May Christians Engage in Natural Theology? Karl Barth Contra Mundum

Throughout Christian history, theologians have freely used general revelation to craft some type of natural theology. (“General revelation” is a term which describes how God reveals himself to all people in creation, in history, and through the human conscience. “Natural theology” is theology constructed from that general revelation.) Against the majority of Christian tradition, however, Karl Barth (1886-1968) mounted a full-scale offense against any use of natural theology by denying general revelation.

Barth defended his rejection of both natural theology and general revelation in his heated response to a former colleague and in his exhaustive Church Dogmatics.[1] Barth said the utterly transcendent God knows himself and reveals himself to humanity, but God moves entirely by grace. Because revelation is a grace, he said we cannot move upward from the sphere of humanity’s knowledge (nature) into the sphere of God’s self-knowledge. Rather, God must especially “encroach” upon human beings.[2]

Unlike Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, or John Calvin, Barth said natural analogies never reveal God as Lord and Creator, much less Reconciler and Redeemer.[3] Barth assumed natural theology always creates an abstract God, an idol. Knowing God “apart from grace and therefore from faith, or which thinks and promises that it is able to give such a guarantee [to know God]—in other words, a ‘natural’ theology—is quite impossible within the Church, and indeed, in such a way that it cannot even be discussed in principle.”[4]

Even attempts to ground general revelation in Scripture show the impossibility of its existence, because Scripture is the record of special revelation. Barth reviewed select biblical passages regarding general revelation. He emphasized texts which teach that nobody understands or seeks God and that there is no clarity in speech from nature (Psalm 14:2-3, Psalm 19:3). Like Job, we must repent of efforts to build a natural theology from general revelation (Job 42:3-6).[5]

However, the biggest problem, Barth argued, is that the natural theology derived from general revelation has sundered itself from the special revelation of God in Jesus Christ. “Incontestably, because from the very outset a theology of this kind [i.e., natural theology] looks in another direction than where God has placed Himself [i.e., in Jesus], and therefore involves, from the very outset, a violation of the Christian concept of God. Why, then, is all this not so simple and self-evident?”[6]

Karl Barth’s protest should make us step back and question the use of general revelation in the construction of Christian doctrine. After all, Barth was motivated to offer his negative report after witnessing his liberal teachers use natural theology to support German nationalism during the first world war. Subsequently, the National Socialist regime and the so-called “German Christians,” who fawned over the Fuhrer, proved the troubling extent to which natural theology might be applied.[7]

Although Barth protested for good reasons, his theological exegesis of the biblical text is obviously partial. Moreover, the biblical and historical warnings about false interpretation of revelation apply as much to special revelation as to general revelation. Barth did not entirely abandon the book of divine Scripture due to egregious interpretation. Neither may we entirely abandon the books of nature and of conscience. False interpretations of revelation abound, so every claim to revelation or to its interpretation must be tested thoroughly. The “more noble” Bereans exemplify how every claim to revelation and every interpretation of revelation, whether that revelation is special or general, must be tested (cf. Acts 17:11).

Carl F. H. Henry, the late twentieth century’s leading evangelical proponent for the truthfulness of divine revelation, was likewise uncomfortable with certain types of natural theology. But Henry, unlike Barth, never proscribed general revelation. He believed general revelation says important things about God, humanity, and humanity’s relationship to God. Henry corrected Barth’s error: “Barth’s denial and repudiation of general divine revelation was just as costly an error as the scholastics’ espousal of natural theology.”[8]

In summary, we are reminded that the majority tradition has argued both that general revelation is real and that crafting some type of natural theology from it is required. This majority position has been upheld by theologians as substantial and diverse as Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, and Henry.[9] While the majority tradition will likely prevail, Karl Barth’s minority report needs to be heard, and his warning against the misuse of general revelation must be heeded.

References

[1] Emil Brunner and Karl Barth, Natural Theology: Comprising “Nature and Grace” by Professor Dr. Emil Brunner and the Reply “No!” by Dr. Karl Barth, ed. John Baillie, transl. Peter Fraenkel (1946; reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002), 65-128; Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. II, The Doctrine of God, Part 1, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, transl. T.H.L. Parker et al (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 63-128.

[2] Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/1, 67-69, 73-74.

[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/1, 75-79.

[4] Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/1, 85.

[5] Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/1, 99-116.

[6] Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/1, 126.

[7] For a fuller discussion of the debate between Barth and Brunner, see David S. Dockery and Malcolm B. Yarnell III, Special Revelation and Scripture (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), ch. 3.

[8] Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 2, God Who Speaks and Shows: Fifteen Theses, Part One (1976; reprint, Wheaton: Crossway, 1999), 89.

[9] See chapter 9, “What about Natural Theology?” of Malcolm B. Yarnell III, God, vol. 1, Theology for Every Person (Brentwood, TN: B&H Publishing, 2024) for more details about the various models used in the majority tradition.