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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Could be better, May 7, 2006
McGrath is his inimitable self in this book. He never fails to impress with his intellect, his global knowledge, his ability to explain, and his eloquence. On the other hand, I was surprised at the amount of repetition in the book. From time to time I thought I was having d?j? vue. I enjoyed the read for the most part, but some of the material could have been left out and his arguments would have seemed tighter. He evidently admires Thomas Torrance immensely, since he repeatedly mentioned his name, but I can't recall anything Torrance actually said.
His choice of the scientific method as ancilla theologiae is a good one for several reasons. First of all, as he says, it is the closest thing we have to an objective and culturally inert system of inquiry. Secondly, it goes far to disarm the religio/scientific conflict by making friends of enemies. Not that religion and science are enemies at all, but as Hamlet says, "thinking makes it so." Adopting the methods of the natural sciences also gives him a great advantage when navigating between the currents of modernism and postmodernism. It gives him a "third way."
This introductory version has wetted my appetite for the mother tome(s), but I wonder if his choice for a grid such as the natural sciences may not in the end prove to be as limiting in some ways as it is helpful. I get the feeling that he wants so much for the marriage of natural science and theology to work that the marriage bed may end up being the proverbial procrustean one.
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31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not a Landmark, but Worth Reading, August 20, 2005
Alister McGrath recently completed his three-volume work A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY (ST). The series focuses on the relationship to religion and science, particularly at the methodological level. Now Prof. McGrath has come out with THE SCIENCE OF GOD, a smaller work that summarizes the findings of his larger series.
I've reviewed ST so I won't go into great detail. If you are interested in ST, I would start with THE SCIENCE OF GOD. If you've read the full series, it's also worth reading. ST was long on case studies but short on argument, so reading SG helps you follow the thread of Prof. McGrath's arguments much better.
As I've mentioned in previous reviews, Prof. McGrath is always a pleasure to read, but the quality of his work suffers because he publishes so much. Even in this work, there is too much repetition. Within the space of thirteen pages we are introduced to T. F. Torrance's "landmark work THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE (1969), "1969 landmark work THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE," and "landmark 1969 work THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE."
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unique, Brilliant, and Pivotal, July 12, 2007
This long book took some effort to read, but it is unique, brilliant, and pivotal. Its most important point, for me, was that there is no logical or scentific basis for choosing atheism over agnosticism. Atheism must, therefore, compete with other faiths on terms common to all.
This point has been made before, but hardly so well documented historically and argued intellectually.
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