Classic natural theology in its logical, rational, Aristotelian presentation has encountered an impasse. Since the Enlightenment, nature has ceased to be a vital topic in theological discussions until a recent revival of interest stemming from ecological and feminist concerns. Provocatively transcending boundaries between Philosophy and Theology, ancient and contemporary, East and West, Natural Theology Reconfigured revitalises the validity and relevancy of Natural Theology, a shipwrecked concept in the West, with the aid of Eastern Confucian Axiology and American Pragmatism.

William Paley set out to prove the existence of God from the evidence of the beauty and order of the natural world. This edition sets his work in the context of the theological, philosophical, and scientific debates of the nineteenth century.

This book offers a rationale for a new ‘ramified natural theology’ that is in dialogue with both science and historical-critical study of the Bible. Traditionally, knowledge of God has been seen to come from two sources, nature and revelation. However, a rigid separation between these sources cannot be maintained, since what purports to be revelation cannot be accepted without qualification: rational argument is needed to infer both the existence of God from nature and the particular truth claims of the Christian faith from the Bible. Hence the distinction between ‘bare natural theology’ and ‘ramified natural theology.’ The book begins with bare natural theology as background to its main focus on ramified natural theology. Bayesian confirmation theory is utilised to evaluate competing hypotheses in both cases, in a similar manner to that by which competing hypotheses in science can be evaluated on the basis of empirical data. In this way a case is built up for the rationality of a Christian theist worldview. Addressing issues of science, theology and revelation in a new framework, this book will be of keen interest to scholars working in Religion and Science, Natural Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Biblical Studies, Systematic Theology, and Science and Culture.