Natural theology, at least as traditionally understood, seeks to prove the existence of God (and possibly give an account of some divine attributes) solely by drawing on evidence from the world around us. A classic example would be Thomas Aquinas’s five ways.
Of course, not all Christians would approve of such a rationalistic approach to theology. In particular, many Eastern Orthodox theologians have questioned the value and validity of such an approach.
The other day, I came across a useful summary rejection of natural theology from the pen of St Gregory Palamas. Interestingly, Palamas (who was no fan of Aquinas) does not attack Aquinas directly but looks instead at the pagan Hellenistic roots of natural theology:
By examining the nature of sensible things, these people have arrived at a certain concept of God, but not at a concept truly worthy of Him and appropriate to His blessed nature. . . . For if a worthy conception of God could be attained through the use of intellection, how could these people have taken the demons for gods, and how could they have believed the demons when they taught man polytheism? In this way, wrapped up in this mindless and foolish wisdom and unenlightened education, they have calumniated both God and nature. They have deprived God of His sovereignty (at least as far as they are concerned); they have ascribed the Divine Name to demons; and they were so far from finding the knowledge of beings – the object of their desire and zeal – as to claim that inanimate things have a soul and participate in a soul superior to our own. They also allege that things without reason are reasonable, since capable of receiving a human soul . . . they have classed among things uncreated and unoriginate and coeternal with God, not only matter, and what they call the World Soul, but also those intelligible beings not clothed in the opacity of the body, and even our souls themselves. (The Triads I.i.18)
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