Is Natural Theology dead? Did Barth really kill it? [View all]

[dmallind]

Many folks have bewailed the lack of "real theology" in this forum so I thought I'd give it a shot again. My attempt a year or so ago to compare the ideas of adoptionism and modalism went nowhere but that was then and this is now, and this topic is more "accessible". I admit right upfront I am nothing more than a half-assed dilletante at best in academic theology, entirely self taught. But it's an interest and I think this question at least addresses points often discussed here by people who have no academic interest in theology, so may appeal more broadly.

Cutting through the jargon, folks from Aquinas to Paley have espoused Natural Theology. The basic idea here is that we can learn about the attributes of God, even his existence, via applying human reason to observations of the natural world. It's a very agnostic point of view in the original and precise sense in that it eschews mystical or even traditional revelation. If you think of the famous "five proofs" you'll get the idea. They contain no scripture or prophesy. Natural Theology in a nutshell.

As an academic viewpoint in theology it was roundly kicked about by Barth and Brunner et al as they launched Neo-othodoxy in the 20s and on. They rejected Natural Theology as deism lite (my words obviously!) and relied on scripture and church doctrine as humans writing about God revealing himself - not that they were themselves God's works, but human attempts to communicate revelation.

If we stopped there it's easy to assume that the usual DU proponents of sophisticated believers would have more sympathy with the former than the latter, but Neo-orthodoxy also stressed the idea that God is not just a "really big human" but a transcendant entity utterly beyond comparison to us. That should sound familiar here.

But back on the debit side, Neo-orthodoxy was also in part a reaction against and very much set against modernist/liberal Christianity - the idea that the teachings of Jesus about how to treat humans are more important than the supernatural trappings - a very popular DU view.

Once more to the plus side, its fideistic bent that says Christianity need not and indeed should not seek proof for itself against Enlightenment rationalism has many supporters here. Finally when you add in the idea that Neo-orthodoxy counterintuitively had a great deal to do with the eventual rise of "secular theology" and we have a decidedly mixed bag for most of the theology fans here.

I don't expect anyone to say "I'm a Natural Theology proponent" or "I'm a Neo-orthodox theologian" in part because both have been largely abandoned to "influences" rather than active academic designations. US mainline Protestantism however is heavily Neo-orthodox to this day outside the Evangelicals on one hand and Catholic-lite on the other. What I do see however are many references to Natural Theology-sounding concepts in the ideas expressed here, as well as many Neo-Orthodox ones. I am seeing more and more implying the former to be honest.

Essentially the question is: how can we know about God, either in truth for believers or hypothetically for nonbelievers. Is the Bible useful or not? If so is it paramount? Can we instead understand something of God by contemplating nature and using reason as our more "spiritual" believers often claim? It's easy as a nonbeliever to assign DU believers based on their sympathy to one or the other, but I think it would be interesting to discuss why one "way of knowing" about God works better or worse than the other, even if, like me, you think neither can tell us anything valid and approach this only as a "how do/should Christians think about God" exercise.