Natural Theology and Natural Law in Martin Luther

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Alfsvåg
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Medieval Theology ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Creative Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Correct Understanding ◽  
Gospel Message

For Luther, the understanding of the world is determined by his theology of creation, according to which the world is created as an expression of the creative love of the eternal God. Natural theology, then, is the ability to interpret all created phenomena as gifts of the Creator, and natural law is the ability to align one’s life with this principle of lovingly serving everything created. However, in a sinful world afflictions and anxiety makes it impossible to maintain an attitude of unconditional trust toward God based on natural reason. In spite of the possibility of reaching a fairly correct understanding of God as the giver of gifts, one will therefore never learn through natural reason alone to trust God as one’s savior. The re-creation of a trusting attitude toward God is only possible through God’s presence in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The creative power of the gospel message thus entails the rediscovery of the significance of the natural knowledge of God and morality. A full appreciation of the natural is therefore dependent on having one’s trust in God re-established by an action of unconditional divine love. From within this perspective, natural law retains its traditional and positive significance. In this way, Luther integrates aspects of late medieval theology without being fully aligned with any of its prevailing schools of thought. Like the nominalists, he understands God as activity, not as substance, but not in the sense that God can be seen as arbitrary. For Luther, the trustworthiness of God’s promises is what anchors Christian theology. Luther’s understanding of the hidden God is therefore quite different from the nominalist idea of God’s absolute power. For Luther, theology’s dialogue with philosophy is important. He maintains, however, that rationality that is not explicitly grounded in a theology of creation will never develop an adequate worldview. Following his emphasis on the theology of creation, in his evaluation of the natural Luther was always looking for thought structures that would let the discontinuity of grace be fully appreciated.

Thomas' Proofs as Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Towards a Trinitarian Analogia

1978 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-132
Author(s):  
George Kuykendall
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The West ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
First Cause ◽  
God The Father

Thomas Aquinas argued that, while revelation alone can supply knowledge of the divine nature, unaided human reason can infer the divine existence from the world's existence. His proofs of God's existence are, in principle, extensions and elaborations of the patristic natural theologies. The Fathers believed that Neoplatonic and Hellenistic speculations about the eternal One, the arche of the cosmos, constituted a ‘natural’ knowledge of God the Father and his creation. God's selfrevelation in the incarnation was placed in the context of this natural theology. Augustine's version of natural theology both summed up the patristic achievement for the West and laid the foundation for Western medieval exploration of the natural knowledge of God. Like Augustine, Thomas believed one could reason naturally from the sensible world to God's existence; unlike him, Thomas reasoned with Aristotle and not Plato. Thomas' ordering of the natural and revealed knowledge of God repeats, then, the patristic sequence: first one proves that God is the first Cause of the world, and then one reasons from revelation about God's redemptive and reconciling relation to the world.

The Contemporary Reception of Aquinas on the Natural Knowledge of God

2021 ◽  
pp. 595-611
Author(s):  
David VanDrunen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Attributes Of God

This chapter considers key themes from Thomas Aquinas’ view of the natural knowledge of God, or natural theology, from the opening of his Summa theologiae. It is written from the perspective of Reformed theology, which has traditionally supported natural theology of a certain kind, despite its recent reputation as an opponent of natural theology. According to Thomas, natural theology is insufficient for salvation and is inevitably laden with errors apart from the help of supernatural revelation. But human reason, operating properly, can demonstrate the existence and certain attributes of God from the natural order, and this natural knowledge constitutes preambles to the articles of the Christian faith. The chapter thus engages in a critically sympathetic analysis of these themes and suggests how a contemporary reception of Thomas might appropriate them effectively.

Towards a Theology of Nature

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
W. A. Whitehouse
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Evolutionary Aspect ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

The phrase ‘a theology of nature’ is an abbreviation for ‘a theological account of natural happenings’—happenings which are properly investigated in the first instance by appropriate ‘natural sciences’. A Christian theology of nature seeks to provide a systematic appreciation of the physical universe, its items and occurrences, from a Christian theological point of view. If it is to rank as a serious contribution to human wisdom, it must be a disciplined effort to understand in appropriate terms the object of interest. One version of the discipline would be to produce an extension of the natural sciences, to cover topics—God, freedom, immortality—which fall outside their scope by a ‘metaphysical’ science which links these topics to the subject-matter of natural sciences in a theoretical account of ‘being as such’. This would have the effect of reintroducing ‘Natural Theology’, reshaped and revitalised, into the fabric of Christian systematic theology. This project is not being advocated in this article. It is mentioned solely in order to distinguish the present topic, a ‘theology of nature’, from what is traditionally known as ‘natural theology’. The purpose of this article is to explore afresh the structure of Christian intellectual response to the wonder of the world, as it is now being analysed by science, with particular attention to the ‘evolutionary’ aspect of things, appreciation of which has radically affected modern sensibility.

A Pascal-type Justification of Faith in a Scientific Age

Philosophy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Falk
Keyword(s):  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Corrected Version ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Pascal’S Wager ◽  
Justification Of Faith ◽  
Radical Transformation

The author argues that faith survives as a rational option, despite science rendering improbable distinctively theological claims about the world and history. After rejecting justifications of faith from natural theology and natural law, he defends a seemingly weaker strategy, a corrected version of Pascal's wager argument. The wager lets one's desires count toward showing one's faith to be rational, and the faith requires that oneÕs desires undergo radical transformation to protect the faith, making the wager argument really quite strong. As Nietzsche insisted, to be an atheist in the face of this challenge, one would have to become superhuman and transform one's values radically in the opposite direction.

Bewahrung der Schöpfung Genese, Gehalt und gegenwärtige Bedeutung einer Programmformel in der Perspektive ethischer Theologie

2014 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-236
Author(s):  
Reiner Anselm
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
The World

Abstract This article takes up the popular formula of the integrity of creation and interprets it as an adequate, specifically modern reinterpretation of a dogmatic topic. Yet the power of this formula comes to light only when its origin within the process of reconciliation is emphasized and the concept of creation is equally distinguished from theologies of order and arguments based on natural law. The surplus value of a semantics of creation over against a discourse inspired by natural theology lies in the expression not of static, but of dynamic thought that aims at structuring the world in order to guarantee equal liberties for all to actualize their lives.

John Courtney Murray, SJ (1904–67): Working with God

2005 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-351
Author(s):  
J. Leon Hooper
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Natural Law Ethics ◽  
John Courtney Murray

For most of his life, the Jesuit John Courtney Murray rejected the possibility of ecumenical theological discourse, while insisting that Protestants and Catholics could and must speak with each other in the languages of natural law ethics and natural theology. At the very end of his life, he insisted that all future Christian theology must be ecumenical in its inspiration, sources, and methods. This article traces two roads that led to his final ecumenical stance, one through his political theory and a second, more sure path, through his cognitional theory.

Further Thoughts on Natural Theology, Metaphysics, and Analogy

Pro Ecclesia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 106385122110172
Author(s):  
Steven J. Duby
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Sensus Divinitatis ◽  
The Way

In this article, I respond to each of the three authors who have engaged my book God in Himself. Regarding Gray Sutanto’s response, I offer comments on his effort to integrate Schleiermacher and Calvin on the human “feeling of dependence” and the sensus divinitatis and to draw upon the insights of Bonaventure to frame our natural knowledge of God. Regarding Scott Swain’s response, I seek to build on his thoughts about the necessary use of metaphysical concepts by considering some additional biblical material and by clarifying the way in which metaphysical concepts might be treated as developments of ordinary, common human knowledge of reality. Finally, regarding Dolf te Velde’s response, I seek to clarify further why I think Scotus and Aquinas may not be too far apart on the nature of theological predication and why I think Aquinas’ view of analogy and divine simplicity is still sufficient for confirming the veracity of Christian speech about God.

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