Generations of readers, studying what has been called Paul’s “Areopagus address” in Acts 17:22–31, have supposed that he was trying to argue his way, on philosophical grounds, up to a statement of Christian belief. Many in the modern period who have wanted to construct what is sometimes called “natural theology”—arguing for the existence of God and perhaps the truth of Christianity by observation of the natural world alone, without appeal to special divine revelation—have hailed this speech as a forerunner of their efforts.
