I partly agree with Paul, insofar as Boyle and Newton (I assume also Linneaus, whom I haven’t read) certainly held that intelligence was an indispensable part of understanding the origin of the world and its contents–including biological organisms. Indispensable.
However, I partly disagree with Paul, in that there is much historical evidence that Christians helped advance the notion that natural philosophy needed to restrict its inquiries to “natural” (i.e., non-supernatural) causes. This is not necessarily the same thing as what Paul means by “MN in its modern form,” but certainly it’s a kind of limited naturalism, and it’s endorsed by Boyle and many others in the medieval and early modern periods. On Boyle’s endorsement of it, see this: https://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/the-miraculous-meniscus-of-mercury
The standard rule at medieval universities, namely, that natural philosophers should keep out of theology, reflects its earlier origins. For example, Galileo (who had taught at Pisa and Padua for many years) alluded to this in a letter he wrote to Fr Pietro Dini (later archbishop of Fermo) in May 1615. “Yet for all of me any discussion of the sacred Scripture might have lain dormant forever; no astronomer or scientist who remained within proper bounds has ever got into such things.” (quoted by Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, 165)
A full history of MN has not yet been written, but a wide-reaching historical project is well underway: https://hps.fsu.edu/news-and-events/ron-numbers-conference
A limited type of naturalism has long been defended by Christian theologians and natural philosophers, long before modern times. Although Christians did not invent the ancient term, “law of nature,” Basil and others endorsed it early in Christian history and used it commonly long before natural philosophers picked up the term. That story does not equate with the history of MN, but it’s closely related.
So, I advise taking Paul’s blanket warning with two large lumps of salt.