Chapter 5: Natural Theology After the Fall

Natural theology, how far it survives after the entrance of sin — its remnants, what they are and of what kind, are proved — from the law of nature, what it is; its force, Romans 2:14, 15 — the force of conscience — atheists — that God can be known from His works is shown.

I. That primordial and native light of which we have treated up to this point has, as we have said, been extinguished by sin. Hence all men are called blind, indeed are called darkness itself; for that innate doctrine, together with the aids by which it needed to be enlarged with respect to its object, was not able to attain its proper end. Whether it yet survives, though corrupted and

laboring under its own corruption — whether, I say, this original theology yet survives — we shall now see.

II. That there is still implanted in the hearts of men a sense of God as Creator, ruler, and judge, together with some indelible knowledge of good and evil in relation to God's government, and of the distinction between the honorable and the base — this nearly all men confess, and we shall prove it. The apostle expounds it at Romans 2:14, 15. Moreover, sinners who are possessed of reason still enjoy the benefit of contemplating the works of God. For it is not credible that sin has so overwhelmed human nature as to seem to have wholly shaken off the law of dependence and subjection inscribed on the heart by the Creator. We do not say that men are born equipped with some knowledge of God; they have none at all. But we speak of the power of knowing: neither do they know and perceive naturally in that way. There is no reason why we should suppose — since we ourselves experience it — that the innate capacity for knowing God, which stimulates men to render Him worship in some manner, will not of its own accord assert itself in adults who are possessed of reason, no less certainly and necessarily than reasoning itself.

III. Yet these things must be proved, since it is now long since theologians taught us to distrust what we see and feel. First, therefore, we shall show that very many vestiges of natural theology survive in the minds of sinners; then, whatever those vestiges may be, we shall see that they do not constitute true theology.

IV. We say, therefore, that human nature, though laid waste by sin to so great a degree, and reduced almost to its own ash, is still equipped with the remains of this theology. That God exists, and that He is such as the very reason of truth requires Him to be — namely, best by virtue and greatest by His benefits — does not escape it. This knowledge, under God as Creator, it attributes to itself. That law and reason which teaches and proclaims this truth is still vigorous in our nature. That there is a law of nature is the voice of nature itself — that is, it bears witness concerning itself. But wherever there is a law, a lawgiver must be acknowledged there; and the giver of the law of nature can be none other than the Author of nature. For that law differs from nature itself only by its relation to a certain object. This law, therefore, teaches that God exists and is to be worshipped, and that right and justice are to be observed among men — as Scripture also testifies: Ps. 145:15; 141:7–9; Job 12:7–10; 37–39; Isaiah 40:12; Matthew 6:26; Acts 17:26–28. The first dictate of this law concerning God is Romans 1:19: τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς — that is, among the Gentiles, who are given over to nature alone as their teacher. And this τὸ γνωστόν of God is manifest not only among them — that is, among some of them, namely the philosophers — but in them, that is, in all of them, through an innate knowledge of God (ἔμφυτον θεογνωσίαν). The same apostle also convicts all men of holding back what they know (τὸ εἰδέναι) — concerning, that is, the nature and attributes of God — in unrighteousness (ἐν ἀδικίᾳ), v. 18. But those who hold back some divine truth do indeed retain it. Furthermore: this law, inscribed in the hearts of all, is said to overcome all vices and prejudices to such a degree that even the most wicked and profligate of all bipeds are not unaware of God's judgment that sinners are to be punished, v. 32. But those who acknowledge God's right to punish sins cannot be ignorant of that same right of His which demands obedience, nor indeed of God Himself. Secondly: the same law demands moral obedience due to God from all. After it has shown that God exists, it teaches that He is to be worshipped: Romans 2:14, 15 — "When the Gentiles, who do not have the law (written, that is, in the manner in which it was given to the Jews), do (yet, by the force of the law inscribed on their hearts) the things of the law (which, namely, the written moral law commands), these, not having the law (that is, as written, or in any other way immediately revealed by divine agency), are a law to themselves (because they have that law innate in them); who show the work of the law written in their hearts." "The work of the law" — that is, what the law produces; an effect like itself — they show that they have this written or engraved in their hearts; that is, they have a law implanted in them, a transcript (ἐκτύπωμα) of the written law. It is necessary that this correspond exactly to the written law. But what the written law teaches, and in whose name and authority, we know. And that law which serves for those who lack the written law is its counterpart (ἀντίστροφος). Since, therefore, all men without exception have this law, inasmuch as it belongs to nature and is equally common to all by nature; and since this law expresses that divinely revealed law which commands and forbids in the name of God — it is evident that all those who can in no way live a life free from the rule of this law cannot but have some knowledge of God, and cannot but acknowledge the moral obedience due to Him.

V. Conscience also, as they say, is a thousand witnesses to this truth. Hence the apostle proceeds to complete his remaining argument: συμμαρτυρούσης αὐτῶν τῆς συνειδήσεως, καὶ μεταξὺ ἀλλήλων τῶν λογισμῶν κατηγορούντων ἢ καὶ ἀπολογουμένων — "their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or even defending them." The very nature of the case proclaims that conscience is a man's judgment concerning himself with respect to a superior's judgment; hence, in Menander: βροτοῖς ἅπασι συνείδησις θεός — "for all mortals, conscience is God." But he who is of such

(footnote: CAP. V. ON THE CORRUPTION AND LOSS.) A pre-eminence such as to have dominion and to be able to exercise judgment over the hearts of men — that is God. Therefore that natural accusation or defense of conscience which is carried out in every individual man looks to none other than God. And it is wholly impossible for anyone to wrest all authority away from this judge, who in the sight of all performs His office in the name of God. How dearly would a Cain, a Judas, a Nero, a Caligula — even lesser monsters of wickedness — have purchased freedom from his scourges? We must acknowledge that this condition of human nature is placed entirely beyond all the paths and reasonings of our counsel and will. None of the wise reckons conscience among those things that are within our power (ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν). Those who would too eagerly make man the supreme lord of his whole self were wont to transform conscience into Furies, Alastors, and Eumenides — torturers of self-jurisdiction. Let sinners be secure in their condition, untroubled by the judgment of men; or let them, through the fierceness of soul characteristic of the present, despise even the extreme hazards of life and the sum of temporal goods, to the point of voluntarily taking upon themselves the extreme penalty — even so, they cannot flee this tribunal while they stand convicted of their crime. But we have treated this argument elsewhere.

VI. But let the matter speak for itself: do we not all experience that the human mind is so ready to give assent to this truth — namely, that God exists — so prone to rush into its embrace, without which it would not merely be cast down from its dignity and honor and thrust into the lowest rank, but would also be ignorant of itself? So much so that, once the terms of which the proposition consists are made clear, it is not lawful to withhold assent from it? Whether this happens by a certain impulse of nature and instinct — in which case reason is itself alone sufficient as an argument — or whether the mind employs a very swift process of reasoning and does not perceive that it has reasoned before it has with its whole soul assented to the proposition set before it — experience testifies that the human mind rests immovably in this truth. Plotinus speaks admirably on this in Enneads III, book vii., treating of eternity, which he does not distinguish from God Himself. "When we say," he writes, "that eternity and time are different from each other, and that the former is around the eternal nature, while the latter is around what comes into being; and when we hold that all this turns on these matters — we suppose, as it were spontaneously and by a natural impulse, and by a certain sudden intuition of the intellect, that we have a certain clear instinct regarding these things, deeply implanted in our souls, always saying and everywhere naming the same things about them." So much for that. Let there be godless men who would too earnestly wish that God did not exist — indeed, who have dared openly to profess that they believe God does not exist; yet since this supreme impiety and wickedness never fails to be accompanied by every other kind of crime, who will persuade me that those impure scoundrels who boldly slander human nature — against the protest of everything that partakes of it — do not also lie shamelessly about themselves? Whatever that may be, what madness would it be to give credence to three or four disgraces of human nature, not merely against the constant and unanimous voice of all good men, but against the voice of nature itself? "For he alone saw, first, that the gods exist, because nature itself had impressed the notion of them on the minds of all. For what nation is there, or what race of men, that does not have, without instruction, a certain anticipation of the gods? Epicurus calls this a προλήψις — that is, a certain preconceived impression in the mind of something, without which nothing can be understood, sought, or discussed" — so says Velleius in Cicero, De Natura Deorum, book i, chapter xvi. And Seneca, Epistle 117: "Among other things, we gather that the gods exist from this: that the opinion of the gods is implanted in all, and there is no nation anywhere so abandoned against laws and customs as not to believe in some god." That some God exists, Dion of Prusa says in his Orations, is "a conviction and common notion of the whole human race, alike among Greeks and equally among barbarians, one that is necessary and innate, arising by nature in all rational beings." And hence Aristotle forbids one to enter into debate with those who doubt whether the gods are to be worshipped, since this ought to be placed beyond controversy by the dictate of right reason. "Those who question whether one ought to honor the gods and love one's parents," he says, "need punishment, not rational persuasion" — Topics I, chapter ix. The entire choir of the wise, all of them, are of one and the same mind in this matter. The philosopher joins the worship of God with love of parents, which is established to be from nature. Justin, in Apology I, calls these notions "seeds of truth in all." "No soul is without sin, because no soul is without a seed of good," says Tertullian, De Anima. That they generally name the gods in the plural, assenting to polytheism, is to be ascribed to corrupted traditions and to prejudices adverse to human nature that prevail over its native genius — so Lactantius: "What pardon for their impiety can they hope for, who do not acknowledge the worship of Him whom it is not right for any man to be altogether ignorant of? For when they swear, and when they make wishes, and when they give thanks, they do not name Jupiter or many gods, but God; so greatly does truth itself burst forth from unwilling hearts, compelled by nature." And it is most true that, in the midst of idolatries, this native and primordial light of reason asserted itself so effectively as to compel very many, who were most extravagant in their idol-worship, to confess one God, the highest and greatest — as in Tiberius Caesar in Dio, History, book lvi: "For this reason also that first and greatest God, He who fashioned us," etc. Aristotle, in De Mundo, adds the reason for polytheism: "He is one, but with many names, being named according to the varied experiences through which He is invoked." To this natural tendency of human nature toward God and His worship (προλήψιν), Julian bears illustrious testimony: "All of us," he says, "are persuaded before instruction that there is a divine power, and we look to it and hasten toward it; and our souls are disposed toward it as eyes endowed with sight are toward the light." Hence that ancient formula, used by those in peril and danger, of appealing to the gods against the injustices of others. It was the voice of nature crying out to the God of nature: "While each one cries out that the gods exist and do not neglect human affairs" — book iv, lib. ii. And, "There is a heavenly power; there is a great Jupiter" — the same, ib. viii. So also as recorded in Sallust, in The Jugurthine War, concerning Sulla when Volux, the son of Bocchus, feared his ambush; and in Plautus, Captivi: "There is indeed a God, who hears and sees what we do." Cyprian speaks admirably in De Vanitate Idolorum: "The sum of the crime is to be unwilling to acknowledge Him whom you cannot be ignorant of." Eusebius also expounds this opinion admirably in Praeparatio Evangelica, book ii, chapter ix.: "It is pre-eminent and supremely useful that which signifies the name and essence of God, led by His own nature and by notions impressed on the soul through itself, or rather divinely inspired — no one fails to understand this: for all peoples have perceived this by a certain common sense of reason, since the same universal Artificer has sown this in every mind endowed with reason and intelligence by means of certain natural thoughts" — so he. And Tertullian, Against Marcion: "We define God as to be known first by nature, then to be recognized more fully by doctrine." And in the Apology: "Do you wish us to prove it" (that God exists and is one) "from the testimony of the soul itself — which, though pressed in the prison of the body, though hemmed in by evil institutions, though weakened by lusts and desires, though enslaved to false gods, yet, when it comes to itself, as from a debauch, as from sleep, as from some illness, and enjoys its own health, names God — this alone, because the one true God is properly good and great, and that 'what God has given' is the voice of all. It also calls Him to witness as judge: 'God sees,' and 'I commit it to God,' and 'God will repay me.' O testimony of the soul that is by nature Christian! And finally, when it pronounces these things, it looks not to the Capitol, but to heaven. For it knows the seat of the living God; from Him and from there it descended."

VII. Now, just as most of the wise had taken note of these common notions (κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι), or anticipations (προλήψεις), so also they had come to know that power of conscience which we have set forth. Menander: "For all mortals: conscience is God." Cornelius Tacitus, speaking of Tiberius, Annal. vi. cap. vi.: "His crimes and shameful deeds had turned even upon himself as a punishment. Nor was it without cause that the foremost teacher of wisdom was accustomed to assert that if the minds of tyrants were laid open, lacerations and wounds would be visible; since, just as bodies are torn by stripes, so the mind is torn by cruelty, lust, and evil counsels; for neither fortune nor solitude protected Tiberius from confessing the torments of his breast and his own punishments." The fear arising from a conscience of sins Cicero calls "the cruelest master"; and "the wicked," he says, "are driven and pursued by the Furies — not with blazing torches, as in the stories, but with the anguish of conscience and the torment of fraud," De Legib. lib. i. Tiberius, continually vexed by that anguish, who had rejected every remedy — both the commission of new crimes, and retreat from the company of men, and the fear of punishment — could not contain himself, but, worn out with himself, publicly confessed in a letter to the senate the torments he had endured in his breast. "What," he said, "shall I write to you, conscript fathers, or how shall I write, or what shall I leave entirely unwritten at this time? May the gods and goddesses destroy me more thoroughly than I daily feel myself perishing, if I know," Sueton. Tiber. cap. lxi. Otho also, after Galba had been slain by his wicked crime, was so terrified that he attempted to appease the shade of Galba by every kind of expiatory rite; as the same author witnesses. Excellently the Satirist:—

"Whose mind is cold … for crimes, the inward parts sweat with silent guilt." Juven. Sat. xi.

And again:— "Why, nevertheless, do you think these men have escaped — those whom a mind conscious of a dread deed holds thunderstruck, and smites with a dull blow, while a hidden torturer shakes his scourge within the soul? But the punishment is fierce, and far more cruel than those which stern Caeditius devised, or Rhadamanthus — to carry one's own witness in one's breast night and day." Sat. xiii.

The historian sets before us a notable example in Jugurtha after innumerable crimes had been committed. "Nor," he says, "after that time did any day or night pass quietly for Jugurtha; he trusted sufficiently neither in any place, nor in any mortal, nor in any season. He feared citizens and enemies alike; he looked anxiously at everything and was terrified at every noise; he often rested at night in one place and then another, contrary to the dignity of a king; sometimes, roused from sleep, he seized weapons and stirred up a tumult — so greatly was he agitated by a kind of dread and madness." And this is the first foundation, or first part, of natural theology in the corrupt state of sin; from which it follows that whoever has not ceased to be a man cannot entirely cease to be a theologian.

VIII. Furthermore: from the contemplation of the works of God — both those of creation and those of providence — this residual knowledge of God can be nourished and increased day by day; for this theology, such as it is, rests not only upon human nature but upon the whole world as well.

IX. First, nothing can be said more plainly on this matter than what the Psalmist has (Psalms 19:1–7): "The heavens declare the glory of the mighty God; and the expanse of them shows forth the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night displays knowledge," etc. This Psalm celebrates a twofold principle — or rather, medium — of God's revelation,

namely, His works and His word. In comparing these two with one another, the Psalm prefers the latter over the former with respect to its saving effects (all of which, indeed, it ascribes to the word alone). The former, however, it proves to declare the glory of God throughout the whole world. The thing revealed, of which mention is here made, is the glory of God, and likewise the power which He put forth in the creation of all things — that is, as the apostle expresses it, His eternal power and divinity (ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης) (Romans 1:20). The media of revelation are heaven and the sun, and the days and nights that succeed one another in their revolving course. The manner of this revelation is expressed in various ways: they are said to declare, to show forth, to pour out speech, to display, to speak. All of these are metaphorical, yet sufficiently indicate an efficacy suited to the proposed end. It is further noted that this revelation is catholic — that is, extending to all the ends of the habitable world. The Psalmist does add, indeed, that this doctrine of the works of creation and of God's providence is not sufficient for anyone to know God rightly and to worship Him holily — since the Psalm wholly attributes those saving effects to His word, or to the doctrine contained in Holy Scripture; yet in the meantime he expressly affirms that the essence, glory, and power of God are so revealed through it that all the inhabitants of the earth may learn from it both that God exists and that He is infinitely separated from all the idols of the nations.

X. No less clearly does the apostle confirm the same truth; (Romans 1:18–20): "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which can be known of God is manifest in them; for God has made it manifest to them. For His invisible attributes have been clearly perceived from the creation of the world onward, by means of the things that He made, being understood by the mind — namely, His eternal power and divinity — so that they are without excuse." I do not wish to entangle myself greatly in those controversies that lie outside our present purpose in these words. The putrid invention of the Socinians, who twist the words of the twentieth verse toward the doctrine of the gospel, has long since been refuted. As for the rest: the thing revealed is in general terms called τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ — that which can be known of God — and specifically, His eternal power, divinity, and wrath, or vindicatory justice. The media of revelation are the works of God: the things He has made, namely, the works of creation that have existed from the foundation of the world, and the works of providence which He still carries on from heaven. The manner is through a certain disclosure of these things, innate in them, together with the contemplation which they indelibly impress upon the mind. Through these media, this revelation attains such a degree that in those to whom it is made it is called a manifestation of the things revealed. The end is inexcusability (ἀναπολογησία) — not absolute inexcusability, but inexcusability as concerns the use of this benefit of revelation. Whether τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ is rendered as "that which can be known of God" or "that which ought to be known of God," the matter comes to the same thing; for it is not said absolutely, but with respect to that kind of manifestation which comes through the works of creation and providence; for from these it can be known that God exists, that He is eternal, omnipotent, and just; and this ought to be known from them — nor does the apostle in this place extend that τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ any further. Certainly, those things that are natural to God, and that — once an object is posited with respect to their exercise — are necessary, whatever they may be, fall no less exactly under this manifestation than those of which explicit mention (κατὰ λέξιν) is made. But those things whose exercise, even when all objects are posited, depends upon the most free will of God — such as grace and mercy toward sinners — stand on a different footing; for of these there is no revelation except in Christ, as we have demonstrated more fully elsewhere.

XI. Nor less illustrious are those passages in which the Holy Spirit Himself uses this very argument, and proves from His works that God exists, and that He ought to be known and worshipped. And who will hinder us from thinking according to the dictates of the Holy Spirit? See Psalm 8, also Psalm 145:8–15, Psalm 147:4–6; Job 12:7–10, 37–39; Isaiah 40:12; Matthew 6:26. This argument is pressed by either God Himself or His prophets in His name in many passages. To dwell upon all of them would be too lengthy and foreign to our present purpose. Let us briefly run through two arguments of the same apostle to this end; one of them is found at Acts 14:15–17, the other at Acts 17:24–28. The first runs thus: "Men, why do you do these things? We also are men, subject to the same passions as you, proclaiming to you that you should turn from these vain things to that living God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are in them. Although He did not leave Himself without witness, doing good, giving us rains from heaven and appointed seasons for bearing fruit, filling our hearts with food and gladness." These are the words of Paul and Barnabas, defending themselves against the impious worship of the Lystrans. First, they teach that the worship itself and its object, which they had invented for themselves, are vain — that is, foolish and empty; then they point to the true God, both by the attribute of life and by the effect of His works. For God is the living God, because He made heaven and earth. And they prove that He has given such testimony of Himself through the works of His providence that all men could from them know Him and easily distinguish Him from vain, dead, worthless idols — what could be said more plainly? "He did not leave Himself without witness" (Οὐκ ἀμάρτυρον ἑαυτὸν ἀφῆκεν) — that is, He testified both that He exists and that He governs this world by His providence; and how so? Through the works of His providence, namely. He did not, to be sure, give this testimony of Himself to the end that men might savingly know Him and be converted — for how could He have seriously intended that, when in the meantime He willingly permitted them to persist in their own ways? — but only to this end, that those who in defiance of it attached themselves to vain idols might be without excuse (ἀναπολόγητοι).

XII. The apostle proceeds by arguing in the same manner (Acts 17:24–29). But this pericope of the apostolic oration, since we must treat at greater length the question of the sufficiency of this revelation for salvation, we have not thought fit to expound further for the present. And these teachers have acknowledged, namely, the works of God, even [illegible]

Among the nations celebrated for wisdom. "Heaven never ceases to teach men," says Plato, Epinomis, appended to the book On the Laws. "And who is so blind that, when he has looked up to the heavens, he does not perceive that gods exist?" as Cicero says in Responses to Auruspices. And Zaleucus set it down in his laws: that those who inhabit the city and the land ought first of all to be persuaded and to believe that gods exist, and, looking up to heaven and to the cosmos and to the order established within them, to understand that these things were made not by chance nor by human hands, etc. In agreement with these men, Tatian says: This is to be understood through His creation, and to be apprehended through nature from His works. See Max. Tyr. Dissertation i.; Maimonid. More Nebuch. part. i. cap. xxxiv. It cannot indeed be denied that all those things which by their own nature lead the mind to some sense of the knowledge of God and of His attributes are drawn aside by many and interpreted otherwise than they ought to be. We have observed that none are more often inclined toward atheism than those who profess to trace out with every footstep the knowledge of all things, especially those things which are hidden and concealed by nature; namely, by the contemplation of all things they use it only to gratify the innate curiosity of the mind, abusing it in the consideration of the connections and knots of secondary causes, heedless and negligent toward their God. So also those to whom, through a long series of years, the vicissitudes of things have been carefully weighed — so far are they from understanding and fearing the manifold providence of God therefrom, that by a native vice, namely the blindness of the mind and the wickedness of the heart, they sink even into atheism. From this has arisen the proverb: "No old man fears Jupiter." But these vices of certain men are not to be attributed to human nature itself. Noble indeed are the words of Aristotle as quoted by Cicero in On the Nature of the Gods, lib. ii., though it is uncertain from which work they are taken, for they nowhere appear in his own writings. "If there were," he says, "people who had always dwelt beneath the earth, in fine and well-lit habitations adorned with statues and paintings and furnished with all the things that those who are counted blessed possess in abundance, yet had never gone above ground; but had received by report and hearsay that there is a certain divine power and force of the gods; and if then at some time the jaws of the earth opened and they were able to escape from those hidden dwellings into the regions we inhabit and to come forth; when they suddenly saw the earth and the seas and the sky; when they perceived the greatness of the clouds and the force of the winds; when they looked upon the sun and came to know both its greatness and its beauty and also its power, that it causes the day by flooding the whole sky with light; and when night had darkened the lands and they saw the whole sky adorned and distinguished with stars, and the varying phases of the moon, now waxing now waning, and the risings and settings of all these, and their courses fixed and unchangeable throughout all eternity — when they saw these things, they would surely judge both that the gods exist and that these great works are the works of the gods." To which many things may be added from what Cicero himself argues in that same place. The sum is this: that there exists some preeminent and eternal nature which the human race is compelled to look up to and admire — the beauty of the world and the order of celestial things compel us to confess it; which are the words of the same Cicero in the second book On Divination.