DARWINISM AND THE DIVINE

Part II Historical Exposition: Darwin and the English natural theology tradition

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Darwinism and the divine : evolutionary thought and natural theology / Alister E. McGrath.

1. Natural theology. 2. Faith and reason. 3. Evolution (Biology) 4. Evolution (Biology)–Religious aspects–Christianity. 5. Darwin, Charles, 1809–1882. On the origin of species. 6. Paley, William, 1743–1805. Natural theology. I. Title.

Introduction

The natural sciences throw up questions that insistently demand to be addressed; unfortunately, they often transcend the capacity of the scientific method to answer them. The sciences raise questions of the greatest interest and importance, which by their very nature often go beyond the realms in which science itself is competent to speak. One group of such questions is traditionally addressed by what is generally known as natural theology. Might the natural world be a sign, promise, symbol, or vestige of another domain or realm? Might the world we know be a bright shadow of something greater?

There is resistance to discussion of such questions within some sections of both the scientific and religious communities. Some natural scientists, for example, fear that such metaphysical reflections might erode the distinctive identity of the natural sciences. Without necessarily denying the validity of such metaphysical questions, some scientists would nevertheless regard them as inappropriate, given the specific remit and limits of the scientific method. The “demarcation problem” remains at least as significant in the early twenty-first century as it was in the late nineteenth century. Many natural scientists attribute certain specific characteristics to the practitioners, assumptions, methods, and values of the sciences, in order to construct a social boundary that distinguishes the sciences from other intellectual activities.¹ Boundaries must be drawn and respected. Scientists, like all other professionals, are strongly territorial and resent intrusion on their territory by those who are not members of the guild. Natural theology, some of their number would maintain, represents such a scholarly trespass, opening the door to intellectual contamination.

There is an important point about intellectual authority and competency under consideration here, which unfortunately can easily degenerate into a cultural turf war. While it may indeed remain important for certain purposes to maintain an absolute separation of the sciences from other disciplines, there are many – including myself – who hold that science is at its most interesting when it engages in dialogue with other disciplines – including theology, religion, and spirituality.

Yet misgivings about natural theology are not limited to the scientific community. Some religious thinkers also have reservations about enhanced levels of dialogue with the natural sciences. Might a growing scientific understanding undermine core religious beliefs? Might a scientifically accommodated version of a religion emerge, standing at some considerable distance from its more traditional forebears? Psychologist Paul Bloom gently hinted at this possibility in a recent article, suggesting that increasing scientific understanding inevitably leads to erosion of traditional religious beliefs, and hence the gradual secularization of a religious perspective. “Scientific views would spread through religious communities. Supernatural beliefs would gradually disappear as the theologically correct version of a religion gradually became consistent with the secular world view.”²

Bloom may have a point. As we shall see in the next chapter, during the late seventeenth century English natural theology shifted away from the “signs and wonders” approach of earlier generations, and focused on the rationality and order of the natural world. Such a natural theology bears little relation to the vision of God as an active, transforming power found, for example, in modern Pentecostalism. Might this represent the kind of scientific accommodation that Bloom has in mind? However understandable this development may have been within the cultural context of the English scientific revolution, it inevitably meant a move away from a notion of a God who is experienced as active in history toward that of a God whose past imprint may be reasonably discerned within the structures of nature.

Darwinism and the Divine sets out to explore the impact of Darwinism on the generic enterprise of natural theology, whether this is described (for its variety of interpretations are such that it cannot be defined) in terms of the “proof” of God’s existence from the natural world, or the exploration of the degree of intellectual resonance between the Christian vision of reality and what is actually observed in nature. The term “natural theology” is open to multiple interpretations, and does not designate a single narrative or program.³ Although the term is routinely paraphrased as “proving God’s existence from nature,” this is only one way of conceptualizing the enterprise. Nevertheless, a significant degree of “family resemblance” can be discerned between these various approaches, most notably their engagement with the natural world with the expectation that it may, in some manner and to some extent, disclose something of the divine nature. Natural theology is about maximizing the intellectual traction between the Christian vision of reality and observation of the natural world.

This work seeks to explore the impact of evolutionary thought on Christian natural theology, reflecting partly the historical importance of the issue, and partly the need to evaluate competing notions of natural theology in the light of their capacity to accommodate such thinking. Elsewhere, I have developed and defended the notion of natural theology, considered not as an attempt to prove the existence or character of God from nature, but as a Trinitarian direction of gaze toward nature.⁴ On this approach, natural theology is the understanding of the natural world that arises when it is seen through the interpretative lens of the Christian faith, allowing its rich Trinitarian ontology to illuminate both the status of the natural world and the human attempt to make sense of it. This, however, is only one of many approaches. An evaluation of their capacity to provide theological maps of the evolutionary landscape is potentially an important indication of their adequacy.

The first major part of this work attempts to achieve some degree of clarification of the multiple meanings of both “natural theology” and “Darwinism,” noting how issues of definition are central to any evaluation of their relationship. Particular emphasis is placed upon the uneasy and often unexamined relationship between Darwinism considered as a provisional scientific theory, and Darwinism considered as a universal theory – what some would call a worldview or metanarrative.

The second part of the study deals with a specific family of approaches to natural theology that emerged within England during the seventeenth century and continued to be of major religious and cultural significance into the late nineteenth century. The historical analysis presented in this part of this work cannot be regarded as an unnecessary diversion from the real business of the book. Today’s debates about the impact of evolution upon religious thought invariably make historical assumptions, draw implicitly upon historical analysis, and make theological judgments shaped by memories of the past. Today’s discussions of these themes are often subtly shaped by the lengthening shadows of earlier debates, not always accurately recounted or assessed.

This substantial part of the study consists of a critical re-reading of the tradition of natural theology that developed in England during the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a review of its role in shaping the theological dimensions of public discussion of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The analysis opens with a study of the types of natural theology to emerge in England during the “Augustan age” (1690–1745). This is followed by a re-evaluation of the approach of William Paley, particularly in his classic Natural Theology (1802), and the reception and revision of this approach in England until the eve of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). These chapters, based on a critical and close reading of primary sources, highlight the need to re-evaluate some traditional judgments about the types of natural theology that developed in England during this period, and their role in shaping the reception of Darwin’s theories.

I had been concerned for some time that certain reflexive habits of thought appeared to have developed in some of the secondary literature, especially in relation to Paley’s classic Natural Theology (1802). I therefore decided to read the primary sources once more – especially the core writings of John Wilkins (1614–72), John Ray (1627–1705), William Derham (1657–1735), William Paley (1743–1805), and William Whewell (1794–1866) – in chronological order, taking care to contextualize these works against the intellectual culture of their day. For obvious reasons, this approach also had subsequently to be extended to the works of Darwin and his close associates, particularly Thomas H. Huxley (1825–95). I did not undertake this close reading of Darwin and his circle until I had completed reading and assessing works of English natural theology up to 1837, in order that I could read Darwin in the light of the conceptual nets thrown over the interpretation of nature by these various styles of natural theology, rather than retrojecting more modern assessments and opinions onto his age. By the end of this critical re-reading, it was clear that some traditional judgments concerning Darwinism and natural theology – including several that I myself had adopted even in the recent past – could not be sustained on the basis of the evidence.

The most obvious, and perhaps most important, such conclusion is that it cannot be maintained that Darwin’s theory caused the “abandonment of natural theology.”⁵ The enterprise may have been refined and redirected; it was certainly not abandoned, in England or elsewhere. Furthermore, Darwin’s writings, when seen in this context, cannot be said to have “abolished” the notion of teleology. Not only are Darwin’s writings on evolution marked by implicit and explicit teleological statements; it is clear that his approach demands not the abolition of teleology but its reform and restatement – the “wider teleology” of which Huxley correctly spoke.

This extended historical analysis considers how the English tradition of natural theology was shaped by its English intellectual and cultural context. In particular, it shows how certain features of English Protestantism of the seventeenth century – specifically, its implicit “disenchantment” of nature, and its explicit commitment to belief in the cessation of miracles within nature on the one hand, and the providential guidance of the natural world on the other – led to the emergence of approaches to natural theology that emphasized its sense-making capacities, and focused on evidence of apparent design in the biological realm. Paley’s Natural Theology, which is considered in some detail within this section, is to be seen as a late flowering of this approach.

These distinctively English forms of natural theology proved to be of defining importance for the German Aufklärung. Thus Johann August Eberhard’s influential Vorbereitung zur natürlichen Theologie (1781), which served as an important source for Immanuel Kant’s views on natural theology,⁶ explicitly identifies a series of English writers as major influences on the reshaping of natural theology in response to the new intellectual currents of the eighteenth century.⁷ Kant’s impact upon German-language discussions of natural theology was considerable. Indeed, it may be suggested that Karl Barth’s critique of the generic notion of “natural theology” is actually and unwittingly an indirect critique of this specifically English approach.

Yet by the time Victoria came to the British throne in 1837, shifts in English culture were forcing revision of such approaches to natural theology. Changing public attitudes toward the assessment of evidence, evident in parliamentary debates over criminal justice in the 1830s, pointed toward more inferential approaches to evidence. The celebrated Bridgewater Treatises of the 1830s adopted a more nuanced approach to natural theology, often accentuating the harmony or consonance between the Christian faith and the scientific observation of nature.

It is against this complex and shifting intellectual background that Darwin’s theory of descent with modification through natural selection is to be set. The leading features of Darwin’s theory are here considered within their intellectual and cultural context, and their implications for prevailing forms of English natural theology assessed. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that this is a peculiarly English debate. The theological context, which established the conceptual frameworks that would give rise to potential tensions between Darwin’s theory and natural theology, was distinctively English, reflecting the assumptions and debates that had defined the emergence of English natural theology from the seventeenth century onwards. Although the American biologist Asa Gray (1810–88) played no small part in assessing the relation of Darwin’s theory to natural theology, Darwin’s dialogue partners in this discussion are predominantly English. If Darwin’s theory had developed against a theological background shaped by alternative approaches to natural theology, such as those characteristic of the Greek patristic tradition, a somewhat different outcome would have resulted.

Having explored the historical background to the relation of evolutionary thought and natural theology in some detail, I then turn to consider the contemporary evaluation of this relationship. The third part of this work focuses on the most significant challenges, issues, and opportunities for natural theology that arise from contemporary scientific understandings of the development of biological life. What does it mean to speak of “creation”? How does the suffering and waste of the Darwinian process fit into a theistic worldview? Can one consider evolution to be a providentially directed process? Can one speak of belief in God itself as the outcome of an evolutionary process? A concluding chapter offers some reflections on both the future of natural theology as an intellectual enterprise, and which of its possible forms might be best adapted to both the challenges and the opportunities it now faces.

Evolutionary thought, like all aspects of the scientific enterprise, is to be considered as a work in progress. There is, inevitably and rightly, a significant degree of provisionality implicit in scientific theorizing, including evolutionary thought. This study is therefore to be seen as an exploration of the present-day understanding of a series of important questions bearing on the relation of evolutionary theory to natural theology. It is essential to emphasize that future generations may understand and assess the relation of “Darwinism and the Divine” in quite different manners.

Since this book sets out to explore the relation between natural theology and evolutionary thought, it is inevitable that we must begin our analysis by considering some questions of definition and approach, attempting to achieve at least some degree of clarification over how the terms “natural theology” and “Darwinism” are to be used. As already noted, the term “natural theology” denotes a family of approaches, rather than a specific method or set of ideas. The use of the term “Darwinism” also turns out to be a little problematic, and requires closer attention. There is a significant debate taking place at present within the evolutionary biology community about whether the term should be retained, and if so, what it should be understood to designate. There is a similar ambiguity about the term “Darwinism.” It is impossible to proceed further without exploring both notions in greater detail.

We therefore begin our explorations by reflecting on what is meant by the phrase “natural theology.”

Notes

1 For this issue, see Gieryn, Thomas F., “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48 (1983): 781–95; Gieryn, Thomas F., Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, 1–35.

2 Bloom, Paul, “Is God an Accident?” Atlantic Monthly (December 2005): 1–8, see especially 8.

3 As noted by Fergusson, David, “Types of Natural Theology.” In The Evolution of Rationality: Interdisciplinary Essays in Honor of J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen, ed. F. Le Ron Shults, 380–93. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006. A failure to grasp the multiplicity of conceptual possibilities designated by “natural theology” has impeded theological discussion in recent years: note, for example, the somewhat restricted concept of natural theology discussed in Gunton, Colin E., “The Trinity, Natural Theology, and a Theology of Nature.” In The Trinity in a Pluralistic Age, ed. Kevin Vanhoozer, 88–103. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997.

4 See McGrath, Alister E., The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008, 1–20; McGrath, Alister E., A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, 21–82.

5 This assertion mars the analysis of the American situation in Russett, Darwin in America, 43. Russett’s discussion of Paley’s contribution (32–6) is also very weak. See Russett, Cynthia Eagle, Darwin in America: The Intellectual Response, 1865–1912. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976. For an important corrective, see Roberts, Jon H., Darwinism and the Divine in America: Protestant Intellectuals and Organic Evolution, 1859–1900. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988, 117–45.

6 Kant’s pre-critical essay “Untersuchungen über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral” is of interest here. This lecture, delivered in 1762 and published in 1764, primarily concerns itself with the relation of mathematical and metaphysical truth. For comment, see Engfer, Hans-Jürgen, “Zur Bedeutung Wolffs für die Methodendiskussion der deutschen Aufklärungsphilosophie: Analytische und synthetische Methode bei Wolff und beim vorkritischen Kant.” In Christian Wolff, 1697–1754: Interpretationen zu seiner Philosophie und deren Wirkung, ed. Werner Schneiders, 48–65. Hamburg: Meiner, 1986.

7 For Kant’s annotations on this work, see Kant, Immanuel, Gesammelte Schriften. 30 vols. Berlin: Reimer, 1902, vol. 28, 491–606.

Part I

Conceptual Clarifications

Part II

Historical Exposition

Part III

Contemporary Discussion

Part IV

Conclusion

Natural Theology: A Deeper Structure to the Natural World

“It is not too much to say that the Gospel itself can never be fully known till nature as well as man is fully known.”¹ In his 1871 Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge University, F. J. A. Hort (1828–92) set out a manifesto for the theological exploration and clarification of the natural world. These words are a fitting introduction to the themes of this work. How can God be known through a deepening knowledge of nature itself, as well as of human nature? The delivery of Hort’s lectures coincided with the publication of Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man,² thus raising the question of how the debates about both the natural world and human nature resulting from Charles Darwin’s theory of descent with modification through natural selection affect our knowledge of God.

So are the structures and symbols of the observed world self-contained and self-referential? Or might they hint at a deeper structure or level of meaning to the world, transcending what can be known through experience or observation? Christianity regards nature as a limiting horizon to the unaided human gaze, which nevertheless possesses a created capacity, when rightly interpreted, to point beyond itself to the divine. The philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch (1919–99) used the term “imagination” to refer to a capacity to see beyond the empirical to discern deeper truths about the world. This, she argued, is to be contrasted with “strict” or “scientific” thinking, which focuses on what is merely observed. An imaginative engagement with the world builds on the surface reading of things, taking the form of “a type of reflection on people, events, etc., which builds detail, adds colour, conjures up possibilities in ways which go beyond what could be said to be strictly factual.”³

Murdoch’s point here is that the imagination supplements what reason observes, thus further disclosing – without distorting – a richer vision of reality. If we limit ourselves to a narrowly empirical account of nature, we fail to appreciate its full meaning, value, or agency.⁴ The Christian faith is also able to offer an approach to nature that is grounded in its empirical reality, yet possesses the ability to discern beyond the horizons of the observable. It provides a lens through which questions of deeper meaning may be explored and brought into sharp focus.

Although some limit the meaning of the term “natural theology” to an attempt to prove the existence of God on the basis of purely natural arguments, this is only one of its many possible forms.⁵ The field of “natural theology” is now generally understood to designate the idea that there exists some link between the world we observe and another transcendent realm. The idea possesses a powerful imaginative appeal, inviting us to conceive – and, in some of its construals, to anticipate inhabiting – a world that is more beautiful than that which we know, lacking its pain and ugliness.

Yet the appeal of the notion is not purely emotional or aesthetic; it has the potential to offer a framework for intellectual and moral reflection on the present order of things. A Christian natural theology is fundamentally hospitable toward a deeper engagement with reality. It provides an intellectual scaffolding that enables us to understand our capacity to engage with the world, and reaffirms its objectivity.⁶ For example, the mathematical awareness implanted within us enables us to discern and represent the rational patterns of the universe we inhabit, just as the moral awareness implanted within us allows us to orientate ourselves toward the good that lies at its heart. A robust Christian natural theology allows believers to pitch their tents “on the boundary between the manifest and the ineffable.”⁷ It is a cumulative enterprise,⁸ weaving together observation and reflection on the deep structures of the universe and the particularities of human experience.

One of the most familiar statements of this approach is found in the Hebrew Psalter, where the observation of the wonders of nature is explicitly connected with a deeper knowledge of the covenant God of Israel as the ultimate transcendent reality:⁹

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork (Psalm 19:1).

The basic affirmation here is that the glory of the God whom Israel already knew through the Law was further displayed within the realm of nature. The specific God who is already known to Israel through self-disclosure is thus known at a deeper level through the natural world. This passage does not suggest that nature proves or implies the existence of God; rather, it affirms that nature attests, declares, and makes manifest this known God.

A similar line of thought, without any necessary presumption of theistic entailment, is found in Plato’s theory of Forms, perhaps the most familiar philosophical account of this notion. Plato’s theory can be argued to arise from philosophical reflection on the imperfection of the sensible world.¹⁰ Experience discloses imperfect exemplifications of beauty, in a world of shadows. Plato holds that there exists a world of Forms, in which true beauty exists, contrasting with its shadowy and imperfect manifestations in the world of human experience. There is a connection between these two worlds, even if Plato is generally thought to have failed to construct a secure bridge by which one might be entered from the other.¹¹

So what reasons might be given for believing in the existence of such a transcendent realm, when it is not capable of being observed directly? For many writers of the classical age, the answer lay in the deep structure and apparent design of the natural world. Such writers regularly proposed that the observation of the world pointed to a divine creator.¹² The Jewish wisdom tradition, for example, affirms a reverence and fascination for the natural world, while pointing out that this admiration should be transferred from the created order to the one who created it:¹³

For all people who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know the one who exists, nor did they recognize the artisan while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. If through delight in the beauty of these things people assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. And if people were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is the one who formed them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their creator (Wisdom 13:1–5).

The fundamental argument here is that the arc of reasoning that should lead from nature to God has been disconnected and misdirected, leading to the attribution of divinity to the created order, rather than its wise artificer.¹⁴ This line of reasoning did not involve an appeal to the naturally inexplicable, or to effects whose origins were declared to lie outside the course of nature. Rather, the appeal is made to nature itself and its ordinary operations – operations whose “power and working” were seen as reflecting and embodying the power and wisdom of God.

Natural Theology in the Classical Tradition

Such themes find wide acceptance throughout the Mediterranean world of the classical era. In his De natura deorum, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–45 BC) argued that it was virtually impossible to believe that the order of the world and the heavens came about by chance. Cicero argued that nature’s providential care for both animals and human beings, the complex design of the human and animal bodies, and the intricate interdependency of all parts of nature pointed to the existence of some artificer or designer.¹⁵ Cicero himself suggested that analogies might be drawn with certain mechanisms – such as water-clocks or sundials – to point toward the conclusion of apparent design entailing the existence of a designer.¹⁶

A similar approach was developed by Dio Chrysostom (c. 40–c. 120) in his Olympic Oration, delivered at the Olympic Games probably around the year 107.¹⁷ Chrysostom here asserts that humanity developed its idea of divinity through reflection on the wonders of the natural world. Awe-inspiring or wonder-evoking sights in the heavens (such as the sun, moon, and stars) and on earth (such as the winds and woods, rivers and forests) pointed to the existence of the divine powers who brought them into being, and who could be known through them.¹⁸ Chrysostom saw the power of natural forces, as much as the beauty and ordering of nature, as indicators of their divine origination and signification.

Yet other classical writers were more cautious, noting the ambiguity of the natural world. Although Virgil’s Georgics (written in 29 BC) exult in the beauty of the natural world, finding great pleasure in its richness and diversity, his nascent natural theology confronts without mastering the darker side of nature – such as the constant threat of attack by wild animals, or fear of the untamable forces of nature that could destroy life and render agriculture impossible.¹⁹

Given this aesthetic and moral ambivalence of nature in general, it is perhaps not surprising that others chose to focus on more promising aspects of the natural world – such as the intricacies of the human body. The imperial physician Galen of Pergamum (129–c. 200) saw the construction of human muscles as offering strong evidence of design, and devised a teleological account of the created order on the basis of his physiological insights. Galen’s physiological and anatomical works are often dominated by the idea that every single part of the human body had been purposively designed as the best possible instrument for carrying out the functions of human existence. There is thus a strongly teleological aspect to Galen’s account of the complexity of human anatomy, as set out in his De usu partium.²⁰ At times, Galen attributes this agency of design to nature itself; at others, to a Demiurge.²¹ Christian apologists were quick to use substantially the same argument, but attributing such teleological dimensions of the human body to God, perhaps most notably in the case of Lactantius’s De opificio Dei (written around 303).²²

Early Christian writers lent support, implicit and explicit, to such lines of reasoning. The first letter of Clement, widely believed to date from around 97, reaffirms that God’s wisdom and power are to be seen in the regular workings of the universe.²³

The heavens orbit in quiet submission to [God]. Day and night run the course God has ordained for them, without interfering with the other. Sun, moon, and the dancing stars orbit in harmony at God’s command, none swerving from its appointed course. Season by season, the earth bears fruit in fulfilment of God’s provision for the needs of people, beasts, and all living things upon its surface.

An appeal to the harmony of nature was an important element of Celtic Christianity, which recognized the creative hand of God manifested in both the harmony and power of the natural world.²⁴ The hymn often known as the “Deer’s Cry” or the “Lorica,” traditionally ascribed to Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, offers an excellent example of such a vision of nature.²⁵

The relation between our everyday world and a proposed transcendent realm is traditionally discussed using the category of “natural theology.” The origins of this phrase are pre-Christian, and can be located in the writings of Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC).²⁶ Varro set out a threefold taxonomy of approaches to theology: “mythical theology (theologia fabulosa),” “civil theology (theologia civilis),” and “natural theology (theologia naturalis).”²⁷ Varro’s preference clearly lay with “natural theology,” understood as a rational attempt to discern God within the natural world by philosophers.

This approach had a significant impact on the manner in which Augustine of Hippo (354–430) chose to develop his own notion of natural theology.²⁸ We see this hinted at in a famous statement in his Confessions: “Then I really saw your invisible things, which are understood through those which are created. Yet I was not able to keep my gaze fixed.”²⁹ The fundamental theme, once more, is that human reflection itself, including human reflection on the natural order, is capable of disclosing at least something concerning the realm of the divine. The origins of the notion of “natural theology” lie outside the Christian tradition. Nevertheless, Christian theologians found this to be a helpful notion, not least in that it facilitated apologetic engagement with late classical culture.³⁰ A secular notion was thus baptized and found its way into the service of Christian apologetics.

The Conceptual Fluidity of Natural Theology

The concept of natural theology became well established within Christian theology by the early modern period. Natural theology is a conceptually fluid notion, and always has been resistant to precise theological definitions, even though the term is now generally used in a rather prescriptive manner in the philosophy of religion to denote “the enterprise of providing support for religious beliefs by starting from premises that neither are nor presuppose any religious beliefs.”³¹ Four broad approaches to natural theology can be identified in recent theological works, all with significant historical pedigrees.³²

1 A movement of the human mind toward God, grounded in humanity’s being made with an innate capacity or longing for God. The classic “argument from desire,” as found in the writings of C. S. Lewis and others,³³ can be placed in this category. This view holds that humanity is a “being with an intellectual destiny orientated God-ward,”³⁴ and thus rests on a particular view of human nature and destiny.

2 An argument from essentially “naturalistic premises” to religious beliefs. This might refer to theological beliefs drawn from the interpretation of nature, or to a theology based on deduction from a priori principles, rather than based upon divine revelation. An example of this would be the cosmological argument, as traditionally stated, which makes no religious assumptions in drawing its conclusions. This is probably the best-known form of natural theology, which has unfortunately led some to conclude that it is its only and defining form.

3 A “theology of nature,” which offers an interpretation of nature that is conducive to, or consistent with, religious belief. Here, a set of beliefs derived from revelation or the Christian tradition is used as a framework for developing a particular way of interpreting the natural world.³⁵ This is not understood as an argument from nature to God, but rather as an “attempt to show that the theological categories of thought are adequate to the interpretation of nature and the natural sciences.”³⁶ Natural theology thus affirms the resonance or consonance of the Christian faith and the natural world, without claiming that this observed resonance proves the truth of the Christian faith.

4 The exploration of perceived correspondences between “natural and evangelical experience.” The existence of an “analogy between the realm of grace and the realm of nature” – that is, between religious and physical experience – leads us to trace them back to the same ultimate source.³⁷

Some accounts of the development of natural theology have prematurely and improperly made adjudications concerning which of its forms is to be regarded as normative. The history of natural theology makes it clear that the term designates a variety of approaches, whose appeal is determined partly by cultural considerations, and partly by theological and philosophical precommitments. Every style of “natural theology” is embedded in a social matrix, consisting of a series of assumptions, often better intuited rather than demonstrated, which gives such a natural theology its distinctive plausibility.³⁸ As John Hedley Brooke and other historians have stressed,³⁹ there is no single master narrative of natural theology within the Christian tradition. Rather, what we observe is a complex, shifting set of approaches, adapted to the envisaged contexts and audiences for any specific natural theology.

There are good reasons for proposing a direct link between natural theology and the natural sciences in the late Renaissance,⁴⁰ including the imaginatively powerful notion of the scientist as a priest in God’s temple of nature.⁴¹ A fascination with the wonder of nature is an integral element of European culture throughout the Renaissance and early modern periods.⁴² The beauty, complexity, and order of nature were the subject of both admiration and speculation for many medieval and Renaissance writers, not least on account of the widespread assumption that the natural world was somehow emblematic of its creator. Bonaventura of Bagnoregio (1221–74) was representative of a much wider tradition, which held that the wonders of nature should be seen as “shadows, echoes and pictures” of God its creator, and that these “are set before us in order that we might know God.”⁴³

Yet these intuitions of divinity were explored and expressed in a diversity of manners. Far from being codified in some formal system of “natural theology,” they represent different modes of engagement with, and levels of representation of, the perceived religious significance of nature. Some are clearly cognitive in style; others are more imaginative, appealing to the beauty of nature. Some exult in the beauty of nature as observed; others argue for the need for a deeper level of engagement, if nature’s deeper structures and beauty are to be fully appreciated. Natural theology became an increasingly significant motivation for natural science in the early modern period.

The rise of natural theology in the early modern period was not without its debates and difficulties. The culturally dominant interpretation of the intrinsically polyvalent term “natural theology” began to shift. Where once natural theology was generally understood to affirm the consonance of reason and the experience of the natural world with the Christian tradition, it increasingly came to designate the attempt to demonstrate the existence of God by an appeal to reason or to the domain of nature.⁴⁴ Although initially this development was seen as strongly supportive of faith in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, anxieties began to emerge,⁴⁵ leading many to question whether the enterprise of natural theology was apologetically useful, or theologically defensible.

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