“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” -Romans 1:28
For the third time, Paul explains that “God gave them up” but this is the finale. Colin Kruse notes, “Paul makes a play on words here. He says that since people did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, he gave them over into the tyranny of a mind that was not worthwhile/depraved.”
In other words, because they rejected the knowledge of God that he made available to them through creation (cf. 1:21–24, 24–27), God gave them up to the kind of mind that would allow them to go further than a moral conscious could have thought possible, to do things that ought not to be done. The things that ought not to be done, Paul lists in verses 29-31.
But before unpacking the nature of the evil deeds, it is worth contemplating the fact that it is possible to reject God in this manner to the degree that one’s conscious can no longer comprehend its transgressions. Like those rare people with nerve damage that doesn’t allow them to feel the extreme heat from a stove burner, for example. They will smell their burnt flesh long before they are ever aware they are in danger.