Upcoming Lecture

IRT PUBLIC LECTURE:
Lecture Report on Anna Case-Winters’ “Is there a Natural Theology in the Reformed Tradition?”
by David True, Ph.D. Candidate, Union-PSCE, Richmond, Virginia

With this lecture, Professor Case-Winters illumines resources for reconstructing a Christian theology of nature from a Reformed perspective. She maintains that we need a theology of nature that can “undergird concern for the environment and the flourishing of all living things.” Her lecture is a work in apologetics in which she attempts to correct misinterpretations of Reformed theology. An apologia is necessary because Reformed theology has been singled out for its role in legitimating the misuse of nature.

Case-Winters argues that in condemning Reformed theology, its ecologically-minded critics have failed to distinguish between Karl Barth and John Calvin, e.g., H. Paul Santmire’s The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology. She concedes that despite possibilities, Barth’s theology is ‘theanthropocentric.’ God, for Barth, is concerned almost exclusively with human beings. The larger world is of value in its use to the human project. However, in Calvin, Case-Winters finds rich resources for a theology of nature. Her primary affirmation is that Calvin maintains a theocentrism in which all things relate to God rather than to humanity. Drawing on Susan Schreiner’s The Theater of His Glory, Case-Winters highlights Calvin’s notion of nature as a ‘theater of God’s glory.’ Praise of God is a vocation not limited to humans. God’s providence is as equally inclusive. “All things in nature and in history are governed by God’s personal and particular care.” God’s providential care extends into an inclusive eschatological reign in which all things will be restored to their doxological vocation.

For Case-Winters, it follows that we are to take God’s relation to the world as our own pattern for living. Following Calvin, she suggests that our ethical standard should be the right use of nature in a spirit of profound gratitude. We are to be stewards who recognize the worth of nature apart from its utility for us. Concluding on a hopeful note, she finds that as the heirs of Calvin continue to work with these Reformed themes to reconstruct a theology of nature, their efforts reveal that Reformed theology, though not without ambiguity, “holds much promise.”

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