You, me, Adam and Eve: Practical Atheists

Continuing to think with Ruth Tucker (Walking Away from Faith) about the roots of unbelief, she writes:

"We should not be surprised that problems related to unbelief arise in the very opening pages of the biblical narrative.  The creation of human beings with capabilities of thinking and acting independently seems to lead almost naturally to a difficulty in believing in God.  That is not to suggest that Adam and Eve were atheists or agnostics in the modern sense of the terms.  They were not.  But they were - as was Cain, their son - practical atheists: that is, they acted as though they did not believe in God or at least that in God's omniscience [all-knowing] or omnipresence [present everywhere].  They conversed with the serpent as though God was not present.  They disobeyed God's command not to eat of fruit as though God would not know.  They hid themselves as though God could not find them. 

"The difficulties that Adam and Eve had in fully believing in God are the same difficulties that have been common to humankind ever since.  Even among those who would most fervently affirm their absolute belief in God, there remains that tendency toward what I term practical atheism - living as though one does not believe in a personal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God.

"...Indeed, strange as it may seem, with all its stories of carnage and crime and immorality and intrigue, the Old Testament includes no explicit stories of people's denying the existence of God.  It comprises stories of disobedience, defiance and deception, but none of its narratives turn on the theme of doubting God's existence." (p.82-83)