Consonance in Nature Points to a New Natural Theology
1
Consonance in Nature Points
to a New Natural Theology
The Enlightenment’s Natural Theology viewed the natural world as “nature,” a self-operating machine running on pre-established natural laws created by God, the design of which could be known by the methods of science. God’s role in a God-world relation, if such a role was ascribed, rested minimally in sustaining laws of nature and perhaps maximally in conserving or concurring with ongoing autonomous operations of the natural world and the universe. The quest of Natural Theology on this view was two-fold: first, to prove the existence of God through the complexities found in nature, and second, to know God by reason alone through the methods of natural science. However, this method of “finding and proving God” was unfruitful and problematic on several accounts.
Since then, many theologians have taken up the task of constructing a new and better understanding of Natural Theology given the need for a theological understanding of the natural world in terms of Scripture and contemporary science. Detailed and exhaustive historical analyses of Natural Theology and its inherent beliefs and problems have been published elsewhere; therefore, I will refrain from providing an exhaustive discussion here. Building upon the recent work advancing a new version of Natural Theology, it is important to distinguish points of retention and points of departure from traditional Natural Theology. Perhaps points to retain from Natural Theology might include some of the following:
However, as we shall see in the forthcoming chapters, a contemporary reconstruction of Natural Theology must diverge on more than a dozen significant theological issues.
The task at hand, then, is to begin by addressing the two failed basic precepts, namely, proof of God’s existence through nature, and knowledge of God through autonomous scientific reason. The first of these two precepts was debunked by the 18th century, harkening to the famous response by Pierre Laplace in1792 after he published his Mechanics of Planetary Motion using only the constants of gravitational pull, the cooling and condensing of solar gasses, and orbits of moons with no reference at all to God or divine intervention. When questioned by Napoleon why there were no references to the Creator, Laplace famously replied, “I had no need of that hypothesis.” Explaining causation in the universe by scientific mechanisms alone, Laplace and others gave science, and by extension, the universe, autonomy from the idea and intervention of God. This created a tension that resulted in both sides of a debate embracing views straining against reconciling scientific discoveries with theological explanations.
The second construct needing to be addressed was that of humankind knowing God through reason and science alone; human reason was the only reliable way to discover knowledge of God. This anthropocentric construct put humankind in the control seat, with the power and ability to find God on man’s own terms and in man’s ability. Paul Molnar addresses this “realist theology” in claiming that “unless theology begins from a center in God himself and unless it is controlled by the reality of God himself throughout, it becomes little more than mythology, or the projection of our human wishes based on experience onto reality, resulting in fantasy and not perception of reality.” Here, Molnar is expounding on Thomas F. Torrance’s robust claim that humanity can never find God by such a scheme, since knowledge of God is “beyond ourselves” by God’s own design. Torrance writes, “That is the primary element in the knowledge of the Lord God Almighty, the determination of our knowledge of Him from beyond ourselves by the very goodness and Lordship of God.” In other words, such a quest will lead to an anthropomorphic projection of a god that is weak, disconnected, and who behaves and reacts as humans do. This “god” will never be satisfying because it is a construct of humankind’s own thinking, imagination, and need. Here, in an anthropological effort to find the knowledge of God, is where Torrance diverges from theologians such as Schleiermacher and Feuerbach. He writes,
That was the problem of Schleiermacher. By his doctrine of the feeling of absolute dependence he sought to express the fact that God is ontologically and divinely independent of us, and that our knowledge of His presence is a pure finding . . . on our part.
And again,
It was not difficult for Feuerbach to show that ‘theology’ of this kind is only a form of ‘anthropology.’
Torrance is making a claim that knowledge of God is precisely and utterly a matter of God reaching to humankind, not the reverse: only God can reveal God. The premise or claim of Natural Theology as humankind’s quest to attain the knowledge of God through exacting reason and scientific methodology alone is debunked on theological grounds.
Natural Theology left in its wake unsolved theological dilemmas. For example, scientific findings and theological explanations have been marginalized since the Galileo Trial of 1633, with efforts in contemporary times to find a workable relation between the two. Even before Laplace made his scientific assertions without the inclusion of a Creator, Imanuel Kant proposed a similar “nebular hypothesis” for the early formation of planets. However, Kant attempted to provide a different angle in which no conflict could occur between scientific discovery and religions views. He held that there are limitations in the methods of science that “leave room” for religious beliefs. Leaving room for theological beliefs reinforces a divide between the two disciplines, implying an inherent categorical separation between what science discovers and what theology reports of God’s divine relation to the world.
However, understanding the God-world relation and discoveries in the sciences harkens back to St. Bonaventure’s exposition between the “law” of nature and the “law” of Scripture. How might one accurately relate contemporary science and theology, given the history of Natural Theology with its inherent flaws and weaknesses? One way toward this end might be to first expand Ian Barbour’s classical treatment of the ways of relating “Science and Religion.” Barbour’s work, which was groundbreaking in the late 1990s, outlined four possible ways of relating the “warring siblings” of Science and Religion, they are:
1. Conflict
Science versus theology
2. Independence
Science or Theology
3. Dialogue
Science can talk with Theology
4. Integration
Science integrated with Theology
The framework of this list reflects the tensions between science and theology that Natural Theology was unable to overcome. The conflict stage of Science and Religion, which arose out of disputes with the medieval Church and scientific discoveries, gave way to the “independent stage” of a deistic naturalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Concomitantly, during the independence stage, there was a major tour de force in each discipline. The almost immediate widespread acceptance of evolution in the late nineteenth century removed the necessity of an acting God in the universe given the evolutionary heritage of biological diversity observed on the earth. Likewise, modern theology tended toward adopting deism, (mere) conservationism, and in some circles re-asserting concurrentism, as preferred accounts of God’s divine acting in the world.
On these accounts, a truncated, diminished view of God and a consequent powerful, independent creature was left as an inheritance. This “diminished Creator” and “independent creature” was severely rejected famously by Karl Barth in his dialectic theology and loud Nein! to Natural Theology. However, despite an early twentieth century neo-orthodox attempt to offer a corrective, the next phase in relating Science and Theology emerged supporting dialogue between the disciplines, which has moved rapidly in recent years toward integration. As unresolved tensions remain, left in the wake of Natural Theology’s failure, many strong and scholarly avenues of research in Theology and Science as a discipline have emerged that leave much room for refined theological analysis in light of contemporary science. This has provided somewhat of an improvement, advancing the discussion a bit further. However, the task of trying to concretely decipher accepted and nuanced meanings of such terms as Natural Theology, New Natural Theology, Theology of Nature, Scientific Theology, Theological Science, and so on, is evidence of this muddy ongoing pursuit. There indeed is a need for a new species of Natural Theology; one that offers a precise constructive theology of nature and accounts for all of the failed points left from Natural Theology’s legacy.
In advancing Natural Theology, Alister McGrath suggests a new destination for “seeing nature,” in order to behold what is actually there, without superimposing a futile attempt at proving that nature, in and of itself, provides its own interpretation. Neither is this the work of an appeal to prove God through the complexities of nature. Rather, this speaks to a novel way of seeing nature, a new method of discovery that appeals to the Christian faith in a Triune God as a lens of revelation and knowledge. McGrath asserts,
This is not to be understood as an attempt to deduce the existence of God from observing nature, but as showing the capacity of the Christian faith to make sense of what is observed. Natural Theology emphasizes the resonance between the intellectual framework offered by the Christian faith and observation; it does not set out to prove any core element of that faith from an appeal to nature.
For McGrath, there is a naturally occurring “resonance” between observations and mechanisms in science confirmed by the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The basic premise here suggests that a new breed of Natural Theology based on contemporary observations and data in the natural sciences, consonant with foundational scriptural truths of the Christian faith, offers the best explanation of what is seen.
In light of this analysis, then, we can add the final stage to Ian Barbour’s ways of relating Science and Theology:
1. Conflict
Science versus theology
2. Independence
Science or Theology
3. Dialogue
Science can talk with Theology
4. Integration
Science integrated with Theology
5. Consonance
Science and Theology are ontologically unified
In a fifth and final category, Consonance, provides a way to resolve the long struggle that has attempted to relate God and nature by trying to say what the relation is between two bodies of knowledge and method: Science and Theology. This category advances the discussion by reversing the issue; perhaps it is better to say how Science and Theology are related on the grounds of how God is related to nature. In this way, the fifth category, Consonance, avoids trying to relate God and nature through two disciplines of knowledge. Consonance as a new view proposes that Science and Theology as disciplines are not in conflict, have never in actuality been so, and are not, in actuality, independent of one another because they are ontologically unified.
The proposal of a constructive new kind of Natural Theology embracing consonance must engage with contemporary science in ways that earlier conceptions of Natural Theology simply could not, particularly in the post-enlightenment era where science intentionally disengaged with theological explanations altogether. The first step is re-defining the epicenter from a previous anthropocentric to a current theocentric starting point.
Table I. What Is New in a New Natural Theology Compared to Natural Theology (Chapters of the book addressing each issue are in parentheses.)
Key Issue
Natural Theology
A New Natural Theology as a Trinitarian Theology of Nature
View of the Natural World
As “Nature,” an independently operating machine running on pre-existing natural laws sustained by God (Chapter 1)
As “Creation,” fully contingent upon God’s divine acting and sustaining, containing instressed messages of the Divine essence and character (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 7, 9)
Theological Starting Point
Man’s quest to prove the existence of God and to know God through reason and scientific discovery alone. (Chapters 1, 2)
God’s sovereign plan to communicate to humankind through revelation in Scripture and through the natural world
(Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 13)
Foundational Theological Construct
Science can prove the existence of God (Chapters 1, 2)
Science reveals consonances in the natural world; it communicates God’s Being-in-essence and God’s acting (Chapter 3, 6)
Role of Science
Reliable Method for humankind to Know the workings of nature and to know God (Chapters 1, 2)
The Vehicle ordained by God to reveal himself through his works
(Chapters 8, 9)
Relationship Between Science and Theology
Independent
Conflict
Dialogue
(Chapter 2)
Consonance
(Chapter 13)
Worldview
Deistic/Theistic
(Chapter 1)
Theistic
(Chapters 1, 6)
View of Scripture
Unreliable Source due to emerging biblical criticism (Chapter 1)
God’s Word-wholly reliable
(Chapters 2, 3)
Ways of Knowing God
Through Reason Alone
(Chapter 1)
Through Scripture and Nature
(Chapters 1–3, 8–12)
Views of Divine Action
Deism
Mere Conservationism
Concurrentism
(Chapter 3)
Occasionalism
Concurrentism(?)
Divine Compositionalism
(Chapters 3,6)
Laws of Nature
Operate independently of God’s control, yet can be adjusted by God as needed
(Chapters 1, 2, 3)
Cannot operate independently or have aseity, only God is a se
Natural Laws are God’s faithfulness
(Chapters 3, 6)
God-World Relation
Nature and its mechanisms are independent of God, operating like a machine
(Chapter 1)
Nature and its mechanisms are fully contingent on God moment-by-moment
(Chapters 1–2, 8–9)
Creator-Creature Relation
Creature’s independent efforts alone are enough to discover God: from “below to above”
Anthropocentric
(Chapters 1, 2)
Creator reaches to the creature in revelation through Scripture and nature: from “above to below”
Theocentric
(Chapters 2, 4)
Ontology of Nature
Nature holds information about nature itself, its inherent complexity reveals a Divine intelligence, a “Watchmaker”
(Chapter 1)
Nature itself reveals God’s invisible qualities, power, and Trinitarian essence, nature is God’s Divine self-disclosure to the creature
(Chapters 3–13)
What Nature Reveals
Complexity, Order, Precision, Mechanism, Mathematics
(Chapter 1)
The Complexity, Order, Precision, etc are a language ordained by God to convey messages of God’s character
(Chapters 8–13)
Function of the Creation
The stage or theater for God to enact his plan of redemption
(Chapter 2)
The stage or theater for God to enact his plan of redemption and the means to reveal himself (condescend) to humankind, the analogia with which God bridges the finitum non capax infinitum
(Chapters 2, 6)
The Role of Christ
As Revelation of God and Redeemer. No function in nature per se (Chapter 1)
As Revelation of God and Redeemer, and Creation was created through, by, for and in Christ. Nature is fully Christological
(Chapter 11)
On Analogy
No particular view is held
Analogia entis can be applied to nature
(Chapters 6–7)
Account of the Trinity
Does not account for the Trinity in nature
(Chapters 1, 5)
Fully Trinitarian account of nature. All of God’s Trinitarian essence is revealed in the creation
(Chapters 5–6, 10–13)
Doctrine of Creation Biblical Starting Point
Genesis 1–2
(Chapter 4)
John 1:2–3
Col 1:16
Rom 11:36/ Rom 1:20
Heb 1:3
(Chapters 3–13)
. See n. 19.
. For excellent historical discussions on the precepts of Natural Theology in its theological strengths and weaknesses, refer to, Barbour, Religion and Science; Barbour, When Science Meets Religion; McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Nature, Volume 1; Brunner and Barth, Natural Theology; McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe; McGrath, Emil Brunner: A Reappraisal. Refer to Table I. Each point listed is derived from among these references.
. See Table I for a comparative summary of points proposed for a new Natural Theology.
. Barbour, Religion and Science, 35.
. Molnar, Thomas F. Torrance: Theologian of the Trinity, 32.
. Torrance, Theological Science, 37.
. Torrance, Theological Science, 31.
. Torrance, Theological Science, 32.
. Torrance, Theological Science, 45–47 for an excellent historical discussion of Kant, Hume and the inherent unity of science and religion in the theory of knowing.
. See St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Works of St. Bonaventure, 8.
. Note, historically, the dialogue between science and theology was referred to as “Science and Religion.” More recently in contemporary dialogue and scholarship “theology” is preferred over the use of the word “religion.”
. Barbour, Religion and Science, 77–105.
. Mason, “Science and Religion in 17th Century England,” 32–33.
. For a comprehensive and thorough historical discussion of the progression of the Doctrine of Creation and Natural Theology with its theological implications, I refer the reader to McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Nature, Volume 1, Chapter 4.
. The English translation of the original pamphlet by Brunner and the response by Barth in one volume: Brunner and Barth, Natural Theology. This debate will be taken up in a later chapter.
. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe, 20, 27–28.
. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe, 20, 27–28.
. Barbour, Religion and Science, 77–105.