What is not considered unbelief

1. Being ignorant of truth is not unbelief.  Ignorance is only the absence of knowledge which is a blank.  The unbelief of the Bible that is everywhere represented as a horrible sin cannot be defined as ignorance though ignorance may be a result of unbelief.  It is not equal to unbelief.  A person can be ignorant of certain truths and for that there is no guilt but he may reject other truths for which there is guilt.  Simply put, ignorance is not unbelief.
2. Unbelief is not really the negation or absence of faith.  The absence of faith is a nonentity, a mere nothing and that could not be the abominable thing spoken of in scripture that will cause the curse of a soul in hell.
3. Unbelief is not something intellectual, such as skepticism which may come out of unbelief but is not identical with it, they are only the results of unbelief.  A man is not condemned by this type of skepticism aside from an underlying unbelief that causes it in the first place.  Pure skepticism of intellectual facts is not unbelief.  A person may lose this skepticism when more facts are presented.
4. Unbelief cannot be feelings of doubt or feelings of opposition to truth.  That is something based upon the emotions of the soul not the decisions of the will.  Many have emotional states and doubts that plague the mind and soul but there is no moral character or lack thereof in such emotions..  This type of feeling is more an involuntary state of the mind and is not what the Bible sternly denounces as unbelief.

Defining unbelief

The term, unbelief, as the Bible represents it, is a phenomena of the will and as a result it is considered to be a sin.  For unbelief to be a sin condemned by God it must be voluntary as a state of the will that is the opposite of faith.  Where faith is the reception of the will of truth, unbelief is a contrasting rejecting of truth.  Unbelief occurs when the soul, but more particularly the will, withholds confidence in truth and especially in the God of truth.  Unbelief occurs when the heart sees the evidence but it refuses to be influenced by it and consequently rejects it willingly.  It is where evidence is presented as a proffer in a legal case and then the will rejects that proffer and refuses to seek further evidence that would support the case.  Instead of, as they say, following the path of the evidence, unbelief will intellectually reject the path no matter where it leads purely as a decision of the will.  The mind receives light through the conscience and through the Holy Spirit who moves on the heart through various circumstances and instances in the heart and life of a person.  When that mind sees what is light and truth but still refuses to follow the path of truth but stubbornly resists and willingly rejects what others see as evidence, then it is unbelief.  When it comes to infidelity as it respects unbelief, the infidel sees what others accept as light and they take special pains to shut their eyes to the obvious.  Atheists are that way.  I once had lengthy correspondence with an atheist to the point that I sent him many powerful scientific facts that pointed to the existence of a creator as opposed to evolution, but he was so set in his opposition to God, that I finally asked him a question that exposes his reasons.  I asked if he were married, he said no, that he was living with a woman outside of marriage.  Immediately it became apparent that his opposition to the truth was an attempt to keep his guilt for living an immoral life from affecting his peace of mind.  He chose not to see the obvious scientific evidence so that he could continue to live in his state of self-gratification with an unholy sexual relationship.  It really had nothing to do with skeptical doubts of the intellect at all.  It was a choice that he could not accept the truth or his life style would be exposed to his conscience and that could not be tolerated in his own mind.

The implications of unbelief

1. The first implication of unbelief is that light has been presented and there is a perception of the truth in the mind.  If unbelief were just a negation, an inactive state of the will, it would not suggest that the truth had been perceived and the light had shown.  An example of this is the culture of certain places in the world where there is no gospel presentation so the people of that culture cannot be guilty of unbelief in something of which they have never heard.  The Bible talks about just that:

Romans 10:14  “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”

The heathen have no light of the gospel so they cannot reject it.  The guilt of the heathen is not that of rejecting the gospel but that rejecting the only light that they have, namely nature.  That is the thing that also condemns an atheist, by the way.

Romans 1:19-22  “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.  (20)  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:  (21)  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  (22)  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,”

This type of unbelief is not rejection of the Gospel but rejection of the light that is revealed.  My father was a missionary in the primitive areas of Africa for many years and he said that the Natives, primitive as they were, know that the false “god” that they worshiped was “Satana.”  They were very aware of evil spirits.  He also tells of a tribe that found a small portion of the Bible and it became their foundation for belief until a missionary came that revealed more truth to them which they also received.  God gave them more light because they received the light that they had.

1. The next implication of unbelief is that of obstinate selfishness.  It may be only one aspect of selfishness but as we have seen previously, it is still the spirit of self-seeking.  The will has committed itself to self gratification and self indulgence.  So when we come to defining unbelief, we are saying that selfishness is applied to revelations regarding the truth of God.  To be unbelief, there must be a resistance to revealed truth about God as they are revealed to the intellect and to the spirit.  We have already discussed how the spirit of a man knows things that cannot be explained in the rational world, but they are true non-the-less.  We have also talked about truths that have the requirement of evidence to back them up.  When a person rejects both types of truth, with strong evidence that gives light to the truth, it is unbelief. The intellect cannot remain neutral when light is shown into the mind and heart.  They must either accept the truth or willingly reject it.  Unbelief is a selfish obstinate attitude that refuses to yield to obvious truth and that for purely selfish reasons.
2. Unbelief implies the existence in the life of the individual of total depravity.  If truth is presented and the heart rejects only for selfish reasons, there is no other explanation but that it was sin present in the life.  No one can conform to the law and will of God when there is a resistance to known truth present in the life.

Romans 7:19-23  “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.  (20)  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.  (21)  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.  (22)  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:  (23)  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”

1. To take unbelief further, it is the rejection of all truth that is perceived to be inconsistent with their own selfish wishes and desires and they know it..  They would only receive truth if it were for selfish reasons.  When this is done, it is not faith.  The reason is that when more truth comes to the selfish person which they cannot apply to their soul for selfish reasons they will reject it, thus proving that they were receiving only part of the truth as it suited their own selfish tastes and desires.
2. We have previously shown that where there is one selfish trait that all are equally present in various degrees and forms.  Some are yet undeveloped but they are still there.  All sinners are guilty of unbelief and the degree of that unbelief is in direct proportion to their selfishness in rejecting the various amounts of light that they have received.  In heathen lands, they reject the light of nature and in Christian lands they reject the truth of the Gospel message.  Unbelief in any man is such that the heart is not only void of all good but filled with every form of sin as well.  These forms of sin are in the heart of the unbeliever awaiting the right occasion to burst forth on the scene in their life in all the ugliness of horrid manifestation and iniquity.  This is why those who follow Islam are all like loaded cannons.  It is not that they are “criminals” or “murderers” but that they have all the traits of selfishness that is part of their religion where  their fake wanabe “god” Allah asks them to kill in his unholy name.  A real God could never request that of his subjects since he binds himself under the same law of love that we have discussed in this book.  For that reason, any self centered Islamic believer is a bomb ready to go off.  No one knows when they will want to answer the ultimate of all selfish desires, that of dying in order to be in “Paradise” with a host of beautiful maidens will become the over powering desire and motivate them to take the ultimate religious step, suicide in an act of killing as many “heretics” as they can.  It is only a matter of time with anyone that has not the God of Love as their ultimate end, Jesus Christ.
3. Unbelief also implies a degree of rejection of truth perceived so that the greater the truth, the more evil the rejection of that truth.  Thus the degree of the unbelief is directly proportional to the degree of the light revealed and ultimately rejected by the unbeliever.
4. Similarly, unbelief implies that the degree of guilt is in direct proportion to the degree of light and rejection of light and truth.  We will discuss that in another area.
5. Impenitence is implied by the state of unbelief.  The mark of a penitent soul is that as truth is revealed, it is also received.  There is an eagerness to continually embrace more and more truth as it is revealed which brings joy and peace to the soul.  When unbelief is present, there may be a semblance of belief in one or two areas, but eventually the true nature of the heart is revealed by the final rejection of all truth that is not in the best selfish interest of the professing believer.  He is really an unbeliever after all.
6. Unbelief implies enmity against God, resistance to the truth, and a distinct dislike and resistance to the very government of the God of truth.

10.  Unbelief not only implies enmity against God, but mortal enmity against God.  It wants nothing of the truth and authority of God so much so that it is actually opposed to the very existence of God, the God of truth.  Unbelief is like a cancer that would annihilate not only truth, but the very God of truth if it were possible.  A perfect example of this is the rejection, betrayal, and eventual execution of the very Man of Truth, Jesus Christ.  The unbelief of the religious leaders and of Judas reached its ultimate end, the death of the loving Son of God.  Unbelievers of our day would do the same thing.  Islam is not against Israel because they have done so many heinous acts against them, they are against Israel because they are the nation that represents the true God and the one through whom Jesus Christ came to earth.  It is the ultimate rejection of revealed truth which, in many instances, culminates in the suicide of one and the innocent deaths of others as a result.  Even those that don’t go so far, non-religious people included are just as guilty of the blood of Christ and are guilty of the murder of God’s Son on the cross by their very rejection of the truth about Him.

11.  Unbelief thus implies a supreme enmity against God.  The greater the revealed light and subsequent rejection of that light, the greater the enmity against the God of light.  This cannot but grow and become more supreme until it means a person would gladly rather be in hell than in any proximity to the God of truth in heaven.  Some even brag about their friends and the party they will have in hell.  What a pity.

12.  Again, unbelief implies a degree of wickedness that is as great as it can be for the amount of rejection and truth involved in the present time in a person’s life.  It is resistance to the truth and refusal to receive benevolence for any reason.  Just as the highest degree of virtue is complete love to God and others, so the highest degree of unbelief is hatred of God and one’s neighbor.  It becomes the all consuming passion, that of fulfilling all wickedness  in order to refuse to conform to any truth that God has revealed.  It rejects duty completely and tramples on all moral obligation.

13.  Further, this rejection of truth and of god is actually charging God with being a liar.  We have a similar thing in our country where one political party has accused the President of the United States with being a liar about going to war. The bible says,

1 John 5:10  “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.”

14.  Unbelief is actually a state of lying.  Unbelief is the greatest of all lies.  Unbelief declares in the face of all light and all truth, which it knows to be true, that the Gospel is a lie and that the Author, God, is a liar as well.  Is that not a lie in and of itself, to call God a liar?

15.  Consequently, unbelief implies a reckless disregard of all rights and interests of every one else except for self.

16.  Unbelief implies the contempt and trampling under of the law, the relations to moral law, and even the conscience of the spirit within.

17.  Finally, unbelief not only is a lie of itself, but it embraces the opposite of truth, the ultimate lie that one can live without God.  This is what caused Satan to fall and become the father of all liars.  When one rejects God, they are actually rejecting the father of liars Satan himself.  Rejecting of truth implies the accepting of error.  In conclusion, we state that on every occasion where the truth of God is revealed, if it is rejected there is a complete commitment to the whole root of sin in the life, selfishness.

Conditions that exist in both faith and unbelief

1. Both faith and unbelief require reason, the ability to have intuitive knowledge in both the mind and spirit.  The spirit makes a priori affirmations concerning God to the mind and without such affirmations neither faith as a virtue or unbelief as a vice would be possible.  For example, when we admit that the Bible is a revelation come from God, one could ask the question, why should we believe the Bible?  Why should we receive and believe the testimony of God?  The answer would be that since veracity is an attribute of God then we must believe His word because He always speaks the truth.  Now someone will ask, how do we know that He always speaks the truth?  Anyone would think that we cannot know this just based upon the testimony of his words.  The question would logically be, why should we believe that His words are worthy enough to be received without doubt?  Just because God claims to tell the truth does not necessarily prove it.  His statements are not proof in themselves in the realm of providing evidence through demonstration.  In order to deduce the truthfulness of God by a syllogistic process, one must assume the very truth which they are trying to prove.  This is where a priori truths come into the picture and the facts regarding the spirit of man that we discussed early on in this book.  In a similar way to the fact that we know time and space exist with no logical process needed in proof of such truth, we all also know that God speaks the truth in the same intuitive manner.  Yes, there are assertions in the Word of God that prove this and also facts in history to support it, but when you get to the basic premise, God is Truth, the atheists of the world can see the same facts that a Christian does and with overwhelming evidence that proves the existence of God they will deny His very existence and even demand that one prove to them that there is such a thing as God.  Two people will see the same facts, one will believe and the other will disbelieve with the same intuitive pull upon their spirit.  It becomes a choice of the basest sort.  This choice is what makes up the difference between faith and unbelief.  What we are saying here is that both the believer and the non-believer have equal intuition regarding the facts but the unbeliever has chosen to reject his intuition of the spirit and accept only the logic of his mind or the physical facts without the added intuition of the spirit to support those facts.  One of the strongest evidences concerning the veracity of  God is that when a statement is made that God said something, the general consensus of the human race is to accept it as truth just because he said it.  It is an a priori fact.  Time exists, space exists, God exists, and he speaks the truth. All are a priori. I could go on the internet or the national media and make statements that there is no such thing as time or the space does not exist.  It would not alter the fact that all human beings live with the assumption that time and space exist and  based upon this basic premise, many other facts and truths fall into place.  It is the same thing with truths concerning God.  An atheist knows the same a priori truths concerning God that a believer does and yet he chooses to deny the intuition that he has been given.  It is the acceptance of this intuition that is considered virtue and the denial of this intuition that is considered vice.  If there were no intuition, there could be no virtue or vice.  An animal has no spirit and as such has no comprehension of the unseen being, God.  Man does and so we are without excuse.  It is our choice to accept or reject the promptings of our own conscience and the influence of our spirit.
2. One of the greatest conditions of both faith and unbelief must be a revelation of the truth and will of God to the spirit.  One cannot be totally ignorant and have faith.  In the same way, one cannot be totally ignorant and have unbelief since unbelief is rejecting the truth that others have received with the same truth presented to their spirits equally.  The light has shined and some have chosen to accept the light which constitutes faith.  Others have chosen to reject the light which is unbelief.  This can be seen even in the life of Jesus where some saw the miracles and believed and others saw them and said he had a devil and ended up shouting “Crucify him…” as Jesus was put on trial before Pilate.
3. When it comes to truths that can be discerned only through divine illumination, we would have to assert that this very illumination is a condition of both faith and unbelief.  The Holy Spirit reveals truth to the soul and even though it is rejected, it is still lodged in the mind and the source may be gone but the truth is still what was revealed originally.  That truth can be resisted in an ongoing act of unbelief but it was still brought to the mind by illumination or it could not have been rejected.
4. Intellectual perception of that which the spirit reveals is also a condition of the belief of the heart.  In order for the spirit to make truth clear to the mind, the intellect must comprehend what the spirit is revealing in order to present this type of evidence so that one may either believe or reject the truth.  This intellectual perception of the revelation of the spirit is, there fore, a condition of both faith and unbelief.  Before a person can believe, they must have an intuition that is fully comprehended by the intellect so that they can make a choice to believe what has been revealed and understood by the mind.  In the same way, before a person can disbelieve, they must have the same intuition that is fully comprehended by the intellect so that they can make an intelligent choice to disbelieve the truth as presented by the spirit and understood by the mind.  This means that the unbeliever has denied and attempted to refute that which was revealed to his spirit, understood by his intellect so that in his heart he assumes it to be true and then he willfully rejects that which his heart asserts as truth and he would rather reject that truth by conscious choice of the opposite.

The guilt and ill-desert of unbelief

We have already seen that the guilt of sin and unbelief is exposed by the very fact that it is committed with the same light and intellectual understanding of the revelations of the spirit that are present in one who believes.  This means that when a person purposefully rejects the knowledge of salvation they are doing it with a full understanding that they are rejecting the truth and they are choosing rather to believe a lie.  The same measure of the light that is present when a person rejects the truths concerning God is also the measure of the guilt that condemns them for their unbelief.  While all sin has this quality, it is strongly demonstrated in the sin of unbelief which is actually rejection of the very light that others see in the act of faith.  This is selfishness to the highest degree, it is rejecting known truth for selfish purposes.  The degree of guilt is directly linked to the degree of light rejected.  This is the clear teaching of the Bible.

When we speak of light, we speak of truth.  When light is received it means that truth is known or perceived.  First truths of reason are truths that are known by all moral agents universally so that when the will refuses to act according to any first truth then it is guilty of unbelief.  The spirit of every man knows intuitively that there is infinite value in the highest well-being of God and of the universe so that it is obvious that a moral agent must embrace the truth as a condition of promoting this great end.  When viewed in this context, unbelief implies infinite guilt and blameworthiness.  There may be varying degrees, but it is still unbelief, none-the-less.

Natural and governmental consequences of faith and unbelief

Natural consequences are those that flow from the inward thought  of the mind and governmental are those that relate to the administration of moral government with its constitution and laws.

1. Faith brings peace to the conscience.  When the will receives truth and yields, the conscience is satisfied and a man begins to be at peace with himself.   The soul can now respect itself and live life without a blush as it were.  There must be this faith in perceived truth as a condition of man being at peace with himself..  The governmental consequence is peace with God:

l  Now God is satisfied, the soul has obeyed.  The soul has yielded to the influence of the truth, to be influenced by it, comprising all duty.

l  Faith also results in peace with God in the sense that it is a condition of pardon and acceptance.  The penalty of the law for  sins has been satisfied because of the faith in Jesus Christ.  Though God forgives all sins, past, present, and future, the soul needs present and future obedience to be at peace with itself.  Justification will be discussed later on in this work.

1. Unbelief brings self-condemnation.  This is a natural law of the mind and spirit.  The conscience condemns and the mind cannot justify the fact that it has rejected known truth.  This is especially true of truths that relate to obedience of a moral agent.  Since the highest well being of God and the universe are neglected, God must condemn and abhor such unbelief because it seeks to undermine the very well being of God and of the universe as a whole.  Governmentally there must be a legal condemnation since no government can justify the rejection of known truth, especially when it relates to the obedience of the subject to and the highest well being of the ruler of the government.  God must condemn and abhor all unbelief, and the conscience condemns such rejection and pronounces its own judgment against it as well.
2. A holy life is an obedient life and by a natural law it is the life of faith.  Since faith is an act of the will that controls the life, it follows that when the heart receives truth, the life will be conformed to it.
3. An unholy life is a disobedient life and by a natural law it is the life of unbelief.  If the heart rejects truth, the act of will that controls the life will also conform to the state of unbelief that rejected the truth.
4. Faith in the life will also develop every form of virtue in heart and life as certain situations arise.  The reason is that faith is the act of committing the will to truth and to the God of truth.  Thus, as various situations arise, faith will seek the truth for every situation and on all subjects.  The result will be that every form of virtue will have been formed in the heart and will manifest itself in the life of the individual.
5. Unbelief, on the other hand will develop resistance to the truth on every subject of life, especially if there is a conflict with self-interest or self-gratification.  The result will be that every form of self interest will manifest itself in the life since the ultimate end of self-gratification knows no limits in its creativity in reaching that ultimate end.  Every form of selfish that exists will manifest itself in one way or another in order to achieve that ultimate end.  Interestingly enough, there are times when one form of selfishness will cause other forms to cease to exist as a means to the ultimate end of self-gratification.  A selfish state of religious attitude will necessarily exclude attitudes inconsistent with that attitude but it is still selfishness after all.
6. Faith obtains help from God who loves to help any who will come to Him by faith and He remains ready to hear and answer their prayers.  God even helps those who have no faith out of his own character, but his protection and aid are given to those who are obedient to the laws of faith.
7. Faith is a condition that results in heart-obedience to God’s commands.  No one could honestly give up their whole being in obedience to God without confidence in him.  It is a sign of universal faith when there is universal obedience since confidence in God results in this kind of obedience.
8. Unbelief, on the other hand naturally and necessarily results in heart disobedience to God.

10.  Faith also results in lovely and delightful emotions and states of feeling that can be seen in one who has embraced Christ as Savior and Lord.  These are emotions associated with the action of the will and with believing the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

11.  On the other hand, unbelief results in emotions of remorse, regret, pain, and agony – the frequent experience of an unbeliever.

12.  Faith lets God into the soul and spirit to reign there.  It receives the atonement and work of mediator that Christ performs as the Redeemer, and it also receives Christ as king on the throne of the heart, securing communion with God.

13.  Unbelief shuts God out from the soul, it refuses to have Him reign in the heart.  It also shuts the soul out from the work of Christ as mediator and from a life of communion with God.

These are just hints of natural and governmental consequences of faith and unbelief and do not exhaust the subject.  One may pursue these thoughts to further conclusions.  Along this vein of thought, we remark that none of the ways, commandments, or appointments of God are arbitrary.  He always conforms himself to the same moral law as is required of moral creatures.  Unbelief makes salvation impossible both naturally and governmentally.  God could never arbitrarily save one who has unbelief controlling his life.  He can only conform to the law of faith and unbelief, nothing more.