Natural Theology: Five Views—a Review

By Louis Markos

The number of Christian apologists writing in English has flourished greatly over the last several decades. In their struggle to make the God of the Bible real, rational, and relevant to modern and postmodern people, many, if not most, have adopted some form of C. S. Lewis’s two-step apologetical method. First, establish common ground with secular non-believers who do not recognize the authority of Scripture, the claims of religion, or their own personal need for salvation and use that common ground to point to the existence of God. Second, move from the existence of a good God who created the universe to the God of the Bible by appealing to a wide range of sources, including the Bible, the resurrection, and Christian philosophy and theology.

This is essentially the method Paul adopts in Acts 17:22-31, when he shares the gospel with a group of Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on the Areopagus in Athens. He establishes common ground by pointing to their temple to the unknown God and quoting two of their pagan poets, Epimenides and Aratus. He references Genesis and the creation of Adam; however, by speaking generically of how God created an original man and then, through him, the nations, he presents the specific covenant God of Israel as the universal Creator of the world. He further suggests to his pagan audience that they had enough information to infer on their own that God does not dwell in statues or temples built by human hands: the verses from Epimenides and Aratus suggest as much. He even directly proclaims that they are already partly worshipping this Creator God, though in ignorance—as attested by their temple to the unknown God.

Only after he establishes this common ground does he move forward to speak of sin and the need for repentance and of Jesus Christ as the judge whom God raised from the dead. Paul shows remarkable patience with his audience. He overlooks their ignorance, as he assures them God has, but he warns them that they are now accountable for what they have heard. It is clear in his speech that Paul treats his audience as moral-volitional agents who will understand the meaning of the word repentance, even though they lack knowledge of the Old Testament and the God that it reveals. He is willing to draw them toward faith in Christ by a two-step method that begins by relying on general revelation—creation, conscience, reason—and ends with a direct appeal to the special revelation of Christ’s death and resurrection.  

The first part of Paul’s speech, during which he appeals to general revelation, offers a perfect example of natural theology, and its commitment to identifying arguments for God’s existence that do not rely on Scripture or knowledge of the Christian gospel. The reputation of natural theology in the church has risen and fallen over the years, but it has shown something of a resurgence over the last two decades.

In keeping with this rise in reputation, and the concomitant criticism that such a rise has provoked, James K. Dew Jr. and Ronnie P. Campbell Jr. have edited a new book, Natural Theology: Five Views, that establishes a needed dialogue between various proponents and opponents of natural theology. Unfortunately, though three of the contributors—Charles Taliaferro, an emeritus philosophy professor from St. Olaf College; Andrew Pinsent, a Catholic priest and director of a Science and Religion center at Oxford; Alister McGrath, a professor of theology and religion at Oxford—offer cogent arguments that further the cause of apologetics and evangelism, the other two—Paul Moser, a philosophy professor from Loyola Chicago; John McDowell, a theology and philosophy professor from Yarra Theological College, Australia—make arguments that are as confusing as they are contentious, that disrupt the spread of the gospel, and that, for all their protestations to the contrary, point us toward an amorphous God who is as malleable and manipulable as the god of the philosophers.

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After providing some brief historical background and laying the groundwork for some of the key questions raised by natural theology, Dew and Campbell pass the baton to Taliaferro who defends what they dub a “contemporary” view: the one held by most of the current advocates of natural theology. Here is how Taliaferro defines that view: “natural theology is the philosophical reflection on God based on reasoning that does not rely on revelation (or revealed theology). Unlike revealed theology, which may presuppose the truth or reliability of the Christian Bible, natural theology develops a philosophy of God based on observations about the cosmos” (15).

Taliaferro’s hero is Richard Swinburne, the chief figure in the resurgence of natural theology, and he makes reference to him to answer critics who accuse natural theologians of having a low view of Scripture or a high view of fallen man’s noetic abilities. (Oddly, neither editors nor authors refer to any presuppositionalists, the main critics of natural theology, at least in the realm of popular and academic apologetics.) “Richard Swinburne,” Taliaferro writes, “has argued [that] if one may philosophically establish theism independent of appeal to the Bible, one has contributed reason for taking seriously the Bible as a divine revelation” (15).

Taliaferro explains well the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments, as well as an argument from consciousness, but the one that interests him the most is the first. His approach, like that of many contemporary apologists, is abductive, for he seeks not to prove theism but to show that it, as opposed to naturalism, best accounts for the evidence presented to our senses and our reason. He also makes it clear that natural theology is a first phase that leads the way to discussion of the Bible and deeper Christian matters. The other four authors each offer a response to Taliaferro, after which he responds to the responders. This excellent and helpful pattern is repeated four more times for each of the authors.

Father Pinsent follows next with his explication and defense of the Catholic position on natural theology. Quite shockingly, Pinsent reveals that, according to one “of the canons of the First Vatican Council in 1870…one places oneself outside of the Catholic faith if one denies that it is possible to know by natural reason alone that there is one true God. This definition makes no judgment about any specific proofs for the existence of God, or whether there are in fact any adequate proofs. But the canon does define that the existence of God can be known with certitude from created things and by the light of natural reason, placing the existence of God firmly within natural theology” (59).

As strange as this canon may sound to modern ears, Catholic or Protestant, I think it is justified by Romans 1:19-20, arguably Scripture’s most important statement on the reality and implications of natural theology: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (ESV).

Pinsent argues, in the footsteps of Aquinas, that we can arrive, via natural theology, at a natural understanding of natural and supernatural matters. We can, further, achieve something of a supernatural understanding of natural matters. To reach a supernatural understanding of supernatural matters, however, special revelation is needed. McDowell claims that Pinsent (and Swinburne) misreads Aquinas on this point, “who anachronistically projects his own theism back onto Thomas” (94). I would argue, and I think Pinsent would agree, that Dante, Aquinas’s greatest pupil, presents just such a view of natural (general) theology preparing the way for revealed (special) theology in the transition from Virgil, who represents human reason unaided by grace, to Beatrice, who represents grace perfecting reason.

McGrath offers a carefully researched and articulated view that accepts the definitions of Taliaferro and Pinsent but puts them in a fuller, more nuanced historical context that encompasses “both ‘a natural theology’ and ‘a theology of nature.’” He identifies four facets of this wider view: 1) “a theology that comes ‘naturally’ to the human mind…without divine revelation”; 2) “a form of reasoning, independent of revelation, that reflects on the theistic entailments of the beauty or complexity of the natural world”; 3) “a specifically Christian way of seeing or understanding the natural world”; 4) “the intellectual outcome of the natural tendency of the human mind to desire or be inclined toward God” (110-111).

McGrath calls on his readers not to abandon the apologetical value of natural theology but to expand Taliaferro’s contemporary definition. His concern, he explains, “is not to criticize this specific approach: I seek merely to point out that it is part of a spectrum of possibilities and is thus neither the only approach to natural theology nor its normative form” (121).

Though I did not agree with all the arguments made by Taliaferro, Pinsent, and McGrath, I found everything they said to be reasonable, irenic, and practical—with one exception. In his response to Moser, Taliaferro, hoping to convince him of the value of the ontological argument, includes this truly disturbing paragraph:

What use might the ontological argument have for our other beliefs, for example, our beliefs about the Bible? If we believe (as I do) that God is maximally excellent and that this God is revealed in and through the Bible, then we have reason to interpret parts of the Bible as flawed by human limitations when it portrays God as not morally excellent. I suggest that if you have reason to think God is maximally excellent and that homosexual relations can be as healthy and good as heterosexual relations, you have reason to think that the biblical prohibitions of homosexuality are not truly divinely revealed precepts or that they should be interpreted as condemning specific, errant relations (e.g., condemning homosexual temple prostitution). (177)

I read this passage several times, hoping, in vain, to find evidence that Taliaferro is being ironic or mounting a clever reductio ad absurdum. I cannot express how dangerous such a hermeneutic is for theology, apologetics, and evangelism. If this is natural theology, let us have no more of it. Such an approach does not honor God’s general or special revelation, but, to borrow a cogent phrase from Lewis, puts us in the judge’s seat and God in the dock. It makes us the moral arbiters of God’s holiness.

Taliaferro’s argument, when reduced to its presuppositions, is no different than the following syllogism a progressive theologian might mount against the biblical teaching of hell: Major Premise: God is more merciful than the humans he created; Minor Premise: I would not condemn someone to hell; Conclusion: God does not condemn people to hell. Again, if this be natural theology, let us have no more of it!

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To give Moser credit, he proposes and propounds a natural theology argument for the existence of God grounded in our experience of conscience that has much merit.

1.      Necessarily, if a person is directly acquainted, in the moral conviction of conscience, with a guiding character of perfect moral goodness toward perfect agapē, then this results from the morally authoritative power of an intentional agent of perfect moral goodness.

2.      I am directly acquainted, in the moral conviction of conscience, with the guiding character mentioned in premise 1.

3.      Therefore, an intentional agent of perfect moral goodness exists.

4.      Necessarily, if an intentional agent of perfect moral goodness exists and is worthy of worship, then God exists.

5.      The guiding character of the perfectly good intentional agent of premise 2 is worthy of worship.

6.      Therefore, God exists. (170)

Had Moser devoted his philosophical knowhow to developing his argument by conscience and weaving it together with some of the other major natural theology arguments—as Lewis does in Mere Christianity, which appeals to the existence of a divine director of the universal moral-ethical code (what he dubs the Tao) and to our internal sense of the binding nature of the Tao—I would have applauded his efforts. Unfortunately, that is not what he does.

For every page he devotes to developing his argument, he spends three attacking and lampooning every other natural theology argument on the market. And he does so in a manner that is interminably monotonous, quoting lengthy passages from Taliaferro, Pinsent, or McGrath and then dismissing what they say for the exact same reason: that their arguments “fail to confirm the existence of a personal agent who is worthy of worship and thus has a morally perfect character” (157).

Overlooking the fact that Romans 1:19-20 and Paul’s speech at the Areopagus suggest that general revelation does point to human accountability to some kind of standard to which they owe obedience, the goal of natural theology rarely includes achieving Moser’s high goal. Most of natural theology functions as a sort of pre-evangelism, preparing the ground for a presentation of the full nature of God and his redemptive plan for mankind. Besides, Moser’s argument does not itself confirm what he claims it does. In Iliad 24, Achilles’ conscience is convicted, and he lays aside his wrath, but that does not mean that Thetis, Zeus, and Apollo, all of whom play a role in that conviction, are beings of perfect moral goodness worthy of worship!

I have been a professor for over three decades, and I understand the (often toxic) academic game of publish or perish. I understand, too, Moser’s desire to come up with a cutting-edge argument that will win him kudos in his tribe. All power to him for using his God-given talents to push forward the field of philosophy—but this is not the way to do it, especially when the spread of the gospel is at issue. Reading Moser’s essay and responses reminded me of a lecture I heard from an apologist who worked in Muslim countries. He did a very effective job describing and defending his unique method for sharing the gospel with Muslims, but only after spending twenty minutes ridiculing every other approach to Muslim apologetics as foolish, cowardly, and ineffective. I am quite sure his speech had won him financial support from churches who enjoyed his smug takedown of missionaries from other traditions, but it neither honored Christ nor furthered his kingdom.     

While Moser’s arguments are compromised by the academic temptation to win at all costs and take no prisoners, McDowell’s are equally compromised by the equally strong academic temptation to treat certain figures in the tradition as above reproach in their theological and/or philosophical systems. For McDowell that figure is Barth, whose disparagement of natural theology McDowell defends as if it were something proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. In matter of fact, Barth is no freer from error than Augustine or Aquinas, Luther or Calvin, N. T. Wright or (heaven forbid!) C. S. Lewis.

Though McDowell tries the patience of his readers with his unnecessarily long and convoluted explanation of Barth’s position—I was painfully reminded of Byron’s deflationary couplet about Coleridge: “Explaining metaphysics to the nation. / I wish he would explain his explanation”—all one really needs to know is summed up in one sentence from Church Dogmatics that McDowell makes us waits twenty pages for: “‘We possess no analogy on the basis of which the nature and being of God as the Lord can be accessible to us’” (225). If you buy that assertion, which I do not, Barth and McDowell’s arguments may carry some weight. But it is a flimsy thread indeed for a natural theology denier to stand on.    

Were the flimsiness of McDowell’s position not bad enough, he lambasts the other authors in his responses with a steady stream of Marxist-inspired, hermeneutics-of-suspicion rhetoric from which he naturally exempts himself. Here is but one of dozens of examples when his insufferable smugness of tone not only deconstructs any goodwill effort at natural theology but even throws Moser’s partially Barthian approach under the bus: “Is a God who spends time revealing God's Self to be worshipped actually worthy of worship when there is inequity, unjust suffering, trauma, and catastrophe in that God's world? Thorny questions of suffering and injustice cannot be cavalierly skated over as they so often are among bourgeois academic philosophers of religion” (195). 

Note McDowell’s use of the phrase “God’s Self.” It is a mark of high irony that McDowell and Moser, the two authors who insist that theology must essentially confine itself to God’s self-revelation in Christ and the Scriptures, make continual use of that fashionable phrase to avoid the Bible’s consistent use of the male pronoun to refer to God the Father. By doing so they not only allow the pressure of their social-economic-academic milieu to trump the revelation of Scripture; they reduce the personal, specific, concrete Father God of Scripture to an impersonal, generic, amorphous God—the very thing they accuse natural theologians of doing!

I apologize for my negativity in this review. My goal is not to level ad hominem attacks against Moser or McDowell, neither of whom I know or have read before. My concern here is not to question their characters. I am concerned, rather, with how the content and approach of their essays and responses pose an obstacle to apologetics within and without the academy. The tone that editors Dew and Campbell set for Natural Theology is a good one; I just wish that Moser and McDowell had been more willing and winsome participants.

— Louis Markos, Professor in English and Scholar in Residence at Houston Christian University, holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities; his 26 books include The Myth Made Fact, From Plato to Christ, From Achilles to Christ, Apologetics for the 21^st Century, and Atheism on Trial. His Passing the Torch: An Apology for Classical Christian Education and From Aristotle to Christ are due out from IVP Academic in 2024 and 2025.

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