Ps. 53.1 (beams from a black sun)

The fool / says in his heart
 “There is / no god.”
They are corrupt; / they do / vile deeds;
no one / does good.

The atheist in modern times tends to be someone who mentally denies the existence of God. In biblical terms, however, the atheist is much broader. Here, is not so much a mental assertion as a way of life. To the biblical person, the atheist is, in other words, the practical atheist, the person who lives as if there were no god, or, perhaps more accurately, as if there were no god who could or cared to thwart his designs. The fool, in this opening verse, does not speak these words aloud; he says them ‘in his heart’ and then, immediately, the psalm shifts to his ‘state of being’ and actions (“they are corrupt; they do vile deeds…”). This total perspective on the fool is important. It is not merely that they perform ‘vile deeds’ but that they are, in their person, ‘corrupt’. This sense of 'being-corruption' (of being impure) is a natural outworking, or, another way of describing, what he “says in his heart”. It is from this primal direction in life (that “there is no god”) that these other perversions originate, as like dark beams from a black sun; they emanate from this center.