Furthermore, the god of the philosophers tends to be a servant of various human projects, such as justifying the existence of the “powers that be,” and providing a convenient explanatory source for the whole of being. This is not a god to be worshiped, but rather an idol. I talk lots about this aspect in the first chapter of my thesis, which I won’t blame you at all for not having read ;)

I’m definitely interested in your project to ask about why people (in certain quarters) are finding natural theology so compelling. It’s a similar question about the context in which things are believed to what Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” is doing, I think.

How large a role do you think is played in this by the felt need for natural law is? I saw a book review of Sennett & Groothuis’ “In Defense of Natural Theology” by James K.A. Smith who said the following:

The editors overreach when they claim that the volume is evidence that “natural theology is alive and well in contemporary philosophy” and that natural theology has experienced a “revival.” This is true only within a narrow orbit of evangelical philosophers still committed to evidentialism and interested in natural theology because of its political implications for grounding natural law.

Oh, and now I saw that Craig thought you were calling him Hitler! That is well and truly hilarious. I might actually have to go read it.

That said, I am in 100% agreement that the more interesting side of the discussion was with Barth, etc. As I’ve already confessed elsewhere, I think I got a little carried away tangoing with the apologists in the first part of the article and lost sight of the big picture.

To me, in fact, the difference between the God of the philosophers and the God of the Bible is less a reason to dismiss natural theology completely as a reason to explore why people find it so compelling. I am in the process of writing a book on the subject.

It certainly isn’t my interest to disparage natural theology in general—that wasn’t why I brought up Barth (nor was it, as Dr. Craig seems to think, to compare him to Hitler). The intention, rather, was to show that, as times and circumstances change, the terms under which theological debates occur can be radically different. Here I meant to add to, not to subtract from, Craig’s interesting reflections on natural theology in culture.

This all reminds me of a time when I was hiking in the Sierras for three weeks, with no contact with civilization whatsoever. I brought a Bible along. A few days into the trip, I tried reading it and couldn’t believe how irrelevant it felt—what was the point of all the kings and prophets and poetry and so forth when I was surrounded by the Glory and the Silence already? It is odd how, even though the Gods of nature, philosophy, and the Bible (or even different books of the Bible) are so different, they find their way to a similar place in people’s hearts.