“For,” that is, “because,” is grammatically connected with the immediately preceding word, “without excuse.” In the course of thought it is connected with everything said above, and especially with holding the truth in unrighteousness. What follows indicates precisely how this happened.
“They knew God.” What did they know? Not only that God exists, but also what He is. They knew that He is the Creator, that He contains all things and provides for all things, that one must worship Him and please Him in all things, with awareness of responsibility before Him.
Finally, they knew that after death there will be judgment and recompense to all for all their deeds, good and evil. These truths are imprinted in the heart, and there is no people that does not confess them.
Blessed Theodoret, explaining what the Gentiles knew about God, says: “They, as they themselves testify, knew that God exists, because this worshipful name is always on their lips.” Saint Chrysostom sees this testimony of the Gentiles about themselves in their acknowledgment of gods.
“The Apostle makes the very fact that they acknowledged many gods a sign that the Gentiles knew God.” Photius, in Oecumenius, affirms that they knew not only that God exists. But also “what He is, what must be understood by Him, namely, that He is the Creator and all-good Provider, that He is the Master of all, and that He must be honored.”
Knowing God in this way, the Gentiles nevertheless “did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful.” “They did not make use of this knowledge as they ought” (Saint Chrysostom). “They did not wish to have thoughts about Him worthy of Him” (Blessed Theodoret).
To glorify God means to confess His boundless perfections and His wondrous works, and to nourish corresponding feelings of reverence, love, worship, prostration before Him, and devotion to Him.
To thank God means to confess that our being, everything in us, and all the good things sent down to us, as well as those visible in all creatures, are the direct gift of God’s much-caring love for us and for creatures.
This love embraces not only our present condition, but also our future unto endless ages. To thank Him is to nourish grateful feelings toward Him, ready to dedicate one’s whole life to Him, striving in every possible way to please Him by strict fulfillment of His holy will.
Both express the religion of the heart as it ought to be. Its chief feature is the fear of God, which directs everything toward pleasing God and has this as its chief and governing aim.
The first degree of the fall from this state is forgetfulness of God. The most radiant and wondrous countenance of the Godhead falls out of consciousness. God is forgotten, and thought of Him only occasionally comes to mind.
Together with this, religious feelings toward God grow cold, and the fear of God evaporates. God turns into something merely mental and ceases to govern all the inner movements of man.
The heart no longer glorifies and thanks God, though the tongue reads doxologies and thanksgivings. Pleasing God ceases to be the chief aim of life. Other aims come forward in its place and occupy the whole man.
God still exists, but He is no longer glorified and thanked as God. This very thing Blessed Theodoret expressed in the words, “They did not wish to have thoughts about Him worthy of Him,” or to keep the feelings and dispositions of heart due to Him.
“But they became vain in their thoughts.” This is the second degree of the fall, formed together with the first, now as its consequence and now as its cause. They produce and support one another.
Becoming vain in thoughts must be understood as Solomon presents it in Ecclesiastes: as surrendering oneself to cares about earthly goods. These do not give well-being, but only lure one toward it, always deceiving every hope.
Having turned away from God, men turn to creatures. In them they wish to find what only God can give. They wish to arrange their well-being without God, by their own powers and by the means at hand.
All their care is about this. All their thoughts, plans, and aims of life are there: how to arrange earthly happiness while enjoying sensual goods.
Their relation to God is preserved only outwardly. Works of piety are fulfilled by custom, without the participation not only of the heart, but even of thought. Everything has become earth, earth, earth.
Even constant experience of deception does not bring them to understanding. Restlessness continues tirelessly in a vain hope: perhaps we shall still obtain what we seek.
How can such a way of acting be excused? Through Jeremiah, God said in condemnation of them: “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns” (cf. Jer 2:13).
“And their foolish heart was darkened.” The third degree of the fall is the fruit of the first two: the darkening of the inner man. The heart is the innermost man, or spirit. There are self-consciousness, conscience, the idea of God with the feeling of all-sided dependence on Him, and the whole eternally precious spiritual life.
Together with vain thoughts comes the darkening of this man. Rules of life are established that do not agree with conscience, and conscience is stifled. The fear of God departs, and thought of God no longer occupies the mind.
With this, sound truths about God are forgotten and grow dim. Likewise true concepts of man himself, his meaning, and his aims are concealed. Complete darkness settles within.
The man made vain does not even look there. He has no time, and it is unpleasant. He is wholly outside himself.
THEOSIS