Re-Imagining Nature: The Promise of a Christian Natural Theology

259 Pages·2016·2.2 MB·English

by  Alister E. McGrath

Praise for Re-Imagining Nature
“Encounter this book with enormous respect. In this remarkable text, McGrath is
judicious, audacious, and perceptive. Setting the entire project of natural theology in
an historical context, he weaves together an account of natural theology that is
innovative, powerful, and intriguing. Critics and advocates for natural theology alike
will have their worldview changed as they encounter this remarkable argument.”
Ian S. Markham
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary
“This theological book emerges from a deep and integrating vision of creation – the
natural world appreciated through the Christian imaginarium. Composed in crys­
talline prose, McGrath explores the complexity of theologia naturalis in a way that is
both insightful and erudite. He enriches the particularities of place with a spirituality
always and only historically and culturally localised. In a time of global ecological
concerns, this is a much needed labour. Christians need to engage these concerns,
rooting them profoundly in a thick account of reality and what it is to be alive. There’s
a promise of transformation in doing this, and McGrath knows it. This book is an
exciting testimony to the imaginative power behind that promised potential.”
Graham Ward
University of Oxford
“In this game-changing book, Alister McGrath develops a thick theology of nature
from a distinctly Christian point of view. He expertly tackles topics that are under-
explored in traditional natural theology, such as the moral and aesthetic ambiguity of
nature, emphasising the importance of both rational and imaginative ways of
engaging with nature.”
Helen de Cruz
Oxford Brookes University
“Being informed about natural theology is essential to any substantive understanding
of the relationship of science and theology. The present book nicely sums up and
carries further his indispensable contributions to the topic.”
John F. Haught
author of Science and Faith: A New Introduction
“In contemporary theology, the project of natural theology has many opponents. In
his latest book, Re-Imagining Nature, McGrath presents an ambitious vision for
retrieving a holistic Christian understanding of natural theology that goes beyond the
rationalistic proofs of God’s existence of the nineteenth century. By stressing the
imaginative powers of human beings and not just rational ones, McGrath defends a
thick and contextual but at the same time traditional model of Christian natural
theology as a way of seeing the world. A stellar addition to the contemporary literature
on natural theology.”
Aku Visala
University of Helsinki
Also by Alister E. McGrath from Wiley-Blackwell
The Christian Theology Reader, 5th edition (2016)

Christian Theology: An Introduction, 6th edition (2016)

Darwinism and the Divine (2011)

Theology: The Basic Readings, 2nd edition (2011)

Theology: The Basics, 3rd edition (2011)

Science and Religion: An Introduction, 2nd edition (2010)

The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology (2008)

Christianity: An Introduction, 2nd edition (2006)

The Order of Things: Explorations in Scientific Theology (2006)

Luther’s Theology of the Cross, 2nd edition (2005)

Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life (2004)

A Brief History of Heaven (2003)

The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism (ed., with Darren C. Marks,

2003)

The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, 2nd edition (2003)

The Future of Christianity (2002)

Christian Literature: An Anthology (2000)

Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 3rd edition (2000)

Christian Spirituality: An Introduction (1999)

Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought

(1998)

The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion (1998)

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought (1995)

A Life of John Calvin (1993)

For a complete list of Alister E. McGrath’s publications from Wiley-Blackwell,
visit our website at http://www1.alistermcgrathwiley.com/
Re-Imagining
Nature
The Promise of a Christian
Natural Theology
Alister E. McGrath
This edition first published 2017
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McGrath, Alister E., 1953-author.
Title: Re-imagining nature : the promise of a Christian natural theology /
Alister E. McGrath.
Description: Hoboken : Wiley, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015046827| ISBN 9781119046301 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119046356
(pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Nature–Religious aspects–Christianity. | Theology.
Classification: LCC BT695.5 .M4437 2016 | DDC 231.7–dc23 LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046827
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Hans Gude: From Hardanger, 1847. Photo  O. Væring
Set in 10/12.5pt, GalliardStd-Roman by Thomson Digital, Noida, India.
1 2017
Contents

Introduction 1

1 Natural Theology: Questions of Definition and Scope 6

The Aim of This Work 8

A Brief Genealogy of Natural Theology 11

Natural Theology: Six Approaches 18

The Natural Theology Project: Thick and Thin Descriptions 22

In Defense of a “Christian” Natural Theology Project 25

The Christian Accommodation of Classic Natural Theology 35

2 Natural Theology and the Christian Imaginarium 41

Sensorium and Imaginarium: Christianity and the Re-Imagination

of Nature 42

Modernity and the Suppression of the Imagination 47

Metanoia: Seeing Things as They Really Are 50

Imaginative Transformation: The Church as an Interpretive Community 55

Theooria: Imaginative Beholding and Rational Dissection 57

Nature as logikos:Reflections on the Doctrine of Creation 61

Metaphors of Beauty and Order: Harmony and the Dance 66

3 Text, Image, and Sign: On Framing the Natural World 69

Natural Theology as a Habitus 69

The Intellectual Challenge of the Ambiguity of the World 73

Nature as a Text: Natural Theology and the Book of Nature 78

Nature as Image: Natural Theology and Landscapes 87

Nature as a Sign: Natural Theology and Semiotics 93

4 Natural Theology: Contexts and Motivations 101

The Importance of Cultural Location for Natural Theology 101

A New Vocational Space: Natural Theology as a Religious Calling 105

The Wasteland: Natural Theology and the Recovery of a Lost Nature 107

Wonder and Mystery: Transcendent Experiences 110

Re-Enchantment: Sustaining a Sense of Wonder 113

The Rational Transparency of Nature and Faith 116

Connectedness: The Human Longing for Coherence 120
vi Contents
Meaning: Nature and Ultimate Questions 122

Natural Theology as a “Natural” Quest 124

5 Natural Theology: Some Concerns and Challenges 128

Natural Theology: Improper and Redundant? 128

Ontotheology? Natural Theology and Philosophical “First Principles” 133

David Hume: The Intellectual Inadequacy of a Deist Natural Theology 135

Charles Taylor: Natural Theology and the “Immanent Frame” 138

Barth and Brunner: The Debate which Discredited Natural Theology? 144

Fideism: Natural Theology as Self-Referential and Self-Justifying? 149

6 The Promise of a Christian Natural Theology 154

The Natural Sciences: Natural Theology and the Subversion

of Scientism 156

The Affective Imagination: Natural Theology and the Spirituality of

Nature 163

Boundaries and Trespass: Natural Theology and Systematic Theology 168

Apologetics: Natural Theology and Public Engagement 173

Conclusion 181

Bibliography 184

Index 240
Introduction

Natural theology has never lost its deep appeal to the human imagination.
Might the beauty and wonder of the natural world point to a deeper order of
things, even if this is only partially glimpsed rather than fully grasped? Does
nature point us toward – to use the imagery of Dante – a “hidden path”
leading to a “shining world”?1 Does the idea of God continue to provide a
“repository for our awestruck wonderment”2 at life itself, or the natural
world around us? A natural theology is both a response to and an expression
of a real experience of the world of nature, which seems to call for
further exploration.
This book sets out to explore what a properly Christian approach to natural
theology might look like, and how this relates to alternative interpretations of
our experience of the natural world. Although I interact with contemporary
theological debates about the nature and scope of natural theology, my more
fundamental concern is to demonstrate the potential of natural theology in
enabling a productive and significant interaction between Christianity and a
wider culture, including the natural sciences.3
Re-Imagining Nature opens by offering a genealogical account of the six
main divergent senses in which the term theologia naturalis has been
understood in the western intellectual tradition since late classical antiquity.
Does such a plurality of construals point to the incoherence of natural
theology? Or is there some grander vision of natural theology which is able to
accommodate and colligate these six approaches? Exploring the genealogy of
1 Dante, Inferno, 34, 133–5.

2 Rushdie, Is Nothing Sacred?, 8. See also Mancini, Filosofia della religione,41–2, 129–30;

Tallis, In Defence of Wonder,1–22.

3 As I have already dealt recently at some length with the interaction between natural theology

and recent theoretical developments in the physical and biological sciences, including an

engagement with the substantial research literature in these fields, only minimal reference

will be made to these matters in this work: see A. E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe, 111–216;

A. E. McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 185–276.
Re-Imagining Nature: The Promise of a Christian Natural Theology, First Edition.

Alister E. McGrath.

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2 Introduction
natural theology discloses its rich and complex history on the one hand, and
subverts narrow and inadequate conceptions of the project on the other.
The recognition of the social construction of such notions as “nature,”
“science,” and “religion,” particularly during the early modern period,4
indicates that there is no predetermined essential form of nature or natural
theology; it is rather open to cultural revision and ideological reconstruction,
reflecting the social and cultural location of its practice.5 As C. S. Lewis often
remarked, the latest is not always the best; furthermore, “a genuinely new
perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight.”6 I argue
that a “Christian natural theology project” may be developed which holds
together a variety of understandings of the notion as aspects or elements of a
coherent greater whole. Such a “thick understanding” of natural theology
resonates with some of the fundamental themes of Christianity, allowing a
retrieval of forgotten or suppressed approaches to these issues.
Given the impossibility of articulating a natural theology “from nowhere,”
this work makes a case for developing a specifically Christian approach to
natural theology, and exploring how this correlates and connects with its
alternatives. The modernist dogma of a single way of understanding the
world has, largely due to its lack of evidential warrant, given way to
the recognition of multiple perspectives of reality – including an important
family of perspectives which are grounded and shaped by the Christian faith.
I argue that a “Christian natural theology project” may be developed which
holds together these six historical articulations of natural theology as aspects
of a single coherent project. The form that natural theology takes is critically
dependent on its context; my approach allows the marked phenomeno­
logical diversity of natural theology to be accommodated within a
distinctively Christian theological vision of its grounds and possibilities.
I then turn to consider the critically important issue of the interplay of
the imagination and reason in a Christian natural theology. Many writers use
the term sensorium to designate the amalgam of natural human cognitive
capacities, cultural webs of meaning, and accessible evidence which shapes
human concepts of rationality in any given situation. Although this notion is
important in criticizing naïve notions of a “universal rationality,” it lacks the
capacity for imaginative engagement that is of critical importance for
theology in general, and natural theology in particular. I thus introduce
the critical concept of an imaginarium, which provides a conceptual
4 See Demeritt, “What Is the ‘Social Construction of Nature’?”; Evernden, The Social Creation

of Nature,37–104; P. Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion,1–19; Gerber, “Beyond

Dualism”; A. E. McGrath, A Scientific Theology: vol. 1, Nature,81–133.

5 See Greider and Garkovich, “Landscapes”; Escobar, “After Nature”; C. M. Harrison and

Burgess, “Social Constructions of Nature.”

6 Antognazza, “The Benefit to Philosophy of the Study of Its History,” 165.