I often kick against the concept of natural theology here at the blog and elsewhere. Usually the appeal I make is to Karl Barth and his rejection of natural theology as a methodological font by which theological work might be done; particularly with reference to a theology proper. But, interestingly, it isn’t just Barth, or me who reject ‘natural theology,’ in the main, according to Richard Muller, the Protestant Reformation Reformed orthodox theologians also had an allergy towards natural theology (theologia naturalis). Note Muller,

duplex cognitio Dei: twofold knowledge of God; a distinction emphasized by Calvin in the final edition (1559) of the Institutes, and carried over into Reformed orthodoxy as a barrier to inclusion of natural theology in the orthodox system of doctrine, according to which the general, nonsaving knowledge of God as Creator and as the wrathful Judge of sin, accessible to pagan and Christian alike, is distinguished from special, saving knowledge of God as Redeemer. This latter saving knowledge is available only in the revelation given in Christ. Lutherans did not enunciate the principle in the same terms; they nevertheless observe it equally rigorously, to the end that neither of the major forms of Protestant orthodoxy has any genuine affinity for natural theology.[1]

We see differences, quite immediately, between the style of non-natural theology that the Reformed orthodox worked from versus someone like Barth. But the point of contact (pun intended) between them is one of ‘spirit.’ There is a general desire to allow God’s Self-revelation in Jesus Christ to be the elucidating reality wherein knowledge of God is developed in its most redeeming mode.

The points of departure is when we attempt to compare Barth’s and the orthodox’s non-natural theology at the level of the ‘letter.’ This is the case, I would suggest, primarily because of differences of period, occasion, and sitz em leben.[2] In other words, because of the variety of circumstances these various theologians were faced with, separated by time and space, they worked with what they had available to them and thus arrived at emphasizing various loci in such ways that best served their immediate and now historic audiences, respectively. This isn’t to suggest that, at the letter level, Barth’s non-natural theology, framed within the contexts of two world wars in his Western European theater, correlates specifically with the orthodox’s conception, but instead, again, it is to reiterate that the mood was present and apparent to Barth when he engaged with the orthodox such that he was furnished with grammar that he sought to appropriate and radicalize for the needs of his own context.

I simply wanted to highlight how non-natural theology is actually not just an adjunct of Barth’s theology, but that it, in a general way, is something present in Reformed theology across the board; even if the orthodox, and those repristinating that today want to draw the lines between Barth et al. more brightly than others of us would like.

[1] Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1985), 97.

[2] Definition: Sitz Im Leben