RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Natural Law Nature
ism and evolutionism. While idealism conceives of the mind as the immanent cause of this development, evolutionism deduces these changes from external factors, after the analogy of the methods of natural science (see Evolution). Recognizing that it is not the origin of the moral law that gives to it its validity, but rather its power to lift the personality to a higher plane, even Christian theology has now abandoned the fundamental part of the doctrine of an innate moral law. The supposed innate moral law is completely subject to the changes of history, in which Christian revelation proves itself by its fruits. See Ethics. J. GorrscHicKf.
Bibijoobaphy : M. Voigt, Die Lehre vom jus naturale, vol. i., Leipsic, 1859; K. Hildenbrand, Geschichte und System der Rechts- und Staatsphilosophie, vol. i., ib. I860; E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, vol. iii., part 1, ib. 1880, Eng. transl., London, 1880-81; H. Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, London, 1883, and often; F. Jodl, Geschichte der Ethik, Stuttgart, 1889; H. Weiss, Einleitung in die christlichen Ethik, Leipsic, 1890; E. Troltsch, Vernunft und Offenbarung bei J. Gerhard und Melanchthon, Gottingen, 1891; T. Elsenhaus, Wesen und Entstehung des Gewissens, vol. i., Leipsic, 1894.
NATURAL THEOLOGY: The favorite term in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries designating the knowledge of God drawn from nature in distinction from the knowledge of God contained in revelation. This division of theology into natural and revealed had its roots in the scholastic distinction between the two truths, one derived from nature by the use of the Aristotelian logic, subject to the authority of the Church, the other, truth above reason, revealed by God but formulated and taught solely by authority of the Church (see Albehtus Magnus; Scholasticism). The deists relied exclusively on natural theology, on the ground that the being and attributes of God could be exhaustively ascertained from the constitution and course of the world, thus superseding the necessity of supernatural revelation (see Deism). David Hume, by his theory of knowledge, proved that even this knowledge was too precarious for rational certitude. On the other hand, Bishop Butler (Analogy of Religion, London, 1736 and often) maintained that natural and revealed religion were so far one that the truths of natural theology provided a basis for the characteristic truths of the Christian faith, such as miracles, the incarnation, and redemption. Later, the wisdom, power, and even the goodness of God were held to be demonstrable by the processes of natural theology (S. Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, London, 1705; Wm. Paley, Natural Theology, ib. 1802; Bridgewater Treatises, q.v.). The function and name of natural theology continued in vogue until the latter portion of the last century (see God, IV.; and consult T. Chalmers, Natural Theology, Edinburgh, 1849; A. P. Chadbourne, Lectures on Natural Theology, New York, 1867; E. H. Gillett, God in Human Thought, or Natural Theology, ib. 1874; W Jackson, Philosophy of Natural Theology, London, 1874; J. H. Kennedy, Natural Theology and Modern Thought, ib. 1891; G. C. Stokes, Natural Theology, ib. 1891; G. P. Fisher, Manual of Natural Theology, New York, 1893). This habit of thought has, however, been strongly opposed by Ritschl and his school. Relying on Kant's distinc-
tion between the pure and the practical reason, they seek the source of the knowledge of God not through the theoretic judgments of science or philosophy, but only through value- judgments to which revelation is addressed. Nature being impersonal can neither receive nor communicate the personal redemptive disclosure of God which man needs for reconciliation with him; this is to be sought ultimately only in Christ and the Christian community. Recent thought tends to yet another mode of viewing the whole subject. The distinction between natural and supernatural, in which natural theology arose and nourished, is effaced. Ruling ideas are: philosophical monism; psycho-physics tending to the personal interpretation of reality; evolution involving and revealing the unity of the world; the divine immanence as a postulate of religious thought. Moreover, the material included in natural theology is treated from a different point of view, as, e.g., the science of religion (C. P Tiele, Elements of the Science of Religion, New York, 1897; J. Caird, Philosophy of Religion, Edinburgh, 1880; O. Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion, London, 1886; G. T. Ladd, Philosophy of Religion, New York, 1905; H. Hoffding, Philosophy of Religion, London, 1906); apologetics (A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, New York, 1892; G. B. Foster, The Finality of the Christian Religion, Chicago, 1906); theism (Samuel Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, New York, 1886; B. P. Bowne, Theism, ib. 1902); or individual aspects of fundamental religious questions are discussed with reference, e. g., to psychology (E. D. Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, London, 1899; G. A. Coe, The Spiritual Life, New York, 1900; W James, Varieties of Religious Experience, ib. 1902); religion (L. H. Jordan, Comparative Religion, Its Genesis and Growth, Edinburgh, 1905; A. Sabatier, Religions of Authority and Religions of the Spirit, New York, 1906); Christianity (A. Harnack, What is Christianity? London, 1901); metaphysics (J. Royce, The World and the Individual, New York, 1900-01); science (J. LeConte, Evolution and Its Relation to Religious Thought, New York, 1894; E. Caird, The Evolution of Religion, London, 1893); history (A. Menzies, History of Religion, London, 1895; W. Bousset, Das Wesen der Religion, dargestellt in ihrer Geschichte, Halle, 1904).
C. A. Beckwith.
Bibliography: Besides the works mentioned in the text, the reader may consult: J. A. Thomson, The Bible of Nature, London, 1908; and R. Otto, Naturalism and Religion, ib. 1909.
NATURE, LAWS OF: In general a law is a statement of the rule according to which something either necessarily takes place, as in external nature, or ought to take place, as in the normative sciences. While the laws of logic or ethics are often violated, no exception to the law of gravitation has ever been observed. Indeed, it is this assumed element of necessity that distinguishes the laws of nature from the recognized rules of thought, conduct, etc.
However, it is by no means certain to what extent laws of nature, e.g., that of mechanical causation, find application; and it is still a mooted question whether they control psychical life and the progress of history, as well as physical happenings, or
Nature
Naumburg