Van Til: "the heathen yet have enough knowledge of the law or will of God to render them without excuse."

There are some who, in order to preserve a system that reinforces what they need to be true about theology and the covenants, try to make the case that the Gentiles were not lawbreakers because they didn't have the Sinaitic law and were not under the Mosaic Covenant. Of course, Paul anticipates such a claim in Romans 2, and he makes an aside to make sure that we understand that the Gentiles, while not having the law, do have the law written on their hearts and in fact are lawbreakers both unlike and like the Jews. Cornelius Van Til points to Romans 1 as the grounds for this thought in Paul in Romans 2:

“Paul is not saying that we deal with a group of people that are master simulators, having been in contact with the highest requirements of the law of God, and a group that is able to “dress as well as the best.” On the contrary he is arguing that even those who have not had the special revelation of the oracles of God given to the Jews must yet be said to be sinners, that is, covenant-breakers. All men need the justice of God, for all are sinners. Yet there is no sin unless there be transgression and there is no transgression unless there be knowledge of the law. Having not the externally promulgated law, the heathen yet have enough knowledge of the law or will of God to render them without excuse.

"Do some think that the wrath of God is revealed upon the heathen unjustly on the ground that they have no knowledge of the will of God? Let them realize, says Paul in effect, that the revelation of God is present with all men everywhere. Let them know that even from the beginning of history this knowledge has been about all men everywhere. All men are responsible for the original positive revelation of God to mankind, as well as for the natural revelation that still surrounds them. Do some wonder whether that revelation of God has been persistent and insistent? Let them realize that that revelation is so close to all men as to be psychologically one with them. It is so close to them that, in spite of all their efforts to bury it, it speaks through their own moral consciousness. The law of God as a demand of God is written on their very hearts." – Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace