Natural Theology
- Created by: ekenny5
- Created on: 03-03-22 19:50
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- Natural Theology
- Fideism
- by ruling out reason, there is no means of testing true or false religious beliefs
- the requirement that revelation is essential for the human mind to know anything about God's existence or nature with certainty
- The First Vatican Council outlawed Fideism
- the strength of natural theology is that this knowledge of God can be held consistently with non-Christian religions as well as scientific and philosophical views
- Is it Christian?
- Can it fully justify Christian claims such as the divinity of Christ, the resurrection , the existence of heaven and hell etc?
- The argument against natural theology as Christian is that it reduces religious claims to a human rational level
- Jesus was no more than an inspired teacher and prophet
- heaven is just a political goal of a transformed world
- The Imagination
- natural theology undermines Christian beliefs
- rests exclusively on reason to test and interpret religious claims
- Douglas Hedley
- reason has place in philosophy as well as imagination, which is essential for investigation
- imagination is similar to faith, as philosophers often use thought experiments to deal with complex issues which cannot be easily explained in solely rational terms
- Dante used poetic descriptions of heaven and hell, which were not intended to be factual
- many writers of the New Testament wrote using symbol and analogy to convey their message - imagination is needed to engage with these teachings and reflect on mysterious truths
- natural theology undermines Christian beliefs
- Fideism
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