The false response to Humean scepticism in Britain received tremendous impetus from Paley's Natural Theology. Religious thinkers seeking a firm ground for their faith were therefore left with the choice between biblical authority or an invalid natural theology or a combination of the two. If the Bible was infallible, then its authority was obvious. If it contained errors, then its authority might still be justified by concentrating on its religious and moral message, but natural theology would then have to be called in to justify the idea that there could be a true religious message at all. If we have no good reason to believe in God, we have no good reason to believe that he has spoken. Conversely, if natural theology cannot provide us with convincing evidence that God has spoken, has expressed himself in some way accessible to human beings, then belief in God itself has no ground. We need, as it were, our ‘burning bush’ to get us away from the pressures and promises of a purely secular existence on to that holy ground where the voice of God can be heard. The natural theology on offer in nineteenth-century Britain, however, failed to provide that demonstration which could be the starting point or foundation of a thoroughly worked out justification of religious commitment; and the situation has not essentially changed.

People do not, of course, accept or reject religious belief simply as a response to rational argument. Often enough thinkers have set out on the basis of belief and proceeded to rationalise it as best they could; nor is rationalisation unknown to scepticism.