The Fear of God: Is It Really Neccesary?

 Copyright © 2022 PJ Stassen

All Rights Reserved

▌INTRODUCTION: IS THE FEAR OF GOD REALLY NECESSARY? No, if we are to listen to the Darwinists, secular humanists and postmodernist preachers of the day. These apostate movements are riding the crest of the wave in an age of free thought, self-aggrandisement, and entitlement.
   So, is the fear of God still necessary? Hasn’t science and technology made God all but superfluous, redundant, and obsolete? Against such a backdrop of cultural advances in this lonely outpost of the Milky Way galaxy, is the fear of God really mandatory? Has humanity not indeed outgrown this childish notion of a Creator watching our every move, counting all the hairs on our head, and faithfully still feeding the sparrow every day?

▌WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT THE FEAR OF GOD. That ancient hero of faith, Job, in the valley of suffering, once wrote: 

“And to man He said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom! And to depart from evil is understanding! 

[Job28:28MKJV].

   Note that, although Job had written it, it was God (‘He’) who had said it. According to the Creator Himself, the fear of the Lord is wisdom! King Solomon has affirmed: 

“The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” [Proverbs1:7MKJV].

    "Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days be made longer, yet surely I know that it shall be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him … Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man.” 

[Ecclesiastes8:12; 12:13MKJV].

   The Apostle Peter: 

“Honor all. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.” 

[1Peter2:17MKJV].

   The Apostle John (on the Isle of Patmos) quoting the gospel-preaching angel from the Book of Revelation:      

   “Fear God and give glory to Him! For the hour of His judgment has come. And worship Him who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” [Revelation14:7MKJV]. 

So, is it still necessary to fear God? Is it really mandatory to fear God?

▌THE FUTILITY OF RELYING ON SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY TO ANSWER THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS OF LIFE. The atheist’s religion-of-choice, i.e., Evolutionism (Darwinism) as well as scientism in general, cannot even answer the most basic questions of life, e.g.:

♦ Why is there SOMETHING instead of NOTHING?

♦ Who created the UNIVERSE?

♦ WHERE do we come from?

♦ WHY are we here?

♦ WHERE are we going?

♦ Is there hope for PLANET EARTH?

♦ Is there hope for HUMANITY?

♦ How can we know the difference between RIGHT and WRONG?

   Do we really need the flawed opinions (on such critical issues as the above) of scientists who, by their own  admission, know only about 5% of what is going in the Cosmos (with the rest, i.e., 95%, defined as ‘undetectable by scientific instruments dark matter and dark energy’), and, who, by their own admission, know only about 10%-20% of what is going in our oceans? Wrote Harvard cosmologists:

   “To inquire about the nature of the very beginning, however, requires us to address why questions, the most fundamental of all being, Why is there a Universe at all? To be honest, scientists don’t know how to tackle why questions. These are outside the present fabric of modern science and probably always will be. In other words, when a ball is put in motion and Newton tells us that the ball ‘will remain in motion unless or until it is acted upon by some external force,’ we have no understanding why it does that. We do know what such balls do and also how they do it, but why we have no clue.
   "No known procedure—not even the vaunted scientific method—enables us to investigate why, in the deepest sense of that word, the laws of physics and biology are as they are. We shall probably never know the answer. Nor do we know, or likely have any prospect of ever really knowing, why there is a Universe—or what might have preceded its origin.” 

 [Harvard. Cosmic Evolution. Online].

▌THE FINAL VERDICT. The fear of God, although it is NECESSARY, is not MANDATORY, since God has created humankind in the image of God who has free will (Absolute & Infinite Free Will) so that humankind, consequently, also has free will (albeit borrowed, derivative, finite and limited free will predicated on the superior, Absolute & Infinite Free Will of God) as his/her 'default position'. Humankind's 'free will', however must not be confused with 'omnipotence'. 

   It would have made no philosophical sense for God to have created humankind with no other option but to mechanically obey and worship Him like a wound-up tin soldier at all times. The free will to choose light (over darkness), good (over evil), life (over death) and God (over Satan) is a privilege not enjoyed by the animal kingdom, including the primates, thus demonstrating that humankind should never be equated with primates as the Darwinists would wish us to believe. We may be Christ's sheep, but we are not stupid.

   What will be mandatory (in Eternity), however, will be the consequences for not having feared and obeyed God (unbelief and disobedience) ... a thought not only too ghastly to contemplate, but also too ghastly not to contemplate. God warns: