Natural Theological Arguments Research Articles

Moderating Natural Theology: A Heuristic Interrogative Approach

This article proposes an underappreciated value for traditional natural theology and its familiar arguments for the existence of God, without endorsing the soundness or the rational cogency of these arguments. Famously, Aquinas and Kant represent two extremes, with Aquinas endorsing some natural theology arguments for God’s existence and Kant opposing such arguments. This article recommends a moderating approach, on the grounds that while Aquinas is unduly optimistic here by the epistemic standards of many inquirers, Kant is too pessimistic regarding the heuristic value of the relevant natural theology arguments. The neglected heuristic value of these arguments, according to this article, is in their prompting in unique ways some challenging and fruitful questions for inquiry about God. The disputed natural theology arguments have not achieved anything near a consensus on their soundness or rational cogency, but they still can have significant heuristic value aside from their soundness or rational cogency. This article identifies the relevant fruitful questions and their theoretical importance for human inquiry about God. Ultimately, a heuristic interrogative approach to familiar arguments of natural theology gives these arguments a new role with resilient heuristic value for inquiry about God, even if they do not justify the belief that God exists. Such moderation, this article contends, is rationally defensible with regard to these arguments.

A critical engagement with N.T. Wright on Natural Theology

N. T. Wright’s important recent discussion of Natural Theology seeks to redefine traditional Natural Theology on Biblical grounds. I show that Wright’s discussion neglects Biblical passages (e.g., Acts 14:14–17 and Romans 1–2) which imply that God has left ‘witnesses’ (Acts 14:17) in the natural order, and which contradict Wright’s claim that people cannot start with the natural world apart from Christ and infer that God exists. Contrary to Wright, some contemporary versions of the arguments of Natural Theology do not entail ‘classical theism’ as Wright understood it but increase the plausibility of miracles and the Jesus of the Gospels.

The “historical question” at the end of the Scottish Enlightenment: Dugald Stewart on the natural origin of religion, universal consent, and religious diversity

ABSTRACTThis study examines the leading early nineteenth-century Scottish moral philosopher Dugald Stewart’s discussion of the origin and development of religion. Stewart developed his account in his final work, The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man (1828), in an effort to show that the fact that polytheism was the first religion of humankind does not undermine the truth of monotheism. He wrote in response to similar discussions presented in David Hume’s “Natural History of Religion” (1757), which argued for the primacy of polytheism, and Stewart’s old moral philosophy tutor Adam Ferguson’s Principles of Moral and Political Science (1792), which argued for the primacy of monotheism. Stewart accepted the conclusions of the Scots’ enlightened study of religion, which argued for truth of Hume’s account, but aimed to reassert many of the natural theological arguments about the naturalness of religion that the “Natural History” had challenged. Stewart’s discussion acts as a useful way by which we can assess the achievement of the literati’s study of religion.

Doing natural theology consistently with theism and why one might stop trying

AbstractTheists such as Swinburne who seek to use natural theological arguments to move from observations about the world to conclusions about the existence (or probable existence) of God seem to need premises concerning what the world would have been like were Theism to have been false, viz. premises to the effect that it would have been (or would probably have been) different from the way we observe the actual world to be. Surely only that way could observations of the actual world be taken to be evidence that Theism is true.1 And surely for such arguments to be dialectically powerful in discussions with Atheists, these premises need to be acceptable to Theists and Atheists alike.2 In this article, I call these claims into question.

Intuitions and Arguments: Cognitive Foundations of Argumentation in Natural Theology

This paper examines the cognitive foundations of natural theology: the intuitions that provide the raw materials for religious arguments, and the social context in which they are defended or challenged. We show that the premises on which natural theological arguments are based rely on intuitions that emerge early in development, and that underlie our expectations for everyday situations, e.g., about how causation works, or how design is recognized. In spite of the universality of these intuitions, the cogency of natural theological arguments remains a matter of continued debate. To understand why they are controversial, we draw on social theories of reasoning and argumentation.

John Calvin and John Locke on the Sensus Divinitatis and Innatism

Inheritors of the Calvinist Reformed tradition have long disagreed about whether knowledge of God’s nature and existence can be or need be acquired inferentially by means of the standard arguments of natural theology. Nonetheless, they have traditionally coalesced around the thought that some sense or awareness of God is naturally implanted or innate in human beings. A root of this orientation can be found in John Calvin’s discussion of the sensus divinitatis in the first book of The Institutes of the Christian Religion. This paper outlines a pedagogical strategy for organizing and evaluating Calvin’s treatment of the sensus divinitatis, chiefly by putting it in tension with John Locke’s polemic against innatism in Book I of An Essay concerning Human Understanding. I begin by reconstructing Calvin’s depiction of the sensus divinitatis, as well as his case for thinking that it is innate. I then explain how Locke’s critique of innatism offers a fairly direct response to Calvin and, hence, a useful framework for exploring the limits of Calvin’s treatment of the sensus divinitatis.

The God of the Gaps, Natural Theology, and Intelligent Design

The “God of the gaps” critique is one of the most common arguments against design arguments in biology, but is also increasingly used as a critique of other natural theological arguments. In this paper, I analyze four different critiques of God of the gaps arguments and explore the relationship between gaps arguments and similar limit arguments. I conclude that the critique of the God of the gaps is substantially weaker than is commonly assumed, and dismissing ID´s biological arguments should rather be based on criticizing the premises of these arguments.

Naturalizing natural theology

We would like to thank the commenters for their stimulating responses to A Natural History of Natural Theology. Natural theological arguments, such as the design, cosmological, and moral arguments,...

Natural theology, verification, and growth of knowledge

A Natural History of Natural Theology (henceforth A Natural History) offers an insightful expose of the intuitive ground underpinning major natural theological arguments. De Cruz and De Smedt marsh...

Yet another new cosmological argument

I argue that the existence of a necessary concrete being can be derived from an exceedingly weak causal principle coupled with two contingent truths one of which falls out of very popular positions in contemporary analytic metaphysics. I then show that the argument resists a great many objections commonly lodged against natural theological arguments of the cosmological variety.

The Enduring Appeal of Natural Theological Arguments

AbstractNatural theology is the branch of theology and philosophy that attempts to gain knowledge of God through non‐revealed sources. In a narrower sense, natural theology is the discipline that presents rational arguments for the existence of God. Given that these arguments rarely directly persuade those who are not convinced by their conclusions, why do they enjoy an enduring appeal? This article examines two reasons for the continuing popularity of natural theological arguments: (i) they appeal to intuitions that humans robustly hold and that emerge early in cognitive development; (ii) they serve an argumentative function by presenting particular religious views as live options. I conclude with observations on the role of natural theology in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion.

Can arguments boost warrant for Christian belief? Warrant boosting and the primacy of divine revelation

AbstractIt is well known that in Reformed circles there is significant doubt about the extent of the role natural theology might play in warranting Christian belief. I argue that even if we accept the core theological reservations and philosophical commitments shared by the likes of Karl Barth and Reformed epistemologists, there remains room for the arguments of natural theology to serve a vital, positive function. I offer a proposal for how we might think about the co-ordination of multiple sources of warrant for Christian belief such that arguments function as catalysts to or extensions of the deliverances of faith.

Can Belief in God be Basic?

AbstractAt least since the Enlightenment, religious thinkers in the West have sought to meet the “evidentialist” challenge, that is, to demonstrate that there is sufficient evidence to warrant a rational affirmation of the existence of God. Alvin Plantinga holds that this challenge is rooted in a foundationalist approach to epistemology which is now intellectually bankrupt. He argues that the current critique of foundationalism clears the way for a fruitful reappropriation of the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition's assertion of the “basic” nature of belief in God and its concomitant relegation of the arguments of natural theology to marginal status. After critically assessing Plantinga's proposal—especially its dependence on a nonfoundationalist theory of knowledge—this essay shifts to an analysis of the transcendental Thomist understanding of the rational underpinnings of the theist's affirmation of God's existence, with particular emphasis on the thought of Joseph Maréchal. It is argued that the latter position is better equipped to fend off possible nontheistic counterarguments—even in our current nonfoundationalist atmosphere—and, in fact, can serve as a necessary complement to Calvin's claim of a natural tendency in human beings to believe in God.

God and other Minds

In my judgment Professor Plantinga's book' is the most important contribution to the philosophy of religion that has appeared in several decades. The book has three main parts: I. Natural Theology-a consideration of the cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments; II. Natural Atheology-a consideration of the problem of evil, verificationism, and other attacks against theism; III. God and Other Minds-a consideration of the problem of our knowledge of other minds and the bearing of this problem on the question of the reasonableness of theistic belief. The central question of the book is whether belief in the existence of the theistic God is rational. Plantinga considers in Part I the arguments by which natural theology endeavors to establish that theistic belief is rationally justified. He concludes that these arguments are unsuccessful and, therefore, fail to provide rational grounds for theistic belief. In Part II Plantinga investigates the major arguments employed to show that we have good reasons for believing that God does not exist. His conclusion is that these arguments, like the arguments of natural theology, are unsuccessful. Plantinga's conclusions about natural theology and atheology are not novel. Other philosophers have reached the same conclusions. But few, in my judgment, have argued for these conclusions with anything like the thoroughness, clarity, and skill that Plantinga brings to the subject. The novelty in Plantinga's study of the rationality of theistic belief is unfolded in Part III. Instead of concluding that agnosticism is the rational view to adopt concerning the existence of the theistic

Two ‘Proofs’ of God's Existence

I do not think that the existence of God can be proved or even that the main justification for the belief can be found in argument in the ordinary sense of that term, but I think two of the three which have, since Kant at least, been classified as the traditional arguments of natural theology have some force and are worthy of serious consideration. This consideration I shall now proceed to give. I cannot say this of the remaining one of the arguments, the ‘ontological proof’, which I shall therefore not discuss here.