nscious of
duty--of what he ought and ought not to do. This is not, like earlier
limitations, purely physical and working from without; it is moral and
operates from within. It is the sense of duty, or, as we call it,
_conscience_, the sense of right and wrong. This awakened very early in
the race, and through it God's voice has been perceived ever since the
days of Adam and of Cain.(155)

2. According to Scripture, man in his natural state possesses the
certainty of God's existence through such inner experience. Therefore the
Bible contains no command to _believe_ in God, nor any logical
demonstration of His existence. Both the Creation stories and those of the
beginnings of mankind assume as undisputed the existence of God as the
Creator and Judge of the world. Arguments appealing to reason were
resorted to only in competition with idolatry, as in Deuteronomy,
Jeremiah, and Deutero-Isaiah, and subsequently by the Haggadists in
legends such as those about Abraham. Nor does the Bible consider any who
deny the existence of God;(156) only much later, in the Talmud, do we hear
of those who "deny the fundamental principle" of the faith. The doubt
expressed in Job, Koheleth, and certain of the Psalms, concerns rather the
justice of God than His existence. True, Jeremiah and the Psalms(157)
mention some who say "There is no God," but these are not atheists in our
sense of the word; they are the impious who deny the moral order of life
by word or deed. It is the villain (_Nabal_), not the "fool" who "says in
heart, there is no God." Even the Talmud does not mean the real atheist
when speaking of "the denier of the fundamental principle," but the man
who says, "There is neither a judgment nor a Judge above and beyond."(158)
In other words, the "denier" is the same as the Epicurean (Apicoros), who
refuses to recognize the moral government of the world.(159)

3. After the downfall of the nation and Temple, the situation changed
through the contemptuous question of the nations, "Where is your God?"
Then the necessity became evident of proving that the Ruler of nations
still held dominion over the world, and that His wondrous powers were
shown more than ever before through the fact of Israel's preservation in
captivity. This is the substance of the addresses of the great seer of the
Exile in chapters XL to LIX of Isaiah, in which he exposes the gods of
heathendom to everlasting scorn, more than any other prophet before or
afterwar