---
title: "Natural theology"
chunk: 3/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_theology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:32:00.714648+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard had similar ideas about natural theology. Kant's ideas focused more on the natural dialect of reason, while Kierkegaard focused more on the dialect of understanding. Both men suggest that "the natural dialect leads to the question of God". Kant argues for the idea that reason leads to the ideas of God as a regulative principle. Kierkegaard argues that the idea of understanding will ultimately lead itself to becoming faith. Both of these men argue that the idea of God cannot be based solely on the idea of reason, that the dialect and ideals will transcend into faith.
Karl Barth opposed the entirety of natural theology. Barth argued that "by starting from such experience, rather that from the gracious revelation through Jesus Christ, we produce a concept of God that is the projection of the highest we know, a construct of human thinking, divorced from salvation history". Barth argues that God is restricted by the construct of human thinking if he is divorced from salvation. Barth also acknowledges that God is knowable because of his grace. Barth's argument stems from the idea of faith rather than reason. Barth held that God can be known only through Jesus Christ, as revealed in scripture, and that any such attempts should be considered idolatry. As Thomas F. Torrance wrote:

So far as theological content is concerned, Barth's argument runs like this. If the God whom we have actually come to know through Jesus Christ really is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in his own eternal and undivided Being, then what are we to make of an independent natural theology that terminates, not upon the Being of the Triune God—i.e., upon God as he really is in himself—but upon some Being of God in general?  Natural theology by its very operation abstracts the existence of God from his act, so that if it does not begin with deism, it imposes deism upon theology.
Søren Kierkegaard questioned the existence of God, rejecting all rational arguments for God's existence (including the teleological argument) on the grounds that reason is inevitably accompanied by doubt. He proposed that the argument from design does not take into consideration future events which may serve to undermine the proof of God's existence: the argument would never finish proving God's existence. In the Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard writes:

The works of God are such that only God can perform them. Just so, but where then are the works of the God? The works from which I would deduce his existence are not directly and immediately given. The wisdom in nature, the goodness, the wisdom in the governance of the world – are all these manifest, perhaps, upon the very face of things? Are we not here confronted with the most terrible temptations to doubt, and is it not impossible finally to dispose of all these doubts? But from such an order of things I will surely not attempt to prove God's existence; and even if I began I would never finish, and would in addition have to live constantly in suspense, lest something so terrible should suddenly happen that my bit of proof would be demolished.
Fideists may reject attempts to prove God's existence.

== See also ==

== Note ==

== References ==

== Further reading ==

== External links ==
Apollos.ws A Christian site surveying arguments for the existence of God and responses to common arguments against.
Toward a new kalām cosmological argument
Catholic Encyclopedia article Bridgewater Treatises
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume
Babbage, Charles The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise 2nd edn. 1838, London: John Murray.
Natural Theology article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy