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date: 26 January 2021

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter examines the significance of aesthetics and the arts to natural theology, first discussing ways that natural theology can circumvent the evident religiosity of certain kinds of art. It then situates scholarship in the arts and aesthetics in relation to different approaches to natural theology, and concludes by considering a newly expanded understanding of natural theology and its relation to alternative approaches to aesthetics and the arts.

Keywords: aesthetics, art, natural theology, religiosity

Frank Burch Brown

Frank Burch Brown is the Frederick Doyle Kershner Professor of Religion and the Arts at Christian Theological Seminary and was for several years Alexander Campbell Visiting Professor of Religion and the Arts at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is author of five books, including Religious Aesthetics (1989), Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life (2000), and Inclusive Yet Discerning: Navigating Worship Artfully (2009), as well as contributor to the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion (2008) and the Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology (2013). He is a composer of over twenty commissioned works.

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