It therefore requires a certain effort not to believe in a personal God: “No one disbelieves the existence of God except the person to whom God’s existence is not convenient.” There are no atheists so thoroughly sure of their unbelief as to be willing to die a martyr’s death for it. Since atheism is abnormal and unnatural, based not on intuitions but on inferential proofs and fallible reasoning, it is never sure of its causes. The arguments for the existence of God may be weak, but in any case they are stronger than those advanced for its denial. It is even impossible to prove that there is no God. To accomplish that feat a person would have to be omniscient and omnipresent, that is, to be God!
~Herman Bavinck~
Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation John Bolt and John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 59.
The Old Guys 
Reblogged this on My Delight and My Counsellors.
To be honest, my experience has been the opposite. Atheism is a temptation precisely because it is so easy; squaring God with a lot of things that are true of experience takes a lot of hard work. I think Bavinck’s words here are a little too triumphalistic. There’s nothing wrong with owning up to the extreme difficulty involved in believing in God and, even more, living a Christian life.
Also, to further counter Bavinck, there are, in fact, atheists who would die a martyr’s death for it–and have.