling with realities. But science is no synonym for spirituality, and the life of men is made up of more things than can be measured with test tubes and balances. Yet, man is so absorbed in the pursuit of nature’s secrets that he is increasingly ignorant of his inner spiritual life, and this is one of the tragedies of our day. Men engaged in science are themselves partly to blame for this. They devote days and nights, months, sometimes years, to the discovery of some one scientific fact, but they will not give twenty minutes a day to pondering the Word of God, nor five minutes a day to the exercise of their soul in prayer to God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(9) “Ye shall be as Gods.”<\/p>\n

(10) The relation of sin to unbelief.<\/p>\n

(11) “The connection between infidelity and sensuality.”<\/p>\n

…the whole history of free thought supports me in the statement, namely, that socialism, free-thinking, communism, skepticism, have generally been accompanied by what is definitely known today as infidelity or immorality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(12) Ignorance of the Word of God and of true Christianity a major cause of unbelief.<\/p>\n

One of the three greatest causes for men not accepting Jesus Christ as their Saviour is that they do not know who Christ is, what He said, what He has done; they know nothing of His glory and love, His grace, and power, and Godhead. If they do not know, they cannot believe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(13) Unbeief begets unbelief.<\/p>\n

(14) The will not to believe.<\/p>\n

(15) Demonic influences.<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a book on my shelves by Dr. Wilbur M. Smith titled Therefore Stand. The subtitle is: “A Plea for a Vigorous Apologetic in This Critical Hour of the Christian Faith.” Chapter 3 is titled “Some Reasons for the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[584,585,582,583],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics-issues-atheism","tag-apolegetics","tag-atheists-disbelieve-not-the-bible-but-its-caricature","tag-causes-of-unbelief","tag-dr-wilbur-smith-therefore-stand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realbiblestudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}