“Signals of Transcendence”

Just a few notes from, yes, yet another of those incomplete manuscripts:

Oxford theologian Alister McGrath:

Through the grace of God, the creation points to its Creator.  Through the generosity of God, we have been left with a latent memory of him, capable of stirring us toward a fuller recollection of him.  Although there is a fracture between the ideal and the empirical, between the realms of fallen and redeemed creation, the memory of that connection lives on, along with the intimation of its restoration through redemption.

What the sociologist Peter Berger calls “signals of transcendence,”[1] McGrath, who holds a doctorate in biochemistry in addition to his theological credentials, labels “points of contact,” which he believes to be “God-given footholds for divine self-revelation.”  Still, McGrath observes,

Points of contact are not in themselves adequate to bring people into the kingdom of God.  They are merely starting points.  Nor are they adequate in themselves to bring people to a specifically Christian faith.  They might well point toward the existence of a creative and benevolent supreme being.  The connection with “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:3) remains to be made.  The apologist must still show that the Christian gospel is consistent with these points of contact, that it is able to explain them, and more than that it is able to deliver all that they promise, turning hints into reality.[2]

McGrath speaks of “a fracture within creation.”

Fallen human nature can only reflect on a fallen creation.  The fallenness of both the beholder and that which is beheld thus introduces a twofold distortion.  This is most emphatically not to say that no knowledge of God may be had.  Rather, we must admit that this knowledge is imperfect, broken, confused, and darkened, like a cracked mirror or a misty window.[3]

[1] Where?

[2] Alister E. McGrath, Intellectuals Don’t Need God and Other Modern Myths: Building Bridges to Faith through Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 16.

[3] Alister E. McGrath, Intellectuals Don’t Need God and Other Modern Myths: Building Bridges to Faith through Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 16.

Such musings will drive some of my readers absolutely mad.  Still — honestly — that’s not the only reason that I post them.

Someday, when I get the time, I’ll finish some of these unfinished little projects off.