Then He said:

“Lest you say”—that is, to prevent you from saying, and so that you do not say—“We were unaware of this”: unaware of acknowledging Allah’s lordship and our own servitude. For they were unaware of this; rather, this was among the self-evident truths necessarily inherent in them, which no human being has ever lacked. This differs from many other kinds of knowledge that may be self-evident, yet of which many of the children of Adam may be unaware, such as numerical and arithmetical knowledge and the like. Once conceived, these are self-evident truths, but many people remain unaware of them.

Acknowledgment of the Creator, however, is self-evident knowledge necessarily inherent in the human being. No one is so heedless of it as never to have known it. Rather, everyone must have known it, even supposing that they subsequently forgot it. This is why making it known is called a reminder: it recalls innate, self-evident truths that a person may forget.

As Allah Most High says:

“And do not be like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves.”

And in the authentic hadith:

“Allah says to the disbeliever: ‘Today I shall forget you, just as you forgot Me.’”