Customer Reviews

Theory (Scientific Theology)

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THEORY is the third and final volume of Alister McGrath's A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY, a work of over 400,000 words. This series seeks to study the methodology of the natural sciences and attempt to correlate and apply them to the study of theology. Prof. McGrath is clear that it isn't a work of systematic theology, but rather a methodological prolegomena to a soon to be published systematic theology. (For some reason, the book jacket for all three volumes describes it as a "systematic theology" anyway.)

As I've mentioned in my previous reviews, these books contain numerous interesting background studies that would be of help to anyone interested in the relationship between religion and science. On the other hand, these books come across as something like a collection of encyclopedia articles interspersed with a few observations by Prof. McGrath setting forth his own positions in a somewhat cursory manner.

Reviewing the final chapter, entitled "The Place of Metaphysics in a Scientific Theology", shows what is wrong with this work. McGrath discusses Ayer, Mach, Carnap, John Milton, Ritschl, Schleiermacher, Iris Murdoch, Ayn Rand (that's not a misprint), protocol sentences, etc. All of it is highly informative. I didn't know that Milton wrote an anti-metaphysical treatise on theology that wasn't rediscovered until 1823. Yet the points that McGrath makes are relatively few and general: we cannot escape metaphysics, even those who advocate a "functional Christology" are implicitly making metaphysical claims, and the like.

The entire series gives indications of being hastily written. Besides being repetitive, it appears that Prof. McGrath has read and written more on these issues than actually thinking about them. For example, on page 272, he states that E. O. Wilson's book CONSCILIENCE is "important" and discusses it in some detail. Yet in volume two, he said that the book was "disappointing." On the next page he tells us that B.B. Warfield was Charles Hodge's "colleague" at Princeton. In fact, Warfield didn't start teaching at Princeton until after Hodge died.