The Words We Use: Are They Meaningless?

Today I read a bunch of Psalms, and for some reason Psalm 14 stuck in my craw. Psalm 14:1 reads, "Only fools say in their hearts, 'There is no God.'" So what does this mean, really? Just how does a person ‘say in his or her heart?’ They don’t actually speak, do they? Is it an assumption that a person makes within himself or herself; one that is played out by this person’s actions? If a person says in his or her heart that there is no God, does it follow that this person would then denounce the existence of God publicly? Or is this just a personal denial—one made perhaps out of ignorance?

I have other questions about what David was driving at when he recorded these words, and my questions really aren’t all rhetorical. The second half of this verse says, "They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!" Now I realize that the average person who reads this verse of scripture would probably conclude that because his or her actions are not evil (which is what most of us probably think about ourselves), then this verse obviously doesn’t apply to him or her. However, could it be that when the term “evil” is tossed around, that the images which come to our minds are scenes out of a horror movie like The Exorcist, or a memory of some recent news broadcast where some low-life got caught doing some terrible thing to an innocent child? Is it not true that we all have an understanding of what evil is, and of what evil is not? And isn’t it also true that we rarely ascribe this adjective to ourselves?

As an adjective, the term “evil” has several meanings: 1. morally bad or wrong; 2. having the nature of vice; 3. tending to cause great harm; 4. having or exerting a malignant influence. Perhaps there is only a small percentage of human beings for which the term “evil,” as an adjective, would apply. But I suspect not. My guess is that we all tend to use a sliding scale to define words that are used. For instance, what I might view as morally bad or morally wrong behavior may not be morally bad or morally wrong behavior in your eyes. This is the culture we live in today—everything is relative, and nothing is absolute.

Psalm 14 is not a real long Psalm (only 7 verses), and later, in verse 5, David says, "for God is with those who obey him." Therefore, I’m led to believe that making a sincere effort to obey God is probably somehow tied into whether or not someone falls into the category of a fool as described by David in Psalm 14:1. But then again, what is considered a “sincere effort” may also be up for debate in this culture where relativism rules.