Written by Craig A. Carter |
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
This book makes some crucial distinctions in defining natural theology that make it possible to speak more precisely about the issue. These distinctions are absolutely necessary if the debate is to take place in a profitable manner.

This book is a valuable contribution to theology despite being an incomplete treatment of its topic. It is an important step in the recovery of an important doctrine that has been taught for two thousand years by the best teachers of the church, but which has come under heavy attack in the late modern West. It is true so far as it goes, but like all books it is incomplete. We need more scholarship in this area. Let me give a brief overview, after which I will list what I see as some of the strengths and weaknesses of this book.
Overview
The book has three parts. After the introduction there is a chapter on the biblical foundations of natural theology. Haines discusses Psalm 19; Acts 14:16-17; 17:26-27; Romans 1:19-20; 1:32; and 2:14-15. This list is not exhaustive, but it covers the high points well.
The next four chapters give a historical overview of natural theology from the church fathers to post-Reformation reformed theology. There is a chapter on Greek philosophy and the church fathers, which shows an embrace of natural theology from the second century onwards. One notable feature of this chapter is that it shows that even Tertullian – famous for his question “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?” – taught that the existence of God can be known by reason alone without divine revelation. (84) Another chapter is devoted to Augustine and one to Thomas Aquinas. The last historical chapter covers Reformed theology from Calvin to the late 1700’s including both major theologians and the Reformed confessions.
A final chapter responds to four objections.

The first is that natural theology does not reveal the Christian God because it does not reveal the Trinity. But this objection fails to distinguish between knowing that God exists and knowing things about his nature. It is not necessary to have a complete knowledge of the latter in order to know the former. Also, the same objection could be made against the Old Testament, but surely nobody wants to say that the Old Testament God is not the God of the New Testament. Marcion suggested that but the church responded with a forceful no.
A second objection is that natural theology introduces Greek philosophy into Christian doctrine. But this objection is irrelevant unless it is assumed that the Greek philosophy introduced into Christian theology is false doctrine. But that is denied by the majority tradition. A doctrine of God can be incomplete without being completely false. The doctrine of God in the Torah certainly is not complete by New Testament standards, yet it is not false.
A third objection is that Greek philosophy is erroneous and incoherent. This is a more plausible objection, and it is partly true. The point that needs to be stressed is that the fathers agree that not all philosophy is true. Augustine’s critical analysis of philosophy is Book VIII of City of God shows this clearly, just to name one example of many.
The fourth objection is that finding theistic proofs in early church fathers is anachronistic. Oliphint and Edgar make this claim in their book, Christian Apologetics Past and Present. But it does not stand up to historical analysis. As Haines points out, both Plato and Aristotle, as well as various Stoic philosophers such as Cicero had developed proofs for God’s existence prior to the birth of the Church.

A few observations might be in order at this point. The historical overview is of mixed quality. The chapter on Greek philosophy and the church fathers is well-done, considering how much ground it has to cover in a short space. The chapter on Augustine is very good, but the chapter on Thomas is quite brief and omits many important issues. The chapter on reformed theology is heavy on quotations, which is good, but it lacks enough analysis and engagement with the secondary literature to be definitive. To be sure, I think the chapter accurately conveys the reformed position, but it needs more argumentation to convince the skeptical historian.
Overall, this book is focussed on reformed theology and the objections to natural theology from Cornelius Van Til. This is not a criticism, but simply a statement of the book’s limitations. If you are looking for an analysis of why Barth was so opposed to natural theology or what connections there might be between Barth and Van Til, you will need to look elsewhere.
Strengths
This book has been needed for some time. It has a number of valuable strengths that make it well worth reading.
1) First, it has a clear thesis that is both true and important, namely, that the vehement denunciation of natural theology in certain influential strands of twentieth-century Reformed theology is a radical departure from not only classic reformed theology, but also from the mainstream Christian tradition going all the way back to the apostles. It is an interesting historical question to wonder how the followers of Karl Barth and Cornelius Van Till, who were so different from each other in so many ways, both came to reject natural theology in the twentieth century even though reformed theology from 1500-1900 strongly affirmed it. This is a puzzling question, but this book does not really investigate it. Rather, this book has a more modest aim – to show that the rejection of natural theology goes against the mainstream Christian theological tradition, including the reformed tradition.
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Divine truth is the sword we wield. Countless theories, philosophies, and worldviews have been raised against the knowledge of God. The natural man knows God exists and that he is righteous and good. He also knows he has fallen short of God’s glory. Instead of turning to his creator in light of this knowledge, he runs away and works to suppress the truth he knows (Romans 1:18).

When Jesus walked among us, he did not take arms against his enemies. He did not hire a political strategist or form a coup. His weapons of war were much different, and as believers, so are ours. Though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. Our weapons are spiritual and have divine power to destroy strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:3-4). We have several defenses in our armory but only one offensive weapon: the Word of God (Ephesians 6:10-17).
Divine truth is the sword we wield. Countless theories, philosophies, and worldviews have been raised against the knowledge of God. The natural man knows God exists and that he is righteous and good. He also knows he has fallen short of God’s glory. Instead of turning to his creator in light of this knowledge, he runs away and works to suppress the truth he knows (Romans 1:18).
In suppressing the truth, he builds his fortresses to buttress himself against God’s word. His complex interwoven arguments of naturalism, paganism, and other false religions cannot save him. Instead, they cut him off from the source of life.
In walks a Christian who has been set free from his self-destructive self-delusion by the Holy Spirit, and he is carrying a sword. It is the same sword that the Holy Spirit used to set him free.
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The Holy Spirit groans with us. He intercedes for us in our helplessness. And not only that, we know that God is going to turn everything into good. And if he’s sovereign, then we have hope. And if we have hope, we have patience. We work in the midst of hardship, in the midst of difficulty. But not only do we have patience, but we also have the love of God to help us which nothing can separate us from. We are people in love. Guard that relationship. That love is more precious than all the pain that your ministry will bring. It gives you the strength to embrace the pain of ministry.

We’ve been making our way through the second half of Romans 8, and have gone over the first three of six words: frustration, groaning, and fellowship. We now come to the fourth word: sovereignty. And that’s in verse 28. “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.” God is in control. He’s sovereign, and he works even the greatest tragedies into something good.
In verse 37, after listing a huge set of problems in the previous verses, he says, ‘In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.’ So this is another reason why we are not bitter in the midst of our suffering: he’s turning it for good. We accept that in faith. So when the apostles heard that their task was made illegal, the first thing they did was to get to their group of friends. And the friends got together and they prayed. But their prayer is most interesting. They made just two short requests: consider their threats, and help us to proclaim your word with boldness, and demonstrate your power with signs and wonders. Those are the two short requests they made. The rest of the prayer is an affirmation of the sovereignty of God—of how God worked through history, how people rose up against the Lord and his anointed, and then finally, how everybody who was somebody in Jerusalem—the Jews, the Gentiles, the Romans, the Pharisees—everybody got together, and they killed Jesus. But what they did was what God had already predestined to take place, so that the greatest tragedy became the greatest triumph in the history of the world.
So we believe that God is sovereign, and you know in 1983, when we had the big riot that started off the war in Sri Lanka, this is the passage that God gave me that sustained me through total confusion that we are going through in our country. We knew that God will work through us in the midst of this, therefore we have to keep working. That’s why after reflecting on the sovereignty of God, the disciples requested and said that they wanted to continue to do their work to proclaim the word with boldness.
This brings us to the fifth word: patience. And we go back a little bit. If God is sovereign, we look at life with hope. Even hope is faith in the dark times when things are not going well. But because we know that things are going to be well, we have hope. And if we have hope we have patience. Verse 25, ‘If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.’
In the Bible, the word patience, there are two words for patients, macrothumia, which has more to do with people being patient with people, and hupomone, which is often translated as endurance, which has more to do with circumstances. Hupomone is used here. Now, hupomone is an active word. It’s a word that is almost one of triumphant fortitude. It’s a word that Leon Morris in his commentary says is used on the battlefield. When things are going tough, we try to see what we should do. How can we get out of this situation? How can we solve our problems? It’s an active word, it comes from the battlefield, where Christians are working. You see God is working. We don’t defeat ourselves and adopt an attitude of resignation: what can we do, this is God’s will. Or as people say, this is my karma. No, that’s not what we say. We say God is working for good. Therefore, we have hope. Therefore, we must join him, dressed by hope, and we work.
There was a Japanese professor, who in the middle of his career, went blind with a detached retina. And when he was getting blind, he wanted to find out the mystery: why did this happen to him at the peak of his life? He could not agree with what his religion said, that he was suffering for things he had done in his previous life. So he started looking for an answer. Somebody encouraged him to look at the Christian answer. And he began to read the gospel. And he came to the place in John, where the disciples asked why a man had been born blind. And Jesus said, “It was not because his parents sinned, or because he had sinned, but he had been born blind so that the works of God may be revealed.” And he said, “Could the works of God be manifested through my blindness? Then that is the answer. I will use this blindness.” And he became a Christian. He became an evangelist, and later went to Scotland, did his theological studies, and became a theological professor at Kobe Theological college. That’s Christian patience. God is working, and I will work knowing without giving up: triumphant fortitude in the midst of difficulty. So, that’s our fifth word.
So we have frustration, groaning, fellowship with the Holy Spirit, sovereignty, and because God is sovereign, patience.
Now I want to tell you one more word. And that is the word love. That’s our great source of joy.
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