The first thing I learned about natural theology was that it was wrong. The idea that God’s existence could be proven by simply observing life on Earth – that divine presence could be found in human eyes, the wings of bees, the order of orchids or the movements of the planets – seemed archaic in a secular world where science reigned. And by the late 20th century, even those who rejected this secular world had started to turn away from natural theology: in the United States, evangelical Christians and other groups looked to the Bible, not nature, to justify their values. The very grounds of natural theology became something worthy of parody.
