Ecology as a New Foundation for Natural Theology

Andreas Gonçalves Lind,Bruno Nobre

doi:10.3390/rel12080660

Abstract

The erosion of metaphysics that began in Modernity has led to the discredit of the whole project of natural theology as a means to reach God, establish the classical divine attributes, and account for divine action. After the deconstruction of classical metaphysics propelled by thinkers associated with the Protestant tradition and by philosophers affiliated with the Nietzschean critique, it may appear that only an apophatic approach to God would then be possible. However, the attempt to establish a consensual foundation for the theological discourse has not lost its relevance. In this sense, the attempts to revitalize natural theology are most welcome. It would be naive, however, to think that approaches to natural theology based on classical metaphysics will easily gather consensus. This will not happen. The departing point for a renewed and credible approach to natural theology cannot be the theoretical universal reason associated with Modernity, which is no longer acknowledged as a common ground. As such, a viable approach to natural theology has to find a new consensual starting point. The goal of this article is to argue that the emergence of a new ecological urgency and sensibility, which nowadays gather a high degree of consensus, offers an opportunity for the renewal of natural theology. It is our aim: (i) to show the extent to which God grounds the intrinsic value of nature, which, as such, deserves respect, and (ii) to suggest that the reverence for nature may naturally lead contemporary human beings to God.

Highlights

The erosion of metaphysics that began in Modernity has led to the discredit of the whole project of natural theology as a means to reach God, establish the classical divine attributes, and account for divine action
Since Modernity, classical metaphysics, which had been taken as the starting point of natural theology, has been subjected to successive critiques
In order to propose a preliminary approach to a natural theology founded on the ecological consensus we have described, it is crucial to identify the characteristics of contemporary “ecological sensibility”, an expression that was coined by John Rodman in the mid-1990s

Summary

The Decline and Resurgence of Natural Theology

Natural theology may be defined as “the practice of philosophically reflecting on the existence and nature of God independent of real or apparent divine revelation or scripture”. The divine Logos was understood as the common ground for both Christian and non-Christian thinkers, and as such, the intelligibility of the universe was presupposed as the firm foundation of natural theology In this context, the so-called Church Fathers, such as Justin and Augustine, considered themselves as heirs of the Old Testament prophets and of the Apostles, and heirs of the philosophers of Greek antiquity, such as Socrates, Xenophanes, and Plato, who reached a certain notion of God as the supreme Good by reason alone The collapse of positivism and its attendant verification principle of meaning was undoubtedly the most important philosophical event of the twentieth century Their demise heralded a resurgence of metaphysics, along with other traditional problems of philosophy that verificationism had suppressed. It is important to notice that this resurgence of natural theology became especially vigorous within analytic philosophy Within this framework, a whole series of new retrievals of the classical arguments for the Existence of God have been proposed. Which “consensual” starting point, within the contemporary worldview, is worth using? Our main thesis consists in identifying this “consensual” basis for natural theology with the ecological sensibility of contemporary men and women

Natural Theology from Ecological Sensibility

Conclusions