Throughout the Bible, idolatry is frequently condemned. Psalm 14:1 clearly alludes to atheism, to the absence of the natural desire for the supernatural. This psalm gives a powerful description of a world without God — a world where believers must live, constantly threatened by disbelief.
The fool is the one who willfully denies dependence on God and His commandments. His actions are carried out in complete disregard for God’s majesty. For him, God seems powerless in the face of humanity’s deep corruption and therefore irrelevant. The fool chooses to live as if God has no involvement in daily life.
However, Psalm 14 triumphantly proclaims that a day will come when this foolishness will be exposed, and God’s people will rejoice.
History has shown that when humanity tries to banish God from society — as under Marxist-Sovietism or Nazism — it leads to catastrophe, with millions of lives lost. Today, we would be wise to think twice before banishing God from public life in the name of a blinding secularism.
Modern culture tends to present faith as a subjective feeling or psychological mechanism. In truth, faith is primarily a gift from God — a relationship anchored in Him, to which we respond freely and consciously.
Through faith, man experiences God as the foundation and center of existence. He perceives God more fully the more he desires Him. Indeed, God is the keystone of human life. If someone no longer perceives Him, they inevitably replace Him with something else.
This explains the proliferation of addictions: gambling, obsessive pleasure-seeking, endless consumption… The more attachments we have, the more grief we will endure.
We have imagined God as a mighty Jupiter or a magician. Yet He comes to us humbly — a helpless infant needing Joseph and Mary. He saves us by begging for our love. Not a sheriff who comes to punish, but a light who comes to illuminate. Not to watch us, but to watch over us.
How then do we find God? Not like a spider, spinning everything from itself. This is the illusion of radical autonomy in an individualistic society.
Some believe they can find God by looking only within themselves. But no — we must hear a Word that comes from elsewhere, receive a grace we cannot generate ourselves, enter into a mystery that must be revealed (cf. Eph 3:9).
Nor should we seek God like an ant, tirelessly gathering and hoarding anything and everything. Our modern world sells us happiness through accumulation and endless consumption.
Instead, we must seek God like the bee — drawing the best nectar from each flower with discernment. Not everything leads to God. Some things even draw us away from Him.
Thus, when we live under the illusion of invincibility, it is easy to forget the existence of a higher power — greater than fame, fortune, and success.
P. Joël Mambe
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