Natural Theology - Natural Theology And The Birth Of Modern Science, Natural Theology And Its Critics In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries
god revealed revelation sense
The primary sense of the term natural theology rests on the contrast between natural and revealed knowledge. Natural theology concerns knowledge of the existence and attributes of God arrived at using only the natural faculties of sense and reason. Philosophical arguments for the existence, intelligence, power, and goodness of God based on the order and beauty of the world, or on purely intellectual considerations, are examples of natural theology. Knowledge of God that is based on divine revelation as set down in scripture is the subject of revealed theology.
A central metaphor for the distinction between natural theology and revealed theology is that of the "two books"—the book of God's word (scripture) and the book of God's works (nature). The mainstream theological position has always been that the primary source of truth was revelation and that natural reasoning—reading the book of God's works—can provide ancillary support for revealed truths. Reason can confirm what is already known by faith. Natural theology has, therefore, been a more or less important, and more or less welcome, secondary support for Christian doctrine over the centuries. A constant worry for theologians has been the possibility of relying too heavily on natural theology and thus giving too much away to rationalistic and secular ways of understanding the world and placing insufficient emphasis on the importance of scripture and revelation.
Although the primary sense of "natural" in the phrase "natural theology" is natural as opposed to revealed knowledge, there is a secondary sense that is also important. Works of natural theology produced from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries frequently focused on the wonders of the natural world and on developments in natural science. The phrase "natural theology" thus came to stand for a rather particular kind of natural theology—a celebration of the beauty of the natural world and the power, wisdom, and goodness of its Creator, as revealed by the scientific study of nature. This sort of natural theology might also be thought of as a kind of "theology of nature," to distinguish it from the broader intellectual enterprise of arguing about God independently of revelation.
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Although it had roots both in ancient Greek philosophy and in medieval Christian theology (for instance, in Thomas Aquinas's famous "five ways" of demonstrating the existence of God), the heyday of natural theology was between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and was intertwined with the rise of modern science (see Brooke, 2003; Brooke and Cantor). Nature was investiga…
Lectures and treatises in this same natural theological tradition continued to be produced throughout the eighteenth century and into the first half of the nineteenth century, across Europe, but with a particular popularity in Britain. Natural theologians argued from the harmonious, law-governed, architecturally sophisticated, mathematically precise wonders of nature—animate and inanimate&#…
William Paley (1743–1805) was an Anglican clergyman and successful writer whose Principles of Moral Philosophy (1785) and Natural Theology (1802) were widely read, especially by students, well into the nineteenth century. The central argument of Natural Theology was that living things are comparable to mechanical contrivances, such as watches; and just as from a mechanical contrivance we in…
Twentieth-century developments add weight to the view that Darwin's writings, while requiring theologians to rethink natural theology, did not compel them to abandon it. One of the institutions through which natural theological endeavors were continued was the Gifford lectures. These lectures, set up to promote the study of natural theology, were instituted by the will of Adam Gifford, who …
In February 1829 the Reverend Francis Henry, earl of Bridgewater, died. His will made provision for £8000 sterling to be held at the disposal of the president of the Royal Society in London and used to finance the publication of one thousand copies of a work on the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the creation. The result, eventually, was not one but eight such works. These…
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Translated by the Dominican Fathers. London: Blackfriars, 1964–1981. Brunner, Emil, and Karl Barth. Natural Theology. Translated from the German by Peter Fraenkel, with an introduction by John Baillie. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1946. Reprint, Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2002. Comprising Nature and Grace by Emil Brunner and the reply No! by Karl Barth. Hume,…
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