ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to situate Thomas Dick within the British tradition of natural theology and within evangelicalism. It begins by surveying natural theology as advocated most notably by John Ray, William Derham, William Paley, and the eight authors of the Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God. The chapter suggests that Dick advocated a doxological or God-praising theology of nature based upon knowledge of God derived from Scripture and elaborated by studying the natural world as His creation. Dick sought to revive a tradition of sanctified study of nature for spiritual edification—a tradition embraced by Christian philosophers like Robert Boyle, Ray, and Derham—but one which he believed had largely been abandoned in Britain by the 1820s. The chapter argues that Dick, by portraying studies of the natural world as divine pursuits, sought to redefine the practice of Christianity.
