THEISM

3. PROBLEMS of Theism.
   There are three sets of philosophical problems that have arisen in connection with theism:
   the problem of the existence of God,
   the problem of the relation of God to the world, and
   the problem of evil.
   We will examined first the problem of
   the existence of God
   and then the problems of
   the relation of God to the world, and
   the problem of evil.
   In conclusion, we will examine the problem of Natural Theology.
   1. Existence of God.
      Traditionally there have been three arguments or "proofs" for the existence of God:
      the cosmological,
      the ontological and
      the teleological arguments.
      1. The Cosmological Argument.
         There are at least three forms of this argument:
         1. The argument from motion was set forth by Aristotle and has reproduced in various ways by traditional philosophy (for example, Aquinas' first way). It can be stated as follows: The world is composed of things which move or change. Of these none of these have the power to move itself. All things are moved by others. But these other things also lack the capacity of self-movement and they are moved by others, which is in turn are moved by still other agents. Now there is either an infinite series of moving things, none of which has the power of self-motion, or a finite series of moving things, which are ultimately moved by a mover that is itself unmoved. Since an infinite series is impossible, there must be finite series moved by first mover, which is unmoved. Aristotle concludes, "It is evident that the first mover must be something that is one and eternal." This unmoved mover is God.
         2. The second form of the Cosmological Argument is the argument from causality. Since many things "move themselves," such as animals, this exception can be cover by broadening the argument from movement by substituting "cause" for "move." This argument from causality may be stated as follows: From experience we see that nothing which exists has brought itself into existence. That is, everything that exists has a cause or causes. But the causes of things are caused and those causes are in turn the effects of still other causes. Now it is evident that the world is composed of things none of which has the power to cause itself; hence the world cannot be its own cause but is caused by some other cause. Therefore it is concluded that the world is caused by some cause other than itself, a cause which is uncaused. This uncaused cause is God.
         3. The third form of the Cosmological Argument is the argument from contingency and necessity. Kant stated it in following form: "If anything exists, an absolutely necessary Being must also exist. But I exist. Therefore an absolutely necessary Being exists." In other words, a thing may be said to have necessary existence, if it has to exist. Now from experience it is evident that nothing in the world need exist. Since anything in this world can be destroyed, their existence is contingent. The world as a whole, then, is a contingent rather than a necessary being, since it is composed of contingent beings. But if the world is contingent, there is no reason why there should be a world at all. But the world exists, and therefore a being has to exist, to account for the existence of the world. This necessary being is God.
         The following are objections to each of the three forms of the Cosmological argument.
         1. Aside from the obvious weakness that there are things that are self-moving, logically there is nothing impossible about an infinite series, since they can be constructed in mathematics. But a physical series is either limited by time or space. Thus an infinite physical series is impossible, unless it is assumed that the universe is infinite in time and space.
         2. It is objected that this causality argument denies self-causing power to Nature but asserts it of God. But if self-causing power is affirmed of Nature, then Nature would be God, since God is by definition that self-causing power. So to the childs question "who made God?" it may be answered that nobody made God, because God is not made by anybody. If somebody did make God then God would not be God and that somebody would be God. In other words in this context what does the word "God" mean?
         3. While it may be admitted that nothing in Nature contains it own reason for being, and therefore things and events are contingent, it is not valid to infer from the contingency of the parts of the whole the whole is contingent. This is the fallacy of composition. This is the fallacy of arguing from the properties of the parts, taken separately, to a property of the whole, taken all together. For example, since sodium and chlorine are poisonous, it does not follow that salt, sodium chloride, which is composed of these elements, is also poisonous. So if any part of Nature, taken singly, may be contingent or dependent for its existence on something else, it does not follow that Nature, taken as a whole, is also contingent. But if Nature, as a whole, is not contingent, then it would be necessary being. And by definition Nature would be God. This objection does not go the heart of of this argument; but Kant's criticism does: this argument depends upon the Ontological Argument and the concept of necessary being.

      2. The Ontological Argument.
         This argument was given classic form by Anselm (1033-1109), a theologian and Archbishop of Cantebury. It was popular with the Continental rationalists of the 16th century, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.

         There are at least three forms of this argument:

         1. The Anselmian form of this argument may be stated as follows: Let us conceive of a perfect being (ens realissmus). Now such a being will contain all the attributes of perfection. Existence is one of these attributes. It is not possible to conceive of this perfect being and deny that he exists. In other words, to say that the perfect being includes the attribute of existence is simply another way of saying that the perfect being exists.
         2. The other form of the Ontological Argument may be stated as follows: God is by definition necessary being; that is, God's essence (what he is) and his existence (that he is) are one and same in a necessary being. Therefore God must exist. In created beings the essence is not same as its existence. The essence of created thing may be conceived without it existing. But in God essence and existence are identical. If they were not, if God did not have to exist, he would be just a created thing like a flower that could just past out of existence. But such a God would not be God at all. Now if in God essence and existence are one and the same, merely to define him - indeed, merely to conceive of him (as a perfect being, for example) - is to show that he exists.
         3. Descartes formulated another form of the Ontological Argument, which may be stated as follows: The very conception of an infinite and perfect Being logically implies the existence of such a Being. For a Being that did not exist could not be infinite and perfect, since it would lack one essential quality of infinitude and perfection, namely existence. Existence is definitely implied in the idea of God as is the property of a triangle that the three interior angles are equal to two right angles is implied by the definition of a triangle. And since the idea of an infinite and perfect Being cannot be intuited by the senses, since we have knowledge only of finite and imperfect beings by the senses, this idea must have been placed in our minds by this infinite and perfect Being; it is an innate idea and is self-evident. Therefore such a Being must actually exist; else I could never have formed the idea of it.
         The following are objections to each of these three forms of the Ontological argument.
         1. Difficulty with the Anselmian form of the Ontological Argument was offered by a contemporary, a monk named Gaunilon, who observed that, although he could think very hard of a perfect island, this perfect island was not on that account brought into existence. Defenders of the Ontological Argument, however, deny the validity of the comparison between the conception of God and that of an island or any other created thing. For God is a necessary being, and therefore must exist, since his essence (what he is) and existence (that he is) are one and the same. The island, other hand, is a contingent being, like all other created beings, and therefore does not have to exist, since its essence and existence are not one and the same. Anselm's argument presupposes the realistic view of universals, and the Platonic identification of thought and being.
         2. Kant saw that this argument reduced actual existence to an attribute of something like "blue" and "perfect" are attributes. Existence is not an attribute and thus cannot be included in an idea or essence. Therefore essence can never be identical or the same as existence. They are two different aspects of reality such that existence cannot be reduced to essence and essence cannot be reduced to existence. They are related, but they are not identical. Idealistic, rationalistic metaphysical is based on this identity of thought (essence) and being (existence); this identity can only be maintained if being is reduced to essence as the most universal concept. This confusion arises from the ambiguity of the verb "is", which may assert either class membership, existence, or identity.
         3. Descartes clearly reduced the actual existence to an attribute of an infinite and perfect Being. Kant directed his criticism at Descartes' form of the Ontological Argument. Existence is not an attribute and adds nothing to the concept. This arguement no more proves the existence of God than the thought of having a hundred dollars in the bank implies that one must actually have such an amount. Descartes' alternative of knowledge by the senses or by innate ideas are not the only possibilities; the mind has the ability to create general ideas that are not just the association of ideas from sense impressions; the concept of infinite perfect Being is such an idea. The question of whether such a being exists must be established by a way in addition to reason or sensation.

      3. The Teleological Argument.
         This argument is also known as the argument from design. There are two clearly related forms of it:
         1. One form of the Teleological Argument argues from evidence of purpose or final ends (Greek, telos) in things such as the human or animal eye. As the arrow is directed by the archer, so the world is directed by an intelligent being. Such purpose in Nature, it is argued, cannot be the result of mere chance, but must be the work of an intelligent author of Nature. This Architect is God. William Paley's (1745-1805) Natural Theology is a classic example of this argument.
         2. The other form of the Teleological Argument called the agrument from Design appeals to the uniformity and order of Nature, taken as a whole. This argument interprets the order in Nature as evidence of an intelligent design, and proceeds from this to infer the existence of God as the Designer.
         This is a very old and popular proof of the existence of God. Aristotle presented a thoroughly teleological universe; indeed, he invented the conception of a universe. His argument for God is based on this concept and is teleological in the first sense above, since it included purpose as well as motion and contingency. He argued that God is also the ultimate final cause of all things.

         The Teleological Argument is the fifth of the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. He argued that all things, both animate and inanimate, are goal directed, acting to achieve ends. But inanimate things cannot direct themselves to these ends; hence, they must have some intelligent being to direct them. As the arrow is directed by the archer, the world must be directed by an intelligent being. This being is God.

         The rise of physical sciences in modern times increased the popularity of the argument from Design. This argument was a particular favorite of the 18th century deists, who preferred a minimal "natural religion," based on reason and experience, to that founded on revelation and the teaching of the church. They viewed the universe as a wonderful machine (its laws were discovered by Newton) which God made and then left it to run according to its own laws without interference on God's part. In the 18th century Paley used the famous "watch" illustration, which he borrowed from the Dutch philosopher, Nieuwentyt. If we find a watch on an uninhabited island, he argued, we would naturally infer that this clever mechanism was the work of an intelligent craftsman rather than the product of chance. Now the universe is a mechanism incomparably more wonderful than a watch. Do we not therefore have the right to conclude that the universe is the product of a mind of surpassing intelligence, and that this mind is God?

         The following are objections to each of these two forms of the Teleological argument.

         1. This form of the Teleological Argument, Kant admitted, commands respect. It gives purpose and meaning to life and to scientific investigation. But in the last analysis Kant believed that this argument is really another form of the Cosmological Argument, which "is only a disguised ontological proof." It does not, he concluded, afford a rational, compelling proof of the existence of God.
         2. This more general form of the Teleological Argument, the arguement from Design, was vigously attacked by David Hume (1711-1776) in his book entitled Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion (1779). It is true, admitted Hume, that from the existence of a house, we may infer the existence of the builder. We may do this because we have experience of houses and of architects who design them and of builders who construct them. But, Hume points out, although we know from experience the order in Nature, we do not have experience of a cosmic designer. The argument is based on a bad analogy. Further, says Hume, even if we grant the existence of an intelligence which is responsible for the world order, it does not follow that this intelligence is God. At best, the argument from design indicates the existence of a finite being of whom nothing more can be said that that it is the cause of the order of Nature. We cannot conclude that this being is God, who is infinite, omnipotent, all-good, etc. The very most that can be concluded from this argument, says Hume, is that "The cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence."

   2. The Relation of God to the World.
      There are three aspects to the problem of the relation of God to the world:
      the problem of causality and creation,
      the problem of the attributes of God, and
      the problem of the transcendence and immanence of God.
      
      1. Causality and Creation.
         In traditional theism God is considered to be related to the world as cause to effect. How is this relation to be interpreted? Does all forms of theism take God to be the creator of the universe? The answer is "No", if the word "creator" means the being who makes the world out of nothing (ex nihilo). In the theology of the Greek philosophers, there is no concept of a God who creates out of nothing. The Greeks had two different views of the relation of God to the world, neither of which involved creation. One of these relations may be called transformation and the other emanation. These stand in contrast to Biblical view.
         1. In most Greek theologies matter is eternal, not created by God. When God makes the world, he gives form to this matter. Plato in his Timaeus explains the making of the world by means of the myth of the divine artisan, or demiurge, who gazing upon the eternal Ideas and Forms, takes the formless flux of matter and molds it according to the timeless patterns he sees before him. This demiurge fashions the world as a sculptor who, with his eyes on a fair model, gives form to the formless clay or stone. Aristotle's view does not use the form of a myth. God is pure form and as the formal cause he induces form on the eternal matter. Interpretating matter as potentiality and form as actuality, Aristotle views God as pure form drawing matter toward itself, from one level of form to the next level, each level's form is the matter for the next. Because of God, matter is being tranformed into form which becomes the matter for the next level of transformation. Hence the world is eternally changing from matter (non-being as potentiality) into form (being or actuality); it is always becoming and God is the unmoved mover moving all things toward himself.
         2. Later Greek philosophers, called Neoplatonists, explained the relation of God to the world in terms of emanation rather than transformation. According to Plotinus, God who is the One is Being itself. In the fulness or plenitude of his being, God "spills over" like wine from an overflowing cup, or, to change the metaphor, radiates his being, as the sun gives forth light and heat. These radiations or emanations form a hierarchy of beings or hypostases, ranging from higher to lower. There are three stages of these emanations. The highest, next to Being itself, is Nous or mind, the divine intelligence; the next highest is the Pscyhe or soul, the soul of the world, and Hyle or matter, which is lowest level, next to non-being. Man is caught between the lower two emanations, his mind in the upper level and body in the lower level or matter, which he struggles to get free of.
         3. The view that God is creator of world out of nothing is Hebrew rather than Greek and is the interpretation of the story of creation given the book of Genesis. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). Some Jewish philosophers, for example, Philo Judaeus (30 B.C.-50 A.D.), held that God's creative energy operated on a primordial chaos or material substratum; Philo, being born and reared in Alexandria in Egypt, was influenced by Platonic philosophy. In general theologians agree that the biblical revelation indicates that God created the world out of nothing, but this cannot be proved by "natural reason."

      2. The Attributes of God.
         Another aspect of the problem of the relation of God to the world is the problem of the attributes of God. This problem arose in Western theology in the attempt to solve the problem of the nature of God: who or what is God? Under the influence of Neoplatonism, which asserted the view that God is beyond all being, early theologians held that God is completely transcendent. This raised the problem of whether knowledge of God's nature is possible. The Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204) in his The Guide for the Perplexed, following this Neoplatonic heritage, developed a negative theology; since God is radically other than the world, any ascription we make of God, coming as it must from something in the world, really describes what God is not. We can know that he is not finite, not composite, not any of the properties we know. To know what God is not, at least separates him from false conceptions and opens the way to religious faith. But if this negative theology is carried out to its logically conclusion, God would be beyond human knowledge and nothing could be said about the nature of God. In order avoid this agnostic conclusion, Maimonides also proposed a positive theology. Following the Islamic Aristotelian heritage, he accepted their arguments for God as the prime mover of the universe. Going beyond Aristotle, Maimonides held that God is the efficient, formal, and final cause of the universe. This positive theology means that knowledge of God is possible through the study of nature. This does not contradict the negative theology, since the positive theology gives us knowledge of God's operations in the world, not the knowledge of God's nature. Now if this positive theology is carried out to its logical conclusion, human qualities would be attributed to God, making God like the anthropomorphic pagan gods. The Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) agreed with the concepts of negative and positive theology but developed them as two ways of knowledge of God's nature; the negative way, the via negationis, and the positive way, the via eminentiae. To avoid the anthropomorphic conclusion of the positive theology, he suggested that the positive way make use of the principle of analogy; human qualities like "wisdom" or "goodness" can not be applied to God in the same sense that they are applied to things in the created order. Such qualities can be applied to God only analogically; God's attributes are like, not identical, with human qualities. But the attributes of God are the perfection of the human qualities; they are the most eminent or outstanding form of the human qualities; they are like human qualities but beyond them as the perfect form of them. In traditional theology the attributes of God are both negative and positive; as negative attributes, God is infinite (not finite), simple (not compound), spiritual (not material); as positive attributes, God is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscience (all knowing), etc.

      3. The Transcendence and Immanence of God.
         Traditional Western theology in stating the relation of God to the world has asserted that God is transcendent to and immanent in the world; God is above the world and in the world. This contradictory way of stating God's relation to the world is due historically to two opposing philosophical views of God's relation to the world; the Platonic/Neoplatonic view that God is totally other and beyond the world, and the Aristotelian view that God is continuous with the world. During the medieval period, Christian theology held these veiws in balance with its doctrine of the transcendence and immanence of God. Descartes (1596-1650) is the last modern philosopher that held this traditional theological view. The 17th century Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) broke down this traditional distinction between God and Nature; he held that God and Nature are one and the same. Starting with the definition of substance as "any independently existing thing", he argues there is only one absolutely independent thing, one substance, which is God, and thought and extension are two modes or aspects of this one infinite substance. The consequences of Spinoza's metaphysics show the radical difference between his God and the God of traditional theology. Spinoza denied the transcendance of God, that God is separated from the world. To him God is only immanent, that is, God is not separated from the world. God does not just dwell within the physical world as a part within the a whole; on the contrary, the world, which is a part, dwells within God, who is the Whole. This does not mean that God is identical with the physical world; rather it does mean that God includes or contains the physical universe. God is the immanent rather than the transcendent cause of the world (the effect of that cause); God is the indwelling and inseparable cause of the world with which it is continuous. The term "pantheism" was first used by John Toland in 1705 and means literally "All is God". The Dr. Samuel Johnson defined a pantheist as "one who confused God and Nature" and referred to the followers of Spinoza as pantheists. Of course Spinoza is a pantheist if by the definition of pantheism we mean that either
         (1) God is inseparable from Nature or
         (2) God is the infinite Whole, the All, and everything that exists is a part or "mode" of the Whole.

         Traditional theology does not understand the transcendence of God to mean that God has no relation to the world, but that God is beyond the world, that is, that the being of God is not identical with the being of the world and that God is not dependent upon the world, though the world is dependent on God; such a separation of God from the world would make the immanence of God impossible. Traditional theology also asserted the immanence of God, but it did not mean by this that God and the world are identical in being; it was asserting that God could be present in the world, not that the being of God is the being of the world, nor that God is unrelated to the world. Biblical theology asserts that God's relation to world is the relation of the Creator to His creation (Gen. 1:1), and that the Creator is not to be identified with His creation; consequently, the Creator alone should be worship.

         "...they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped
         and served the creature rather than the Creator..." (Rom. 1:25 NAS).

   3. The Problem of Evil.
      The traditional doctrine of God produced many problems. One of these is the so-called problem of evil. This problem may be stated as follows: There is compelling evidence for evil in the world. There are physical evils, such as famines, earthquakes, and natural catastrophes, along with pain, sickeness, and death. There are also moral evils, such as sin, injustices, wickedness of men, and war. Now, if God cannot prevent evil in the world, then God must not be all-powerful, and, if he will not prevent evil, then God is not all-good. Thus there are two alternates: (1) God is not all-powerful, or (2) God is not all-good. The Greek philosophers tended to favor the first altenative. They attributed evil to matter as principle of limitation and disorder; matter is the source of evil. For them matter was eternal and was not made by God; God did not control matter absolutely. In other words, God was limited by something outside of himself; God is not all-powerful. Manicheism taught a eternal dualism of two Gods, one of Light and Good, the other of Darkness or Evil; they eternally co-exist and constantly are at war with each other in the world. Neoplatonism also asserted a dualism of being and non-being, the One and the Many, order and disorder, with gradations and mixtures between them. Evil is not something positive, but rather is a negative, a privation or lack of being, of order that "ought to be there."

      Traditional Christian theology found neither alternative acceptable; God is all-powerful and all-good. Although Augustine at first, after his conversion, favored the Neo-platonic concept of evil as privation, in his later writings Augustine attributed evil to the free will of God's creatures, who made evil choices. Evil in the world is the result of the evil choices of creatures that God has created. Could God prevent those choices? Yes, God could have, but then that would be the end of free will. God created beings like himself, with free will and with the possiblity of evil by their free choice. God, being all-good, choose to create this good, creatures like himself, and he made a plan to take care of the evil that would result from the wrong exercise of those free wills.

      But Augustine did not carry out the logic of this solution; he introduced a divine determinism (predestination) and a determinism of the human sinful nature (the doctrine of original sin) which completely eliminated the free will of the creatures. Many philosophers have opted for a total divine determinism, completely eliminating the free will of the creatures. Leibniz, for example, puts forth in his Theodicy a position which has been called cosmological optimism. According to Leibniz, God created the world according to best possible plan. But the best plan, he says, "is not always that which seeks to avoid evil, since it may happen that the evil is accompanied by a greater good." Leibniz' reasoning on the problem of evil has rarely been found completely convincing. His doctrine that "this is the best of all possible worlds" was mercilessly satirized by Voltaire in his Candide. This solution of Leibniz to the problem of evil is based on the view of reality that everything that happened is determined by God; man's free choices have no place in what happens, good or evil. Thus God is responsible for the evil, if He is all-powerful, or He is not all-good because he caused the evil. Other views either ignore or dismiss the problem of evil. Pantheism ignores the problem by treating evil as an illusion. Naturalism dismisses evil as only a stage in the evolutionary process.

      Traditional Christian theology has not followed the Biblical solution to the problem of evil. Because of their legalistic interpretation of the need for salvation and of salvation, they have misunderstood the problem of evil and its solution. They misunderstood sin as only a breaking or falling short of the moral standard of the law, and death as the punishment of sin. And that man sins because of the inherited sinful nature. Thus they misunderstood the nature of evil. They did not understand that the basic sin is idolatry, that is, that the basic sin is the faith and trust in a false god, and that death is more than physical death, the separation of man's spirit from his body; death is also spiritual death, the separation of man's spirit from God. And because of the spiritual death received from Adam, all men have sinned in choosing a false god ( Rom. 1:25; 5:12d ERS). Evil, that is, death and sin, came into the world that God had created by the sin, the wrong choice of the head of the race, the first man, Adam.

      "Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world,
      and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men,
      because of which all sinned:--" (Rom. 5:12 ERS)

      "²¹ For as by a man came death,
      by a man has come the resurrection of the dead.
      ²² For as in Adam all die,
      so also in Christ shall all be made alive."
      (I Cor. 15:21-22)

      The removal of that evil was by the new head of the race, the God-man, Jesus Christ. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, not only has physical death but spiritual death have been removed. Because all men have sinned in choosing a false god because of spiritual death (Rom. 5:12d ERS), by saving man from death God saves man from sin. When the offer of the gift of spiritual and eternal life is presented in the preaching of the gospel, each individual man (and women) may choose to accept that gift. But not all men will accept this gift of life in Christ; and thus they will receive the consequence of their wrong choice, eternal death (Rom. 6:23), eternal separation from God. At the last judgment, God will ultimately solve the problem of evil by separating the evil from the good (Rev. 20:14-15).

4. CONCLUSION - THE PROBLEM OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
   Western theology divides theology into Natural Theology and Revealed or Dogmatic Theology. Natural Theology is any theology, the study of God, which purports to carry on its investigation by reason alone apart from divine revelation. This program reached the status of a movement in the 17th and 18th centuries. The most vigorous proponent of this movement was William Paley whose book Natural Theology was very influential in promoting the movement. Traditionally, it has been held that Natural Theology is a legitimate theological inquiry. In 20th century the legitimacy of Natural Theology has been questioned by the Swiss reformed theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). He engaged in a lengthy controversy over this question with a fellow Swiss theologian Emil Brunner (1899-1966). The controversy culminated in 1934 with the publication of Brunner's Nature and Grace: A Discussion with Karl Barth and Barth's categorical reply, No! answer to Emil Brunner. Brunner, unlike Barth, accepted Natural Theology and that image of God in man remains after the fall as a point of contact for the work of Holy Spirit. Brunner maintained that man has not ceased to be man after the fall. There is that in man to which revelation makes it appeal, an Anknupfungspunkt, a point of contact in man for revelation. Barth rejected this point of contact and the rationalistic analogy of being (analogia entis) of Aquinas and others, which had become the basis of Natural Theology, and replaced it with the analogy of faith (analogia fidei); revelation creates its own point of contact and the faith that responds to this revelation. But if this point of contact does not exist in man before and apart from the revelation, then is not Natural Theology impossible? Thus the problem of Natural Theology: Is Natural Theology or philosophical theology possible? Since Natural Theology as a theological area of inquiry does exist, the answer to the question "Is it possible?" is "Yes." The problem of Natural Theology is not "Is it possible?" but is rather "Are the results of this inquiry true?" In order to answer this question, a criterion of truth must be choosen and the only criterion that can be adopted here is revelation. The only way to determine whether statements about God are true is to use the only way God can be known and that is revelation. Now the question becomes: "Where can we find this revelation?"
   The Hebrew-Christian Scriptures claims to be that record of that revelation;

   "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets;
   but in these last days he has spoken to us in a Son" (Heb. 1:1-2).

   But is there any other way to know God? The Hebrew-Christian Scriptures answers "Yes."

   "The heavens are telling the glory of God;
   and the firmament proclaims his handiwork" (Psa. 19:1).

   "For what can be known about God is plain to them,
   because God has shown it to them.
   Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature,
   namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly seen,
   being understood by the things that have been made." (Rom. 1:19-20)

   This general revelation is the subject matter of Natural Theology. But has Natural Theology intrepreted this general revelation correctly? As we have seen, the answer is in general, "No." Greek philosophy says nothing about the creation or the revelation by God, general or special. Modern philosophy as a whole has either rejected the concept of God or has arrived at an understanding of God and his relation to the world that differs substantially from the Biblical revelation of a personal God who created all things. This is not surprising from the Biblical view point; it tells us that

   "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 senseless minds were darkened.
   Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
   and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
   for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles"
   (Rom. 1:21-23).

   Barth is right; Natural Theology is a futile effort, but not for the reasons he gave.