An interior at Oxford University\u2019s Divinity School, where Alister McGrath earned one of his doctorates
(Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve often had occasion here and elsewhere to mention the prolific Alister McGrath, an Anglo-Irish theologian who earned his doctorate in divinity from Oxford before earning an Oxford doctorate in intellectual history but after earning an Oxford doctorate in molecular biophysics. \u00a0Between pages 235 and 267 of Eric Metaxas, Life, God, and Other Small Topics: Conversations from Socrates in the City<\/em> (New York: Plume\/Penguin, 2011) there is a transcript of a New York City speech by Dr. McGrath bearing the provocative title \u201cThe Twilight of Atheism\u201d and of the questions and answers that followed it. \u00a0From this transcript, I extract the passages below.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
It seems to me the situation is simply that we can interpret the natural world in an atheist way; we can interpret the natural world in a Christian way or we can interpret the natural world in an agnostic way. \u00a0A good case could be made for each, but it is not necessitated by nature itself. \u00a0Or to put that in very simple English, all of these viewpoints are perfectly okay, but nature itself does not force us to choose this one, rather than that one. \u00a0(252)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sir Peter Medawar won the Nobel Prize for medicine in the 1960s for his work in immunobiology, and in a book intriguingly entitled The Limits of Science<\/em>, published in 1986, Medawar argued like this: When it comes to explaining the material world, there are no limits to science. \u00a0If it can\u2019t explain them now, it will be able to explain them in the future.<\/span><\/p>\nBut then he says there are metaphysical questions. \u00a0He gives some examples: \u00a0\u201cWhat is the point to life? \u00a0Why are we here?\u201d \u00a0He makes the point that these are real questions that matter to people. \u00a0His argument is that science actually cannot give convincing answers to those questions. \u00a0If they can be answered, they have to be answered on other grounds, and that seems, to me, to be a very important point.<\/span><\/p>\nFor example, a quotation from Richard Dawkins\u2019s A Devil\u2019s Chaplain<\/em>, published in 2003: \u00a0\u201cScience has no means of determining what is right and what is wrong.\u201d \u00a0Now, on that point, I think he\u2019s right. \u00a0(256)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the Q&A after the speech:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I am a Christian because I believe . . . it offers the best explanation, best evidence, but also the best explanatory capacity. \u00a0(261)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
[I]f you think of the discovery of the electron, that was originally simply because, \u201cLook, we can\u2019t see this, but we need to invoke this to make sense of what we do.\u201d \u00a0In many ways, Christian theology is doing the very same thing. \u00a0It\u2019s saying, \u201cLook, we see this and this and this, and we ask, \u2018What is the best way of making sense of this?'\u201d \u00a0The very classic answer is \u201cThere is this God, and this God actually helps to make sense of things.\u201d \u00a0(266-267)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019ve often had occasion here and elsewhere to mention the prolific Alister McGrath, an Anglo-Irish theologian who earned his doctorate in divinity from Oxford before earning an Oxford doctorate in intellectual history but after earning an Oxford doctorate in molecular biophysics. \u00a0Between pages 235 and 267 of Eric Metaxas, Life, God, and Other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4171,2842,9221,1014,11015,6994,11012,11009,6147,255,5154,1649,3343,7656,177,3142,243,2833,401,6459,6885,10393],"class_list":["post-84802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agnostic","tag-agnosticism","tag-alister-mcgrath","tag-atheism","tag-atheistic","tag-dawkins","tag-limits","tag-medawar","tag-medicine","tag-naturalism","tag-nobel","tag-nobel-prize","tag-peter","tag-richard","tag-richard-dawkins","tag-right","tag-science","tag-secularism","tag-theism","tag-theistic","tag-values","tag-wrong"],"yoast_head":"\n
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