Modern muddle-headedness and confusion as to the meaning of faith in God are almost beyond description. People say they believe in God, but they have no idea who it is that they believe in, or what difference believing in him may make.
--J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 159
Packer goes on to give four reasons why people are so confused:
- People have gotten into the practice of following private religious hunches rather than learning of God from his own Word
- People think of all religions as equal and equivalent - they draw their ideas about God from pagan as well as Christian sources
- People have ceased to recognize the reality of their own sinfulness, which imparts a degree of perversity and enmity against God to all that they think and do
- People today are in the habit of disassociating the thought of God's goodness from that of his severity
