OnTaking Atheism Seriously (Part 1)

Christians think many things of atheism. But from my experience most Christians do not think atheism is intellectually serious. The main reason, it would seem, derives from certain conclusions drawn from scripture, most significantly from Romans 1:

"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." (20-21)

In this passage Paul seems to say that all human beings know there is a God, and so the extent to which they reject belief in God reflects a refusal to submit to the God they already know exists.

Let's back up to verse 18: "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness...." This is the group that is being specifically discussed in verses 20-21, a group of godless and wicked human beings. So the question: is someone who affirms the proposition "There is no God" de facto godless and wicked?

Imagine a young man named Hans who is born in Germany in 1925. Hans grows up in an insular, intolerant Lutheran church through which he comes to associate "God" with dead orthodoxy, legalism, and racism ... particularly against the Jews.

On Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938) Hans sees the neighborhood synagogue burned to the ground and a number of Jews, including some trusted friends, beaten in the streets (even children and grandmothers) and then deported to concentration camps. That Sunday Hans' pastor preaches a blazing sermon on the righteous judgment of God against the Jews. 

Over the next several years Hans witnesses Germany descend into an orgy of genocidal violence with the widespread support of the Lutheran church. For all Hans can see, the Third Reich and Christianity are inextricably linked. This leaves Hans deeply conflicted. He wants to believe there is a God, but the only God he has known is one that approves the slaughter of grandmothers and toddlers.

Finally, in 1944 he meets a group of anti-Nazi insurgents who have renounced belief in God altogether. After deep reflection Hans tentatively concludes with the members of this group that there is no God. And he vows to fight the demonic oppression of the Third Reich alongside them so that he may save as many Jews as he can.

Hans is now an atheist. That is, he believes the proposition "There is no God." Is he therefore one of those Paul denounces as godless and wicked?