Imagine standing in front of a brick wall, separated by only a few metres.  This wall represents belief in God. 

Some  atheists claim that belief in God is unjustified and not even possible because there is nothing to believe in.  Our image of the wall illustrates how this could be possible given that belief in God is something not yet arrived at.  The atheist is happy to stand where they are; they see no need to walk towards the wall.  Yet belief in God can never happen unless one is willing to walk towards the wall.  Belief in God is not an automatic instinct for our western world, and it is not hard to see why atheism thrives in our societies.  Atheism is a stance.  Even a so called believer who acknowledges the wall, yet refuses to walk towards it, is in someway atheistic in their stance.  Belief in God is not possible without some kind of human cooperation.  It requires human effort, a unique effort, which bears good fruit.  It is understandable to see why an atheist cannot believe in God.  This is impossible without effort.  It is like trying to find a set of keys without even looking!

There is another degree of atheism, however, which is much more sinister in its purpose.  This is the decision to actually turn ones back and walk the other way.  Only God knows who these people are and we do ourselves great harm if we believe we can judge otherwise.  We all live in darkness, but some of us have focused on the light.  These people however, must bear the actions of their own efforts.  As difficult as it is to make the claim, and somewhat paradoxically placed against the equally baffling revelation of universal salvation, we cannot deny the evidence pointing towards God’s justice in the scriptures of both Old and New.  As we are told in the following story from Matthew, there is a time when the good will be separated from the bad. 

He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’