physico-theologyn.

1713 W. Derham (title) Physico-theology: or, a demonstration of the being and attributes of God from His works of creation.

1825 S. T. Coleridge Aids Refl. 397 I more than fear, the prevailing taste for Books of Natural Theology, Physico-theology, Demonstrations of God from Nature, Evidences of Christianity, &c.

1855 B. Powell Ess. 309 A physico-theology supplies no such idea of the Deity as can offer any antecedent contradiction to the representations of his nature and attributes.

1904 Mind 13 237 Physical teleology, according to Kant, can never become a physico-theology, though it is of great value as a propædeutic to theology.

1993 Isis 84 382 The microscope is put in the context of physico-theology, in which the Book of Nature replaces the Book of Books.

1877 F. H. Hedge Ways of Spirit 170 The physicotheologians have therefore no cause for their coyness toward the transcendental demonstration, and for looking down upon it with the self-conceit of clear-seeing masters of natural lore.

1993 Isis 84 387/2 He was a Leiden-educated doctor, a writer of mathematical textbooks,..a physico-theologian, [etc.].

a1834 S. T. Coleridge Lit. Remains (1836) II. 341 The Saturnian χρόνοι ὑπερχρόνιοι..to which the elder physico-theologists attributed a self-polarizing power.

1984 Ann. Assoc. Amer. Geographers 74 10/1 Whatever the specific cases instanced by physico-theologists of philosophical or scientific hue, their central theme was that of harmonious adaptation to environment.

2000 Nature 4 May 19/2 Linnaeus's acute and comprehensive first-hand experience sets him apart from the previous physico-theologists, who were more philosophers than naturalists.