History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology

How can we know about God? That question increasingly bothered scientists and philosophers in the modern period as they chipped away at previously imagined "certainties." They refused to take on trust the "special revelation" of the Christian Bible, trying instead to argue up to God from the "natural" world. That is the theme of the Gifford Lectures, inaugurated over 130 years ago.

This natural theology has usually bracketed out the Bible and Jesus—and with them, usually, the scholars who st...