Book Review
I just happened to read two Alister McGrath books in the last two days. I didn’t plan it that way. I had seen on Twitter that he had written a new fantasy novel, and a pre-release copy was available for free on Kindle. I wanted something light to read, so I downloaded and read it on my Android phone. The other book happened to be on the top of my book stack today.
McGrath is well qualified to write on the passionate intellect, the topic of the first book I’ll address here. He holds two doctorates, one in molecular biophysics and one in theology, both from Oxford. His book on that topic is a collection of eleven lectures and papers previously delivered in other contexts. The chapters flow meaningfully into a unified whole in spite of their not having originally been conceived to do so, with the one big idea of the book being that Christian theology is the premier means by which we can make sense of the world in which we live.
The first chapter is an apologetic for theology itself, set especially in light of recent challenges from the “new atheists” with which he himself has frequently debated. Following that he sets himself to encouraging the intellectual exercise of imagination in approaching mystery. There is a chapter on “The Gospel and the Transformation of Reality,” an appreciative reflection on George Herbert’s (1593-1633) theologically-inspired poetry, and one on C.S. Lewis’s slow (but eventually solid) appreciation of the mystery of pain and suffering. His “Christian View of Nature” is that it is “the theater of the glory of God.” McGrath tells of the philosopher Iris Murdoch’s (1919-1999) use of
the term imagination to refer to a capacity to see beyond the empirical in order to discern deeper truths about the world. This, she argues, is to be contrasted with “strict’ or”scientific” thinking, which focuses on what is merely observed. An imaginative engagement with the world builds on the surface reading of things, taking the form as “a type of reflection on people, events, etc., which builds detail, adds colour, conjures up possibilities in ways which go beyond what could be said to be strictly factual….”
[I]magination supplements what reason observes, this disclosing a richter vision of reality…. To be limited to an empirical account of nature fails to disclose its (or our!) meaning, value, or agency…. The Christian faith is also able to offer an approach to nature that is grounded in its empirical reality but transcends the empirical.
His complaint with respect to the new atheists is that their strict Enlightenment empiricism denies them the ability to see all that really exists. That’s the point of the book’s final chapter. I’ll come back to that in a moment, for it is at this point that The Chosen Ones becomes very relevant to what McGrath has to say. A writer who believes as strongly in the imagination as he does might be expected to encourage good imaginative literature. McGrath has done more than that: he has taken it on himself to write a fantasy series of his own (of which the second book has also now appeared on Amazon).
I have often wished I would be struck with the fiction-writing muse. It is a gift I admire in those who have it. I recognize its power to entertain, to arouse reactions on every level, to stimulate deep reflection. My own understanding of law and grace has been formed more by the musical Les Misérables than by any treatise on the topic. So I certainly affirm what McGrath is attempting to do with the Chosen Ones. I am not so certain, however, that he has actually accomplished it. Granted, it was written for a much younger audience, ages 9-12. I found that out as I was reading it. Granted, too, it is grossly unfair to bring up the Chronicles of Narnia by way of comparison.
But with that as background (sorry, I can’t help it), the imagery in The Chosen Ones seems a little weak to me. I’m probably unqualified to comment on that, so take it with a grain of salt. Worse than that, though, I was wondering all the way through to the end why Gaius told Julie it would be harmful to let her brother know what was going on, there in the alternate world to which they had been brought. That’s at least one major plot point that was left hanging.
So while I applaud his intent, and I know it’s not in my power to do better, I’m somewhat hesitant to recommend The Chosen Ones. Kudos for putting his money where his mouth is, and for making this foray into imaginative fiction. Still McGrath does far better in the non-fiction format, and he is at his sharpest (as he was once before, along with his daughter) in addressing the new atheists, to whom we now return.
Given their commitment to rational (as they regard it) empiricism, some groundwork is necessary before McGrath can show how it fails. He supplies that preparation in The Passionate Intellect through three chapters on the relation of faith and science. The highlight of the book is his chapter length criticism of new atheists’ shoddy scholarship.
It soon becomes clear that there are no new lines of reasoning here. The old, familiar and somewhat tired arguments of the past are recycled and rehashed. What is new is the aggressiveness of the rhetoric, which often seems to degenerate into bullying and hectoring. It serves a convenient purpose, by papering over the obvious evidential gaps and argumentative lapses that are so characteristic of this movement. But it does little to encourage anyone to take atheism with intellectual seriousness….
My concern … is not the intellectual smugness, cultural arrogance or political foolishness of the new atheism at this point, but it fundamentally divisive nature. This crude belief system divides the world between the “Brights” and the “dims,” creating a damaging polarity, which the new atheism asserts is the characteristic of religion. Atheism, it seems, is just as bad as its alternatives in this respect, having now added intellectual snobbery to its vices and nothing obvious to its virtues.
And so on. Is he a little rough on the new atheists? No more than they have asked for, and far, far less so than they are on Christianity. It helps that he actually supports his points with reasonable arguments, unlike, say, Christopher Hitchens, who, as McGrath acerbically yet quite accurately observes, sustains his “metanarrative” of religion’s inherent danger by
doing violence to the facts of history, the norms of evidence-based argument and the realities of contemporary evidence.
This is McGrath at his most entertaining. But I would not want to say it is McGrath at his finest. His best work in this book is his treatment of mystery and imagination in the context of what is known and what is real. It is here, as McGrath explains clearly, that Christianity shines, and it is here where the new atheists “Bright”-ness is darkest. The Passionate Intellect is an excellent account of a mind willing to embrace knowledge and mystery together, and to take hold of both with passion. This book I can wholeheartedly recommend.
The Passionate Intellect: Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the Mind by Alister McGrath. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010. 185 pages plus notes and index. Hardcover. Amazon Price US$12.26.
Chosen Ones (The Aedyn Chronicles) by Alister McGrath. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. 208 Pages. Amazon Price US$7.96
No automatically-generated related posts found.
Comments are disabled for this post