LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 158

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158

IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

either incomplete when measured against Scripture, or inconsistent with the
God revealed in Scripture.124
This distinction between the knowledge of God derived from Holy Scripture and that acquired by means of reason alone has prompted many to refer
to the latter as mere knowledge of the “God of the philosophers.” Perhaps
most famously, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal
(1623–1662) used this language in his “memorial,” where he starkly contrasts
the God of “philosophers and scholars” with the “God of Abraham, God of
Isaac, God of Jacob.”125 Because the traditional arguments of natural theology
can, at best, lead one only to a knowledge of the former, Pascal elsewhere dismisses them as entirely “useless.”126 Such a judgment, though, is dependent
upon one’s prior conception of the intended “use” of natural theology.127 To
be sure, insofar as one intends its use to provide a knowledge sufficient for
salvation, there is no danger of exaggeration in pressing Pascal’s conclusion
even further: natural knowledge in such an instance is worse than useless; it is
damning. The same may be said of those instances in which the “knowledge”
acquired by reason alone is inconsistent with, or contrary to, the revealed testimony of Scripture. Thus, even while acknowledging the fact of man’s natural
knowledge of God, the Confessions likewise consistently acknowledge its
strict limitations, and even potential dangers if unchecked by the biblical
revelation. As previously noted in this regard, the Confessions do not so much
stress the lack of natural knowledge about God as they do its falseness. The
natural knowledge of God sets forth a distorted picture of Him. It is incapable
of showing us the God who justifies and saves from sin.128
Whether the conclusions of natural theology are entirely “useless” where
they do not contradict Scripture, yet remain (as they must) incomplete by
124
It is perhaps worth noting in this context, however, that both the history of heresy and
the contemporary plethora of Christian denominations reveal that these shortcomings are not
restricted to natural theology alone. The Latin dictum “abusus non tollit usum” (i.e., abuse is no
argument against right use) remains applicable, whether in reference to natural theology or
biblical theology.
125
Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. A.J. Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin, 1995), 285. Pascal’s
“memorial” consists of a handwritten note, apparently describing an ecstatic personal experience, which was posthumously found sewn into the lining of his coat.
126

Pascal, Pensées, 141 (fragment 449/556).

127
Also, to distinguish between the “God of the philosophers” and the God of Scripture as
if these necessarily cannot be one in the same is at least potentially problematic for any who
grant that a natural knowledge of God may be true knowledge, even if incomplete knowledge.
Peter Geach illustrates this point by means of analogy with a Sherlock Holmes murder investigation. On the basis of the evidence at the scene of death, Holmes might rightly conclude that
a murder has occurred, and thus a murderer exists. Further, the evidence might allow him to
compile a “profile” of the murderer. If such a profile led to the arrest of a particular individual,
and if further, more specific evidence confirmed that this individual were indeed the murderer,
“it would occur to nobody, I imagine, to distinguish between the abstract murderer of Sherlock
Holmes’ deductions and the real live murderer raging in his cell.” Peter Geach, God and the Soul
(London: Routledge, 1969), 113.
128

Fagerberg, A New Look at the Lutheran Confessions (1529–1537), 67.

comparison with it, remains a more contentious question. The incompleteness
of natural knowledge is, quite obviously, one of its limitations; whether such
a limitation renders it useless, however, again depends upon the manner in
which its use is intended. One of David Hume’s many critiques of natural
theology, for example, was that its traditional arguments, even if capable
of establishing the basic claim of a god’s existence, fail to demonstrate that
this god is infinite, perfectly good and wise, or even one being rather than
many.129 This influential argument, adopted even by many Christian critics of
natural theology, asserts, in short, that any argument of natural theology, even
if a valid and sound argument, does not prove enough.130 The immediately
relevant question, however, is: “enough for what?” Hume and others, whose
criticism of natural theology is that it provides only an incomplete knowledge
of God, are entirely correct if the point is simply that a wholly natural
knowledge of God cannot be a knowledge of “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.” This indeed is one of natural theology’s limitations. It is, however, a
limitation almost universally recognized by natural theology’s proponents.131
That is to say, the critique loses its force once it is understood that the intent
of natural theology is not to demonstrate that whatever is confessed of God
on the basis of divine revelation can also be known by reason alone. Indeed,
some proponents of natural theology are content with the modest claim that
its arguments neither “prove” the most fundamental claim of God’s existence,
nor even produce overwhelming evidence in favor of this basic claim, but
merely provide “support” for it.132 At least in dialogue with an individual
who assumes there can be no rational support for belief in the existence of a
deity, even such a modest role for natural theology might be deemed useful
by some.133

129

See especially, e.g., Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Book V.

130
See James F. Sennett, “Hume’s Stopper and the Natural Theology Project,” in In Defense
of Natural Theology: A Post-Humean Assessment, ed. James F. Sennett and Douglas Groothuis
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 82.
131
See, e.g., C.S. Lewis’ comment at the conclusion of his well-known “moral argument” for
the existence of God as set forth in Book I of Mere Christianity: “Do not think I am going faster
than I really am. I am not yet within a hundred miles of the God of Christian theology.” C.S.
Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 25.
132
James F. Sennett and Douglas Groothuis, “Hume’s Legacy and Natural Theology,” in In Defense of Natural Theology: A Post-Humean Assessment, ed. James F. Sennett and Douglas Groothuis
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 15–16. This language of “support,” calling to
mind a buttressing or propping up, may be especially relevant for those confessing that a natural knowledge of God may not only be acquired, but is in fact innate; that is, the arguments of
natural theology need not produce a knowledge of God from scratch, but may simply provide
support for an already existing, though weak or suppressed, knowledge.
133
Offering an analogy to “candidate moves” in the game of chess, James Sennett suggests
the possibility also of a slightly less modest use of natural theology. While still admitting that
arguments from reason alone do not prove the existence of the God of Christianity—or even of
classical theism—he offers that they might sufficiently convince one of the existence of a divine
being with certain characteristics or attributes. If so, such arguments might serve to narrow the
range of “candidate gods” to those sharing such characteristics. That is, while not actually dem-

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Others, though, object even to this modest role for natural theology,
finding it also not only useless, but inherently dangerous. Any appeal to
reason, it is claimed, invariably implies that human nature and human
reason—rather than God and his word—are ultimately autonomous and
authoritative. Any appeal to natural law is thus rejected because “[s]uch
a morality is by definition self-sufficient.” 134 Natural theology is similarly
dismissed as being the source of “a knowledge of which man as man is the
master.”135 Such conclusions, though, appear to misunderstand the manner
in which the term “natural” operates in traditionally qualifying such words
as law, theology, or knowledge. Unlike the contemporary usage influenced
by popular interpretations of modern science, which tends to understand
“natural” as entirely excluding the supernatural, the traditional description
of a certain law or knowledge as natural in no way implies the rejection of its
supernatural origins. With respect to natural law, for instance, the old Lutheran theologians took great pains to emphasize this point. In the Apology of the
Augsburg Confession Melanchthon thus refers to the natural law as a “creation
or divine ordinance in the human creature,”136 and as a judgment “divinely
written on the mind.”137 Elsewhere he is even more explicit, insisting that
“[t]his knowledge is not the product of our own mental powers, but it has
been implanted in us by God,” 138 and that “‘by nature’ really signifies
something created by God.”139

Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have
discovered, it was necessary that man should be taught by a divine revelation;
because the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be
known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many
errors.142

Nor are confessional Lutherans alone in this understanding. Even Thomas
Aquinas (1225–1274), sometimes characterized as the medieval “rationalist”
par excellence, was quite adamant that “[h]uman reason is not, of itself, the rule
of things,”140 and that, “properly speaking, none imposes a law on his own
actions.”141 In speaking of natural theology and the natural knowledge of God
more generally, Aquinas is similarly eager to admit that:

onstrating the existence of the God of Scripture, natural theology might persuade some that the
God of Scripture is far more likely to be the true God than, say, the gods of Hesiod’s Theogony.
134

John L. McKenzie, S.J., “Natural Law in the New Testament,” Biblical Research 9 (1964), 11.

135

Barth, The Knowledge of God and the Service of God, 7.

136

Ap 23.9.

137

Ap 4.7.

This is a conclusion substantially echoed by Quenstedt, the orthodox
Lutheran. While asserting, on the one hand, “[t]hat the natural knowledge
of God is true, is evident from this, that the apostle expressly calls it truth,
Rom 1:18 sq., and with the addition, the truth of God, v. 25,” he also proceeds
quickly to clarify that “we must distinguish between the natural knowledge
of God, considered in and through itself, and in so far as it has united with it
imperfection, corruption of reason, and a proclivity to various errors.”143
Summarizing, then, with an eye to Quenstedt’s own summary conclusion,
the following might fairly be concluded. Because a natural knowledge of God
may indeed be, within its limited scope, true knowledge, appeals to natural
theology and natural law can be deemed not only legitimate, but also potentially useful. Because even a natural knowledge of God which is true must
remain incomplete, however, its usefulness is greatly limited. For attaining salvation it does indeed remain useless—or worse—by itself. Moreover, because
any knowledge of God attained by reason alone will invariably be tainted
by “imperfection, corruption of reason, and a proclivity to various errors,” it
must not only remain incomplete knowledge, but will even quite often be false
knowledge.
Even more concisely stated: a natural knowledge of God might sometimes
be true, will always be incomplete, and will never suffice for salvation. Thus,
where one’s natural “knowledge” of God is false, it must be corrected by Scripture; and even where one’s natural knowledge of God is true, yet incomplete,
it must be supplemented by Scripture. Stated in this brief fashion, however, a
reasonable question may be posed: If, even in a “best case” scenario, natural
theology must give way to Scripture, why engage natural theology at all? Why
not appeal immediately to those Scriptures “written so that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life
in his name” (John 20:31)? These are the questions which the following section
seeks to address.

138
Philip Melanchthon, Loci Communes (1521), in Melanchthon and Bucer, ed. Wilhelm Pauck
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 50.
139
Philip Melanchthon, Commentary on Romans (1540), trans. Fred Kramer (St. Louis: Concordia, 2010), 89.
140
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947–48), First Part of the Second Part, question 91, article
3, ad 2.
141
Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, question 93, article 5. Thus, one
modern commentator can write of Aquinas that “[n]atural law is never (and I must emphasize
never) defined in terms of what is first in the (human) mind or first in nature.” Russell Hittinger,
“Natural Law and Catholic Moral Theology,” in A Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics, and
Natural Law, ed. Michael Cromartie (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 6.

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2016 Convention Workbook

142

Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, question 1, article 1.

143
Quenstedt, Theologia Didactico-Polemica, quoted in Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church, 108.

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