Douglas Groothuis’ review essay on natural theology (Books & Culture, July\/August 2008) is disappointing, particularly in its treatment of Alister McGrath’s work. Groothuis considers McGrath’s “In the Twilight of Atheism” to be “unphilosophical.” Twlight, however, is more of a historical than a philosophical argument, as Groothuis observes. For philosophical arguments, Groothuis should have turned to McGrath’s “Intellectuals Don’t Need God (and Other Myths)” as well as McGrath’s more pastoral work on these themes, “Doubting.” Concerning very specific historical, philosophical, and theological arguments against the “new atheists,” Groothuis could have read McGrath’s “Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life” and “The Dawkins Delusion.”<\/p>\n
Groothuis does refer in an off-handed footnote to McGrath’s “The Science of God,” but he apparently completely misunderstands McGrath’s Scientific Theology project, which is fleshed out more fully in three massive volumes that Groothuis fails to mention. Far from “remov[ing] the possibility that [natural theology] provides evidence for the existence of God apart from the Bible,” McGrath states explicity, in the very pages cited by Groothuis, that “[o]n the basis of a detailed survey of the biblical material, it seems that a knowledge of God [from nature], however limited, is indeed presupposed.” (Science of God, p. 79.) McGrath then carefully demonstrates, followingThomas Torrance, why Karl Barth’s wholesale rejection of natural theology was an overreaction to some of the intellectual currents of Barth’s day. (Science of God, pp. 82-91).<\/p>\n
McGrath concludes the section on natural theology in The Science of God by affirming that “the human mind possesses the capacity to recognize [God’s] work of creation as such, and to draw at least some reliable conclusions concerning the nature and character of God from the created order.” (Science of God, p. 89.) Groothuis’ real beef with McGrath’s Scientific Theology seems to be McGrath’s careful conclusion that this affirmation is not a “‘necessary truth of reason,'” but rather rests on some presuppositions that can be known only through revelation. This is hardly a “redefinition” of natural theology, pace Groothuis, but rather is fully consistent with the Reformed tradition concerning human noetic limitations.<\/p>\n
While it is inexcusable that Groothuis gives such short shrift to McGrath’s earlier work, it is inconceivable that Groothuis missed McGrath’s magesterial new book, “The Open Secret: A New Perspective on Natural Theology.” McGrath there lays out a detailed, balanced, nuanced, and thoroughly Reformed and Biblial natural theology, summarized as follows: “A Christian natural theology is about seeing nature in a specific manner, which allows the observer to discern in what is seen the truth, beauty, and goodness of a trinitarain God who is already known; and which allows nature to function as a pathway towards this same God for secular culture as a whole.” (The Open Secret, p. 148.)<\/p>\n
One wonders whether Groothuis’ real problem with McGrath is that, unlike many American rationalistic apologists — including Groothuis — McGrath consistently refuses to buy into the false notion that analytic philosophy can provide logical proof of God or that “strong” intelligent design theory adds anything meaningful to reasoned apologetics. In fact, in his anti-Dawkins books, McGrath properly takes the strong intelligent design program to task as a warmed-over version of William Paley’s long-discredited “watchmaker” argument. It seems that, in some circles, any theologian who questions the strong intelligent design lobby gets “expelled” from the discussion. Yet, McGrath is warm to the Reformed and Patristic understanding that nature displays “intelligent design” in its beauty and regularity, and that the “fine tuning” of the universe for human life “corresponds to a Christian understanding of the nature of God.” (The Open Secret, p. 244). It is a shame that Groothuis’ own limited horizons blind him to McGrath’s signficant contribution to developing a natural theology for our times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Douglas Groothuis’ review essay on natural theology (Books & Culture, July\/August 2008) is disappointing, particularly in its treatment of Alister McGrath’s work. Groothuis considers McGrath’s “In the Twilight of Atheism” to be “unphilosophical.” Twlight, however, is more of a historical than a philosophical argument, as Groothuis observes. For philosophical arguments, Groothuis should have turned to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-technology","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-9S","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}