It would seem that to the atheist there is no such thing as righteousness. Oh, sure, there is a “rightness” and those things on which we agree men ought or ought not do and they claim that there is a universal understanding of this rightness within societies but this cannot be inherent in the individual. After all, we're born as a blank slate; atheistic by default, remember?
Where and when rightness is absent, there is need for education...on their terms, of course. “Give us your children and we'll drive out any religious notion of “righteousness” as defined by your mythological “god” in your book of fables.”
I suppose this would be like the “reset” button on a counter, or better yet, formatting a computer hard drive. So it is naturalism as the fulcrum by which they seek to leverage the weight of religious indoctrination off the individual with their so called “light of reason”. But their reason is purely anthropocentric being confident that we as men have every capacity necessary to understand and define for ourselves right and wrong in any given situation. Thus the creation of “values clarification” where a particular scenario may call for two contradictory acts, each being declared “right” dependent upon the circumstance.
Righteousness, however, belongs to God alone; is inherent in HIS nature, and is not the possession of man.
The meaning of God's righteousness cannot be inferred from the concept of justice that applies to this world. (Concise Reformed Dogmatics [CRD]J van Genderen and W.H. Velema pg 133) We are inclined to follow our own concept of what is just. We must ask ourselves what Scripture says about God's righteousness. (CRD 13.9 pg.185)
We can never separate righteousness from God's holiness, so it is here that the atheistic notion of rightness collapses in upon itself, for when rightness is applied to men, it means that one has right on his/her side, is righteous and good and in step with the law. But man's law varies and is frequently opposed to righteousness.
The biblical examples of the Prophets, the psalmists and the writers of proverbs incessantly complain about the dreadful reality that there was no justice for the poor, widow, orphans, aliens and the needy even though the right was completely on their side. (Bavinck Reformed Dogmatics BRDVol 2 pg223)
We need not look far today to see the encroachment of wavering secular rightness as they invade our private lives and tell us what we are and are not “allowed” to do.
But the righteousness of God consists in the fact that through and by the Messiah it proceeds to bring righteousness to his people; in Christ it offers a means of atonement, which proves God to be righteous; is able to justify the believer; and also grants forgiveness to 1Jn 1:9 and bestows salvation on his own.(Jn 17:25, 2Tim 4:8 (BRD Vol 2, pg 225)
God made the “Covenant of nature” with Noah and a “covenant of grace” with Abraham, acts by which he again, out of sheer grace grants to his creatures an array of rights and binds himself with an oath to maintain these rights. (BRD Vol.2, pg227)
(Now here, lest the atheist think God is bound by an external standard, recall Heb 6:13)
In scripture, these ordinances and laws are not derived from God's justice, but from his holiness and grace. God was not “morally bound” to grant these rights to his creatures. “
All laws and rights have their ultimate ground, not in a social contract, nor in self-existent natural law or in histroy but in the will of God, viewed not as absolute dominion but as a will of goodness and grace – the fountainhead of all laws and rights.”(BRD Vol 2. pg228)
