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“One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there’s nothing but unanswered pain. That death’s got the final word, it’s laughing at him. Another man sees that same bird, feels the glory, feels something smiling through it.” (From the opening monologue in The Thin Red Line)

“For the early Christians the knowledge of the world began with the knowledge of God, and God could be known only in faith…Natural law is a minor tributary in Christian antiquity.”  (Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, pp. 161, 321)

Today most western Christians tend to place great weight on the possibility and importance of evidential apologetics.  That God’s existence and nature can be seen and known and proved through appeal to the created order seems both intuitive and biblical to us.  Thus we love the ontological argument, the argument from design, the fine-tuning of the universe, etc.  Yet I have found myself slowly moving away from an earlier optimism I possessed for both the usefuleness and the centrality of such argumentative strategies.  Like most long, slow fades away from one’s prior convictions, I find myself unable to give voice to many of the concrete, particular reasons that have prompted me over the years toward a more Barthian perspective on so-called “natural theology.”  But I have been enboldened in my stance of late by finding a much older predecessor than Barth to point to in my defense. 

Blaise Pascal, in his one-of-a-kind Pensees (every Christian should read this), repeatedly pulls the rug out from under those who would put their faith in evidential, rationalistic “proofs” for God’s existence and excellence.  To paraphrase Paul, if anyone had a reason for confidence in the flesh (i.e. the ability of reason to work its way up to God unaided), it was Pascal, the legendary philosopher and mathematician.  Yet he intentionally came to forsake this attractive pathway to the divine, as I believe the passages cited below demonatrate. 

What accounts for Pascal’s diminished view of creation’s inherent ability, apart from the gospel, to win over the minds and hearts of human beings to the reality of God?  I think the impetus for Pascal’s rejection of natural theology can be divided into two categories: ruin and revelation. 

First, because human beings are prone to futile idolatry and darkened in both mind and passion, the testifying witness of the created order is not so much absent, as ineffective.  Yes, the world cries out the glory of the eternal God, as Paul writes in Romans 1:18-32.  Yet in that same passage he also contends that sinful, twisted humanity inevitably distorts, corrupts and suppresses the silent speech of the heavens (Psalm 19).  I find this to be spectacularly true in personal experience.  Human beings on their own, from a million distinct vantage points in life among which the only common ground shared equally is the sin resident within each biased observer, cannot in actual practice come to know God through wisdom.  At best, nature can render us inexcusable, but it cannot enlighten us as long as we remain autonomously aloof from the God who unceasingly beckons to us through the gospel and the church.  As Camus pointed out in The Myth of Sisyphus, no one has ever yet died for the ontological argument.  Nor should they have.  But thousands have died for Christ.  And they should have; such decisions will be publicly vindicated on the last day.

Second, from the divine side of the ledger now, reason is not the chosen avenue by which God has appointed human beings to come to know him (1 Corinthians 1-2).  And at the bleark prospect that charges of fideism might be laid at my feet, let me state plainly here that I do believe reason is indispensable to knowing God.  But I do not believe it is primary.  The gospel, as both Origen and Edwards argued, has its highest and most proper proof within.  The beauty, power and goodness of the gospel flows from the story of Jesus itself, and not from any external standards, criteria or logical forays into that story by disinterested outsiders.  In hindsight, reason confirms the legitimacy and coherence of our faith in a thousand ways.  Yet reason was not, is not, and never will be our trailblazing pioneer into the knowledge of God whose prowess receives eternal adulation .  For by God’s own design, the world did not come to know the God of wisdom through wisdom, but rather only through the foolishness of what is proclaimed.  That is, the only true God only comes to be known through the heralding of the unbelievable message that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of all, having accomplished our salvation through his triumph over sin and death.  For Pascal, then, such a gospel necessarily has enormous epistemological implications.  If the God who saves us that way is the God we are talking about, then the process of knowing Him does not take essentially place through our own efforts and ability.  Knowledge of God is created, sustained and consummated according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh.  Such a claim is not irrationalism, but simply the recognition that the knowledge of God does trade in goods that are fundamentally beyond the reaches of reason’s ambitious arm. 

Stanley Hauerwas provocatively argued in his Gifford lectures that Karl Barth–that fiercesome, caricatured enemy of all “arguments for God” which find their origin in isolation from the very gospel they seek to defend–actually turns out to be the natural theologian par excellence, because he starts with Jesus and is only then willing to look at the world.  Only from a tentative, humble committment to Jesus, assuming his story as my own story, can I then inquire of creation and see that it sings of the God who made it with any sense of certainty and coherence.  From any other position, creation will either seem to me futile and ruthless, or else to belong to a god other than the one that the gospel tells me of.  As Calvin famously put it, the Scriptures provide us with the reading spectacles we must wear if we hope to read creation rightly.  Otherwise God is still there, but we will not see his handiwork in proper focus. 

Hauerwas even argues that Thomas Aquina’s famous “proofs” for God’s existence in his Summa are not, as so often thought, actually proofs at all.  Instead, they are (in historical context) intramural attempts from within the community of faith to help Christians who already believe to understand how rational their faith indeed is.  Whether this is a justified reading of Aquinas I am in no position to decide, but I do find it to be utterly persuasive as an interpretation of what my experience (when I am most honest with myself) has been with arguments for God, as well as of the proper role of the gospel itself in creating and sustaining within us a knowledge of God that is Christ-centered through and through.  Which, of course, is the only kind of knowledge of God there really is in the universe. 

I leave you now to ruminate upon Pascal, and encourage those of us who have come to know God in Christ to only depend upon “arguments for God” in derivative, secondary ways.  What should we do with all the time on our hands we now find freed up?  Proclaim the Story.  And then live the Story together.  Nothing persuades the human mind and satisfies the human heart so much as when those things are done well, in conscious dependence upon the grace of God.

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#3: “‘Why, do you not say yourself that the sky and the birds prove God?’  No.  ‘Does your religion not say so?’  No.  For though it is true in a sense for some souls whom God has enlightened in this way, yet it is untrue for the majority.”

#189: “We know God only through Jesus Christ…All those who have claimed to know God and prove his existence without Jesus Christ have only had futile proofs to offer…In him and through him, therefore, we know God.  Apart from that, without Scripture, without original sin, without the necessary mediator, who was promised and came, it is impossible to prove absolutely that God exists, or to teach sound doctrine and sound morality.  But through and in Christ we can prove Christ’s existence, and teach both doctrine and morality.”

#190: “The metaphysical proofs for the existence of God are so remote from human reasoning and so involved that they make little impact, and, even if they did help some people, it would only be for the moment during which they watched the demonstration, because an hour later they would be afraid they had made a mistake.”

#406: “We have an incapacity for proving anything which no amount of dogmatism can overcome.  We have an idea of truth which no amount of skepticism can overcome.”

#417: “Not only do we only know God through Jesus Christ, but we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ; we only know life and death through Jesus Christ.  Apart from Jesus Christ we cannot know the meaning of our life or our death, of God or of ourselves.  Thus without Scripture, whose only object is Christ, we know nothing, and can see nothing but obscurity and confusion in the nature of God and in nature itself.”

#429: “This is what I see and what troubles me.  I look around in every direction and all I see is darkness.  Nature has nothing to offer me that does not give rise to doubt and anxiety.  If I saw no sign there of a Divinity I should decide on a negative solution: if I saw signs of a Creator everywhere I should peacefully settle down in the faith.  But, seeing too much to deny and not enough to affirm, I am in a pitiful state, where I have wished a hundred times over that, if there is a God supporting nature, she should unequivocally proclaim him, and that, if the signs in nature are deceptive, they should be completely erased; that nature should say all or nothing so that I could see what course I ought to follow.  Instead of that, in the state in which I am, not knowing what I am not what I ought to do, I know neither my condition nor my duty.  My whole heart strains to know what the true good is in order to pursue it: no price would be too high to pay for eternity.”

#449: “Jesus Christ is the object of all things, the center towards which all things tend.  Whoever knows him knows the reason for everything…And that is why I shall not undertake here to prove by reasons from nature either the existence of God, or the Trinity or the immortality of the soul, or anything of that kind: not just because I should not feel competent to find in nature arguments which would convince hardened atheists, but also because such knowledge, without Christ, is useless and sterile.  Even if someone were convinced that the proportions between numbers are immaterial, eternal truths, depending on a first truth in which they subsist, called God, I should not consider that he had made much progress towards his salvation.

The Christian’s God does not consist merely of a God who is the author of mathematical truths and the order of the elements.  That is the portion of the heathen and Epicureans.  He does not consist merely of a God who extends his providence over the life and property of men so as to grant a happy span of years to those who worship him.  That is the portion of the Jews.  But the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of the Christians is a God of love and consolation: he is a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses: he is a God who makes them inwardly aware of their wretchedness and his infinite mercy: who unites himself with them in the depths of their soul: who fills it with humility, joy, confidence and love: who makes them incapable of having any other end but him.

All those who seek God apart from Christ, and who go no further than nature, either find no light to satisfy them or come to devise a means of knowing and serving God without a mediator, thus falling into either atheism or deism, two things almost equally abhorrent to Christianity.”

#463: “It is a remarkable fact that no canonical author has ever used nature to prove God.  They all try to make people believe in him.  David, Solomon, etc., never said: ‘There is no such thing as a vacuum, therefore God exists.’  They must have been cleverer than the cleverest of their successors, all of whom have used proofs from nature.  This is very noteworthy.”

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4 Responses

  1. Jacobi

    There is perhaps no area in contemporary theology in which overreaction is more prominent and Karl Barth’s influence more deleterious than natural theology.

    Mr. Nowalk’s trajectory is arguably a common one for intellectual Christians of a certain age. In the beginning, an overweening confidence in apologetics, perhaps a favoring of some strongly rationalistic defenders of the faith. Later, with greater theological and intellectual maturity, a skepticism sets in, perhaps even disillusionment. This is usually correlated with a discovery of deep Christian thinkers often accused of fideism: Pascal, Kierkegaard, Barth (et al.). Christocentrism becomes appealing; it grows more and more obvious that to think of knowledge of God apart from Christ is not just bad apologetics but bad theology, trying to get to God “behind the back of Jesus.” The end result: a theologically much more sophisticated position, experienced as Barthian or something close enough, accompanied by a greater sense of the complexity of belief, the frailty of reason, and the centrality of revelation. The reading trajectory ends in a lot more Barth and Barthians and a much mitigated interest not only in the apologists of one’s less mature youth, but also in the kinds of questions and arguments with which apologists and (analytic) philosophers of religion concern themselves.

    The written or spoken trajectory ends in ex post facto intellectual positions which describe the largely implicit affective and intellectual transition from the Mr. Lane Craigs and Co. to the much richer shores of Karl Barth and his epigones.

    Much of this transition I applaud; however, so far as I can tell too often it ends much too early. Transitions of this sort tend to be of the replacing kind: one position replaces the other, at least initially in the mind and heart of the convert. But the deepest and most robust transitions, or conversions, preserve via addition.

    The truly better position provides the framework within which the insights, truths, and value of an older position are not only preserved but clarified, rendered more distinct, more finely-honed. But today, natural theology(used in the broadest sense, per Mr. Nowalk’s essay) tends to be buried and left underground indefinitely, while all of the insight, value, and importance it contains is gleefully or thoughtfully (depending on one’s maturity) negated, sometimes even as impiety and a betrayal of Christ’s centrality. This sometimes results in a total practical neglect of apologetics and a new emphasis on “the Gospel,” meaning, presenting Christianity without arguments.

    My aim is not to convert, certainly not in an online comment; it is rather to suggest the inadequacy of remaining where Mr. Nowalk’s essay leaves us.

    Only when one better understands why one was justified in holding a position one now relativizes, affectively and intellectually, can the movement to a different position be seen as a true gain, real development, and not simply a lateral shift, a losing of one thing for another. I fear too many of the most intellectually capable of Christians today only shift laterally and lose important things in the process, the recovery of which, if it ever happens, comes needlessly late and with much avoidable backtracking.

    If none of this applies to you, Mr. Nowalk, I pray you take no offense, but it is true nonetheless that the transition you describe is a typical one, one about which I think we should be concerned if it ends with natural theology in its current state among theologians and thoughtful, theology-reading Christians.

  2. Nick Nowalk

    Jacobi, thank you for this very thoughtful and helpful response. I actually find myself agreeing with just about everything you wrote here. I have often felt–and often still do feel today–uncomfortable with the reactionary extremes upon which those like Barth and Hauerwas have landed in their (nonetheless correct) critiques of modern Christianity’s proneness to so often buy into the deceitful appeal of what human reason is capable of, on this side of the Enlightenment. Insofar as they do this from a Christ-centered perspective, I think they should be heard seriously. Insofar as they are prone to fideism and to the abandonment of all external arguments for the faith (as they clearly are), I think they are unhelpful and do not represent the mainstream of Christian tradition.

    Yes, philosophical and rational arguments can be useful and helpful and appropriate when talking to unbelievers. The vast majority of Christians throughout history would say so, and I would concur. But where I think Pascal, Barth and others are helpful is in reminding us that the “ideal” so many Christians entertain for how sinners become persuaded of the gospel–namely, that it runs along the gamut of law of non-contradiction–necessarily logical truths and principles–establishment of theism–historical reliability of the Bible–Jesus–seems highly problematic to me when it becomes “the” model of evangelism and dialogue.

    It is here that I love Pascal’s and Barth’s emphasis that it is the story of the gospel itself that is the power of God tor bring salvation, to open eyes, and to convince. Taken as an entire approach to the issue of natural theology, I agree that this post is unfair and unbalanced. Yet I remain convinced that this is the part of the picture most Christians need to have held up in front of them today–as Jonathan Edwards says in Religious Affections:

    “The gospel of the blessed God does not go abroad a begging for its evidence, so much as some think: it has its highest and most proper evidence in itself. Though great use may be made of external arguments, they are not to be neglected, but highly prized and valued; for they may be greatly serviceable to awaken unbelievers, and bring them to serious consideration, and to confirm the faith of true saints; yea, they may be in some respects subservient to the begetting of a saving faith in men.

    Yet what was said before remains true, that there is no spiritual conviction of the judgment, but what arises from an apprehension of the spiritual beauty and glory of divine things: for, as has been observed, this apprehension or view has a tendency to convince the mind of the truth of the gospel.”

    So in a secondary way, arguments external to the gospel are useful to rid objections people hold, and to create a certain tentative plausibility that the gospel deserves a hearing and might be true. But it is the gospel itself that must take front and center, always. I’m sure you agree, Jacobi, and thanks again for your terrific response. Take care!

  3. Nathan

    This is excellent, and I wholeheartedly agree.

    I always go back to Newbigin here:
    “In a sense—I hope not overdramatizing—one could say that the new Cartesian starting point, which has been so foundational for all that has followed, was a small-scale repetition of the Fall. Adam is not content to trust God. He wants to have his own certitude, based on an experimental test of the validity of God’s promise. He is the first inductive theologian. We are all Adam’s heirs, and we in our particular culture are all heirs of Descartes. This becomes evident when we try to communicate the Christian faith to our unbelieving friends. When we try to do this, the answer comes: ‘But can you prove it?’ ‘Can you prove to me that Jesus is indeed the true and living way?’ ‘What are the grounds on which I should choose to follow him rather than any of the others who have made similar claims?’ We cannot answer that by offering some grounds, something supposedly more reliable than what is given to us in Christ. To do so would be to embark on an infinite regress, since we would in due course have to find proof that these grounds were reliable and then to show further grounds for this and so ad infinitum. What is really being asked, of course, is that we should show that the gospel is in accordance with the reigning plausibility structure of our society, that it accords with the assumptions which we normally do not doubt; and that is exactly what we cannot and must not do. What we have to do is what the Church Fathers and Augustine had to do in the age when classical culture had lost its nerve and was disintegrating. We have to offer a new starting point for thought. That starting point is God’s revelation of his being and purpose in those events which form the substance of the Scriptures and which have their center and determining focus in the events concerning Jesus.” (Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth, pp. 27-28)