The Scriptural Case Against Natural Theology

(Excerpt from Catholics and Protestants Together: Natural Theology Exposed)

The most common biblical support for natural theology comes from Romans 1:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20, ESV)

Romans 1 is clear that unbelievers know things about God through what has “been made.” Again, few evangelicals disagree about this general truth of natural theology. But evidential apologists want to say more than this. R.C. Sproul, a Reformed evidentialist, said (in Kantian terms), “In Romans 1:20, Paul is affirming that humans can in fact move from the phenomenal realm to the noumenal realm.”[1] What Sproul means is that humans have natural means of gaining knowledge of the supernatural. The creature does not need to start with something supernatural like the Bible to end up with supernatural conclusions.

But, there is one small problem: Paul isn’t finished.  Paul actually describes the use and result of this natural theology in the very next verse:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (1:21)

Paul declares that the ultimate end of natural theology – at least in the life of the unbeliever – is worthless, “futile,” or in many translations, “vain.” The only way this knowledge of God through nature is going to amount to anything is if unbelievers realize they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

But how? How will unbelievers see their unrighteousness? By natural theology? Not a chance. What classical apologists need to realize is that knowledge of “their unrighteousness” does not come through general revelation or natural theology. Paul doesn’t say when people look at things that “have been made,” that they are going to see their unrighteousness. He said people are going to see God’s “attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature.” Therefore, sinners first need to realize that they are a responsible creature before a Creator and they need forgiveness before they can interpret general revelation rightly. That only comes through the preaching of the gospel. Until unbelievers’ unrighteousness becomes righteousness (from Christ alone), the end result of natural theology will always be “futile in their thinking.”[2] Indeed, “Such knowledge [in Romans 1] is not sound and adequate as a point of contact for bringing unbelievers even a step closer to accepting the truth of the gospel.”[3]

Paul essentially says the same thing as Romans 1 in I Corinthians 2:8-16:

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”– these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.  For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Knowledge of God cannot be fully comprehended by unbelievers. This means proponents of natural theology and evidentialism must show “how the cognitive inability of unbelievers in verse 14 does not exclude the rational competence to arrive at a sound natural theology.”[4] If they cannot do this, then using natural theology is a powerless way to argue for Christianity. Christians must present the gospel as the argument for the gospel.

If Christian theism is not true, then nothing is true. Is the God of the Bible satisfied if his servants say anything less?^[5]

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[1] R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley. Classical Apologetics (Zondervan, 1984), 44.

[2] As the French Reformer John Calvin said, “Unbelievers are like travelers on a pitch black, moonless night, after a momentary lightning flash…knowing and yet not knowing.” Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.2.18.

[3] Scott Oliphint and Lane Tipton, Eds. Revelation and Reason (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2007), 32.

[4] Richard Gaffin Jr., Revelation and Reason, 38-39.

[5] Cornelius Van Til. The Defense of the Faith. 4th Ed. (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2008),

264.