What puts all men on equal footing in relation to God so that they are without excuse, is the fact creation testifies to God and fits with the eternity in the heart. By this, creation’s testimony can be understood as not only a testimony to God’s existence but also as revealing something of the nature of God. One can deny, reject, or ignore this but it cannot be erased from the human heart.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart. . . .” Solomon tells us there is order in what God has created, that is, everything is beautiful in its time. Furthermore, God has put eternity in man’s heart as part of what it means to be a human being.

As a person’s cognitive and moral abilities develop they become aware that there is something beyond the physical realm. It is innate, which means it is present at conception, and it is a mental impulse of the eternal, which is beyond and above the natural but not contrary to it. This awareness of the eternal does not come through inference or implication; it is present in man by God’s creative design. Eternity is imprinted on the heart of all human beings.

This mark of the eternal is part of being made in the image of God and in conjunction with creation it testifies of God revealing that eternity is not a place but a Person. The Apostle Paul writes, “For what can be known of God is plain in them, because he has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Ro 1:19-21). The triune creator God reveals himself in what he has created, and this corresponds to the idea of the eternal stamped on the heart of man.

As Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth. And their words to the end of the world” (1-4). The voice of creation speaks to the reality of the eternal so that what is seen fits with that part of man the Bible calls eternity in their hearts. Metaphorically, creation and eternity in the heart are like “hand and glove”. It is not that man must reason to God, by inference, it is imprinted on the heart of all men enabling them to read creation as a testimony to its Creator. Without the placement of eternity in the heart, no man would see the Person of eternity in creation. Man does not create the category of the eternal; it is with this idea by which he thinks about his world.

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