Wednesday, February 02, 2022

Book Review: Natural Theology, by David Haines

"Natural Theology" — a concept almost literally resurrected from the grave, has roared back into relevance with the growing ressourcement movement in Evangelical academia. In his book, David Haines seeks to recover this concept, claiming it is actually a supremely biblical concept held by the church until the 1700s at least. But is that really so? Were the Reformed wrong to explicitly reject this concept at the turn of the 20th century?

It is in this light that I have read David Haines' book, and have reviewed it here. An excerpt:

What is “natural theology”? The rise of presuppositionalism in 20th century Reformed thought has resulted in the rejection of any form of natural theology. In the early 21st century however, a focus on ressourcement resulting in a “recovery” of Thomism and Classical Theism has come with a “recovery” of natural theology and of course classical apologetics. In this light, David Haines has written a book seeking to “recover” and promote natural theology, asserting that natural theology has always been the Christian position and that the 20th century American Reformed church as a whole was wrong in rejecting it.

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