Alister McGrath - Arguing God from Natural Theology?

From biblical times to Darwin, natural theology had a majestic mission-to detect and discern God by seeing and sensing God's presence in the world. The key to natural theology was to investigate the world alone, without revelation. But after Darwin's theory of evolution, natural theology was rejected, even ridiculed. Why, now, its surprising revival?
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Alister Edgar McGrathis an Irish theologian, priest, intellectual historian and Christian apologist, currently Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at Kings College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture.
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Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[@anikettripathi7991]

Arguing and debating are best form of focusing and if topic is God, infinite it automatically becomes healthy and benificial for everyone.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

Well, the anti-theists and anti-religionists get pushed and pulled, while the theists and religionists get tested, depending.

[@MrFossil367ab45gfyth]

A rabbi once told my dad that one can see God manifest himself in Creation 🙏

[@lightworker4512]

To truly discover that you are a spiritual being experiencing the world of duality is to experience it yourself. When I do spiritual healing sessions, I ask for my client to let go, relax, just allow. My intent is to help my client transcend their intellect as knowledge is the greatest barrier to their spiritual Higher Self. When they open up their inner door and experience their spiritual selves, they remember. They remember that feeling of such unconditional love beyond any feeling they felt before. They are connecting to the that piece of Creator within us all, residing in ever DNA of our cells in a multidimensional state. We don’t know what we don’t know. Faith is important when answers are found beyond our 4D world of the heavy energy of duality.

[@johnroberts2012]

love this dude!

[@randibeal8591]

I love Alister!!! 💜💜💜💜💜

[@josephsteve9949]

I wish I had found you 10 years ago

[@johnalbent]

Why's that, friend? 🙂

[@willyh.r.1216]

Does Spinoza's God theory a subset of the Natural theology or the other way around? Or, are they synonymous? Please advise. Thank you.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

Off hand, I recall that Spinoza doesn´t have a transcendental view of God. He promotes a monism that doesn´t distinguish between Nature and God. I see that Karl Krause developed the term "panentheism" in relation to Hegel and Schelling after studying Hindu scriptures in then formulating a difference between the divine and the non-divine, which is a difference in their identities and state of being, their ontology. So, it seems like Spinoza was engaged in natural theology.

[@healthdecodedwithaltaf3647]

If everything that exists has a design a blue print then there’s a creator let’s move on to Mother nature’s healing powers, probiotics and prebiotic this understanding is critical 5 platforms of evidence

[@jonmeador8637]

God reveals itself directly through nature. People explaining nature are explaining revelation.

[@jonmeador8637]

@rafalab777 Science.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

@rafalab777 There is confusion here. Your confusion is that there is a "scientific consensus about God´s existence or not." God isn´t a scientific question. Scientists personal views about the existence of God take them into the question of truth, and whether they get the actual significance and limitations of "science." You don´t show any sign of meeting that standard. The "scientism" page at the AAAS should burn a brand of "I" for ideologue on your forehead still at this point. UN human rights and sustainability are a good symbol of how mixed up your kind of ideologues are. FD and Eleanor Roosevelt conducted themselves in general, and with the UN vision in particular not because of "science," but because of the Christian Social Gospel. FDR referred to his Christian service values, but it was Washington Gladden´s initiating the Social Gospel that his biography shows. It has been, then, the UN proposal after WWII that led to negotiations with the world´s diverse cultures and included Human Rights, translating Jesus´ 2 commandments with no 2 being "Love thy neighbor as thyself." along with the Freedom of Religion. It is that that led to the scientific standards raised by environmental sustainability issues at 1972 Stockholm and then UNEP, and so on. Science being corralled to standards not so easily hidden by business propaganda at the UN. While the US has submitted much to business profiteering ideology, the EU has done much less, along with the UN´s public informational capacity, at least. Thanks to FDR and Eleanor´s Social Gospel backgrounds in the Christian religion. Your anti-religious ideology itself tries to impose a standard on the scientific community that confuses issues. Einstein didn´t flee Nazi Germany and Europe because of science´s lead, but because of US and University-based values that are based on Jesus´ loving commandments, for another example indicating the larger principles.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

You´re raising an interesting perspective, potentially. You sound like a Deist, however. Certainly, the First Cause argument goes a long way. The Big Bang had a preceding cause, that supersedes the qualities studied by science, spacetime and matter-energy. That means the cause of the Universe is transcendent. However, the scientific community itself, the nature of scientific study itself, are both more specific in their constituent essences. Systems Theory helps get clear about those aspects, especially F Capra´s work. Emergentism shows that from physics to chemistry, then chemistry to biology, then biology to psychology and anthropology, etc, there are emerging properties, in which wholes are greater and different than the parts. Thus, Christian people who responded to Jesus´ Resurrection, the Apostles and so on, and did so with a new culture of kindness and integrity in Jesus´ teachings, were showing how a new level of spiritual experience, beyond tribal shamanism, had been introduced, as far as it went. By the time Christians had monastic schools, and then turned them into Universities, spiritual experience had put Francis of Assisi as a high integrity reformer, and then the monk Thomas of Aquinas as a scholar on a vow of poverty. Aquinas took Aristotle´s First Cause, and was able to see through things like Aristotle´s non-Christian "eternal Universe." He saw that an actual infinite was abstract, not real. God through Jesus, then becomes a new level of reality as an entity, as does spiritual experience beyond mere intellectual reasoning. We see that beyond just the rise of Universities and scientific natural philosophy. Luther inspired the Reformation, which inspired the English Reformation, which inspired George Fox in his spiritual reflection to develop Quaker-Friends. With their "inner light" spiritual worship, they became high integrity Christians in hypocritical aristocratic Anglican England, and anti-slave advocates. They became the anchor for young college grad and dissenting Anglican T Clarkson who then led the UK´s pioneering abolition social movement. Quakers in the US North also led anti-slave advances there. So, the scientific study of nature helped develop empirical philosophy, but various developments in University-based society, usually referred to as the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showed how Christians could transform philosophy into a multidisiciplinary tool for advancing modernizing Biblical revelation.

[@dennistucker1153]

Arguing God from Natural Theology? I think anyone that attempts this is delusional. That's like looking at a lake and saying/thinking that this means you now know everything and secrets of the universe.

[@s.koileken369]

I guess your glasses just emerged from evolution. Somehow the lake you talked about - full of marine orderly eco-systems that are tied to other eco-systems equally are wonders of meaningless random evolutionary geographical processes!

[@nova8091]

You’re obviously in a rational atheist who doesn’t actually have any interest in science but rather you use it as a shield to protect yourself from a possible reality that you may be wrong

[@waerlogauk]

The explicability of nature is an example of the anthropic principle, if we couldn't understand at least some of it we wouldn't be asking why we understand it.

[@KyleDB150]

Jeez I just read the other comments, I regret spending so much time on mine now...

[@lucianmaximus4741]

Kudos -- 444 Gematria -- 🗽

[@mehdibaghbadran3182]

Free will , can find, everything, naturally ، to see the things, example; looking at the blood cell’s , they’re, driving in to the wormhole in our arteries, all the ways to the hearts, and brains!

[@thomasridley8675]

The gods always turn out too lacked any credibility. And I don't expect that too change. And apparently they all lacks any ability too affect our reality. Or protect themselves from being dropped into the dust bin of history. Very strange behavior for such powerful beings, the creators of reality itself, too act. And if we were not supposed too learn about reality. These big, curious brains would seem like a really bad idea. 🤔

[@ferdinandkraft857]

"too" =/= "to".

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

I think natural theology has to be put in its own context, which isn´t merely "science." "Science" is actually scientific philosophy, which McGrath touches on when he gets at scientific theory. He hasn´t yet broken the barrier that all the theory that is parallel in "science" and "theology" is being done as forms of philosophy. That´s where doctrines can be examined more thoroughly, and questioned. The meaning of philosophy as a Christian spiritual practice, now secularized, can be asserted and justified. In that respect, shamanism can be identified along with the meaning of the scientific study of meditation. People relating to the Universe in diverse ways through diverse methodologies is the start, and relating through meditation and shamanistic practices the basis of spirituality. It is that which Jesus taught. The very context of University-based modern philosophical learning and scholarship reflects a level of community that required Christian monastic schools, which were developed into Universities. Christians had to transform ancient Greek philosophy into more than esoteric intellectualism by individuals. That is the significance of Thomas of Aquinas´ taking Aristotle´s notion of an eternal Universe and Unmoved Mover as First Cause. Aquinas shows his empirical side when he examines causation by reflecting back in time. He equates the First Mover, First Cause with the empirical reality of the physical Universe. He´s only able to do that, to take the leap to the physical beyond Aristotle´s esoteric intellectual, because of the psychosocial and cultural historical position he´s in. Christian culture has survived the fall of the Roman Empire, and Christian conduct in relation to society reflects a lawful God, asserted in the human form of the Son of God with his legacy through a spiritual-religious system in the Roman Church. The political system in the West became distinct as the Roman Empire fell, and the church system gained its own autonomous identity. When the English Reformation followed Luther´s inspired first steps, it tried to reframe the system under the King. The King now chooses the Archbishop of Canterbury. Yet, among the University and Puritanism and the Anglican Church, Christianity has become both extended and distorted in the US with its Freedom of Religion, and extension to UN human rights. You better look up your history, and reflect on the origins and meaning of social movements, the Freedom of Religion, and the emergence of UN human rights. There are all manner of thrashing against human rights. Yet, they stand as a beacon. What exactly explains why FD Roosevelt and First Lady were Social Gospel Christians? The rich and powerful aren´t pushing for "human rights."

[@thomasridley8675]

@@robinhoodstfrancis Science describes what is. Religion speculates on what we can't describe. Philosophy is reality shifted thru a human mind to build an opinion. All based on personal experience and education. The first cause is and will remain an unknown. No matter who says that they have insider information you can take as fact. It's obvious that they do not.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

@@thomasridley8675 I gave you quite a bunch of material addressing the issues, and your own versions leave you very flat. Philosophy, first of all, is an ancient Greek development primarily, taken up by Christian monk scholars, and the combination of elements involved are the way the Christians used their resources to build modern Western Civilization. Oversimplification and denialism such as you push correspond to your mindset and lifestyle. The ultimate question revolves around what Gandhi represented so well, along with FD Roosevelt´s very tangible accomplishments. Given FDR´s integrity around the Social Gospel, vision of the UN and human rights, it is indeed clear obvious that it took "insider information" regarding Jesus´ "special sauce" for God to get past Stalin´s ignobility, once FDR had led the defeat of Hitler and Tojo. The remaining question is if it will take more disasters than have already occurred to wake people up about the corporate exec profiteering greed takeover. The UN has become a fine center for those in Gandhi´s area of Christian modeling, in social movements and not for profits. The fact that the business profiteers and scientific materialists have gotten as far as they have using the spiritual-religious resources like the monk Thomas of Aquinas´ is its own statement. Turning the tables, now, is a whole new level that mark a failure in McGrath´s intellectualism and association with the Anglican Church. My paying attention to Fritjof Capra´s Systems Theory of Life and returning to the Social Gospel that inspired FDR, along with Gandhi who drew from virtual activists like Thoreau is a key phenomena in valuing the First Cause. Dawkins would have to do a little actual scholarship to identify why the UN values human rights in a Christian-derived culture. Also, why a man handicapped talked so boldly about religion in a pluralistic sense. Dawkins simply doesn´t understand the limits of science, nor the convergence of First Cause, Jesus´ loving-righteous integrity, and the Jewish prophetic tradition of social justice prophets who spoke up with truth to power, and survived. Often enough, anyway. Hardly to be expected in an analysis of how worldly power operates. "First Cause" may not generate much heat, but the Deity as Jesus´ parent sure has.

[@thomasridley8675]

@@robinhoodstfrancis All you gave me was your opinion of history. Bent to validate your religious delusion.

[@bruceylwang]

I would not argue anything when someone is able to tell me how the Mind and Body function together.

[@tanjohnny6511]

Mindfullness meditation is the key to unlock the mind body function.🙂

[@karcharias811]

I agree, except for the assertion that "They don't prove anything." in fact in the classic apologists asserted that these logical conclusion DID prove God's existence. This idea that they do not is a modern one. When faced with the Ontological Sandwich I don't see how you can get away without concluding that God is both real and with at least some idea of His attributes. It is a certainty.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

Absolutely, excellent point. I think it´s necessary to break and demystify "science´s" own psychological and sociological condition, which I suppose refers to its ontological and epistemological condition. "Science" is a sociological context of scientific philosophy. Without clarifying that context as a human philosophical activity, scientific materialists are lost in presuppositions they can´t see or comprehend because of "science´s", scientists´ really, desperate attempt to indulge in its, their identity experience of superiority.

[@reigen4030]

But to me it doesn’t necessarily mean God created it

[@andreea5927]

yes.

[@KyleDB150]

I'm sorry, but this guy seems like nothing more than a sophist. He's more interested in promoting theology and debating semantics (e.g. "what do we mean by nature") than actually separating fact from fiction. If you think I'm wrong, please explain why you think so, don't just claim I am. His "system" sounds like nothing more than an incarnation of looking for "god in the gaps". For example, his comment saying "well i think Christian theology is the best explanation for the fine-tuning problem" is presuming that no better explanations are yet to come! It's no different than a theologian in the 16th century saying that the motions of heavenly bodies prove god, not knowing that a certain Mr. Isaac was just round the corner. And another thing! (Nobody's going to read this are they?) Why on earth does he think Christianity offers a better explanation for fine-tuning than any other creation story? Sure an intelligent designer is a valid explanation, but why capital G god? For all you know our universe could be sat in Dr Zarkan's laboratory on the planet spleen, but then who/what created his universe? Why does anything exist at all? Is that question scientifically answerable? Does it even make sense to ask in the first place? Now those are some existential/theological/philosophical questions, not this guys drivel about "the universe being intuitive to us"... has he heard of quantum mechanic??? Sorry if I ended up being rude, people who claim to "know" fundamental truths about reality annoy me Despite this, I do like your channel and interviews, I just don't understand why you've given this guy the same time of day as actual cutting-edge physicists and philosophers. Is it all part of your mission to find truth, without bias? I guess from a documentarian's point of view that makes sense.

[@skiddwister9143]

I don't see sophism in his answers at all. The one example you gave (e.g. "what do we mean by nature") is par for the course in philisophical debates. He stated earlier that Christianity answers all the questions of life better than any other system. So, when speaking on issues, definitions have to be understood and agreed on.

[@reigen4030]

I think that he makes the same mistake as those who make the god of the gaps argument, it’s just that the other side (like Richard Dawkins etc) just explains everything in , hypothetical, science instead of God/spiritual

[@tombillford9939]

Thank you for this awesome video

[@roybecker492]

When he said: "I believe in God in the way I believe the sun has risen" He isn't far off. Because the Sun does not rise, it orbits. So he made two mistakes indeed.

[@joshheter1517]

Cute.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

Except that he can justify his semantics as popular phrasing as psychologically and socially familiar, and acknowledge the empirical reality of scientific terms. There´s also a spiritual pun potentially involved. I´m not aware that he draws on WL Craig´s arguments for God´s existence, but those would justify McGrath´s views.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Hope it works out, a difficult task

[@frankwhelan1715]

The 'one' who 'made' us, lots of assumptions.

[@mehdibaghbadran3182]

Discover fully of human body’s, how it works, then , you can finds the sense that how, universes, acting.

[@ferdinandkraft857]

You should discover how the English language works.

[@dimaniak]

Can evolutionists explain why observed rate of speciation is so low? Speciation rate predicted by theory of evolution is 10 new species/year.

[@user-sd3ni4fi9x]

Wow!!!!!!

[@stevenamann6372]

I AM GOD

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

No, just a Mann. lol Unless you pray and meditate, in which case you can find out how you´re a child of God, capable of spiritual practice and growth. Then you´ll be more than Mann enough. lol

[@roejogan8247]

Theology = philosophy with dubious assumptions.

[@EVSmith-by9no]

You have to start somewhere. And in fact trying to find an objective ground from which we can start to do philosophy without God has been proven incredibly tricky, just look at the history of philosophy. Most philosophers start with a presumption of physicalism, a dogma which has hamstrung philosophy for quite some time.

[@roejogan8247]

E. V. Smith - thanks for replying. I’m by no means a philosofer nor schooled in that art, but if the only «objective» foothold assumes a God, then you have already assumed the answer to the question you’re raising. If only God can provide objectivity, than we should stop looking for objective morality etc, and start working on other and more appropriate concepts that makes more sense.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

​@@roejogan8247 The answer is pretty much there in front of "our" faces, I´d say. When you talk about "morality" and evaluating "objective morality", with more appropriate concepts that make more sense, I think you´re onto something important. In the case of WL Craig et al, "objective morality" is being made mostly as an emotional appeal. We need empirical material to address the inadequacy. I like the historical sequence of Alexander the Great´s assumption of power and later post-conquest assasination, and the Roman generals Mummius at the Battle of Corinth, Scipio at Carthage, and later Sulla at Athens. What we see are the moral capacity people have, and variability according to source of orientation. A lot of people mention "moral relativity," and that´s a key phenomenon to address. In Buddhism, we have karma stated as empirical moral law, that good deeds generate good karma, while bad deeds generate bad karma. Judeo-Christianity has "you reap what you sow," as well. That gets us a little further in the subject. Yet, at this point, theology´s own legitimacy has to be clarified in relation to philosophy. The reflex against theology is in part confusion and rebellion based on church doctrines. Fortunately, we live in a modernized Christian culture, using non-atheist secularism, for secular multi-religious, denominational, and atheist viewpoints. That is, the Freedom of Religion. Theology can then be defined in more modern terms by stripping church denominations away, thanks to .... Universities. It is University-based scholarship that arose in Christianity as Christians developed monastic schools into them. The pivotal monk Thomas of Aquinas took Aristotle´s work and Christianized it crucially. Aristotle´s First Cause idea was subordinated to his belief in an eternal Universe with an eternal Unmoved Mover. Aquinas applied Judeo-Christian assumptions of Jesus´ heritage in a Biblical Creator God, loving, lawful, and parental, to identify "infinity" as abstract and unreal. The realm of multicultural myths with Creation Myth scenarios of various kinds thus gets a metaphysical justification in their general meaning and significance. Modern 12 step groups have a useful term, a "Higher Power." That is where WL Craig´s Kalam Cosmological argument is a good one. That allows us to understand the meaning of the Philosophy of Religion, and Comparative Religious Studies, and multidisiciplinary studies of religion. Cultural taboos against things like incest, patricide, and in-group murder can be discussed. It´s also where the historical sociology of Jesus for Moses and his reference to God becomes specifically relevant. Jesus´ legacy, as well, and the establishing of UN human rights. The US´s FD Roosevelt and Eleanor envisioned the UN and human rights based on the Social Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth from the New Testament and Bible. Yet, they promoted its secular legalism as human rights and the need to negotiate it pluralistically. In addition, "objectivity" is basically a term from scientific naturalism, and poses unexamined assumptions. Examining the assumptions confronts us with a new and necessary perspective: constructivism. In fact, "scientific laws" have been in operation before Christians like Descartes, Kepler, Galileo, Leibniz, Huygens, and Newton in University-based community began to establish systematic philosophical scientific methodology and its paradigm testing. Other cultures perceived angles and elements, from Babylon to, of course, ancient Greece. "Objective" scientific philosophy has itself been psychosocially, culturally, and historically constructed, also inter-subjectively amongst individuals in groups. Just as the Big Bang is treated as an important Cosmological chronological event, Jesus´ appearance is one pivotal historical chronological event. So, in Jesus´ legacy of University-based philosophical scholarship, is the rise of shamanism and the material of the anthropology of morality. Since non-judgmentalism is central to fair scholarship, it is important to recognize that Jesus actually taught non-judgmentalism. That creates the coherence of self-disclosure and non-judgmentalism, not the need to deny Jesus´ empirical role in the heritage of University scholarship. Questions might be asked, "If the world has agreed to join the UN with its Universal Dec of Human Rights, why have many Islamic nations refused to sign and created their own? Why are human rights abuses so widespread? And why has the US refused to sign the Economic, Social, and Cultural Covenant? Why did FD Roosevelt, his legacy administration, and Eleanor promote UN human rights in the first place? What is the role of the heritage of FDR´s et al´s and the University-based Reformation and Enlightenment´s perspectives in Jesus´ Commandments? And the rest of the world in its various perspectives? My short answer is that Jesus´ Commandments for Moses and God have led to UN human rights and sustainability as a beacon. Learning to value mutually supportive moral values promotes key behaviors that promote intercultural understanding. The usefulness of Jesus´ legacy in Universities and scientific philosophy, along with market-based enterprise when conducted sustainably, and Jesus´ references to Moses and God, demonstrate the importance of referring to God. It even permits atheism to co-exist within its infrastructure.

[@guff9567]

Theology = monkeyism. Woop wooop.

[@GlossRabban]

🐒🦍🤝💪

[@Adam-gf2fg]

return to monke