Two Paths Away from God

I’ve posted the video below from a talk I recently gave at SBU as a part of the series “Why Believe in God?”. Taking the first two chapters of Romans, I argue that the text explains two paths away from God. One way is hedonism as described in Romans 1 as living as though God does not exist. The other way, described in Romans 2, is humanism, or living as though we don’t need God’s help.

While these are oversimplifications, I described one path with the word vice and the other with virtue. Both paths are ways to live apart from the gospel which Paul describes as the one path that leads to God (Romans 1:16). The biblical depiction is that both pleasure and virtue find their fulfillment in God (Psalm 16:11).