“Get rid of the idea that unbelieving people are seekers of God,” he continued, “not only is it a mistake to think, but to use it to design worship is one of the most pernicious errors the church has fallen into. The Bible says that natural man does not seek after God, and we are to get the idea that all these unbelieving pagans are seeking God?”

In the closing address of the recent Ligonier Conference on the Christian Mind, R.C. Sproul sang a few lines of an old song, “To know, know, know him, is to love, love, love him and I do.” In his talk, “Love the Lord your God with all of your mind,” the “Him” Sproul was referring to was obviously God.

“To know Him, is to love Him and we want to love God, but how can we love Him if we don’t know Him?,” Sproul asked. “Nothing can be in the heart that is not first in the mind.”

Sproul said that a Christian who wants to experience God cannot bypass the mind. By doing so, they may increase emotion or entertainment, but “a mindless Christianity is no Christianity at all.”

His message was based on Romans 1:19-25, 28, and he began by speaking of the process of getting the book Classical Apologetics published, approximately 30 years ago. After he submitted his last review of the galley proofs to the publisher, the publisher conducted a last minute “spell check” on the text.

“When the book appeared, to my absolute horror,” said Sproul, “we kept reading about references to the poetic effects of sin. … I guess they thought we were saying we can give neither rhyme or reason to man’s disobedience.”

Sproul said that apparently, the computer’s spell check did not recognize the theological term noetic.

“There’s a huge difference between the ‘poetic’ and ‘noetic,’” Sproul said, adding that with the term noetic, “We are speaking about the effect and the impact that sin in general – and original sin in particular – has upon the mind of fallen humanity.” In other words, how the fall affects the ability to think rightly.

“The faculty of thinking for which we reason has been seriously disturbed and corrupted by the fall,” Sproul said. “In our natural condition – in our unregenerate state – there is something seriously and dramatically wrong with our minds.”

Sproul said that “by nature we do everything we can to suppress any revelation God gives us,” and Romans 1 says that “what can be known about God is plain. … His invisible attributes have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. Here is the crux of the matter: Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking … they claimed to be wise but became fools.”

“God gave them up. What a horrible judgment. What a horrible thing, that God would give you up,” said Sproul. “He gives us up to a reprobate mind – to a mind in its fallen condition that does not have a scintilla of desire to love God with the mind. In other words in our natural fallen condition, there is nothing more repugnant to our minds than the love of God. So that when the great commandment sounds in our ears – that we are to love God with all of our minds – we have such an antipathy by nature, we choke at the very thought of it.”

“The damage that is done to the mind in our fallen condition, it does not mean that our ability to think has been annihilated,” he said. “You don’t have to be regenerated to get a Ph.D. in mathematics…

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