McGrath, Alister

Alister is Professor of Historical Theology at the, University of Oxford, and President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. He is the author of popular books on religion, including The Twilight of Atheism and The Dawkins Delusion. With an undergraduate degrees in chemistry, and while working on his doctorate (D.Phil,) in molecular biophysics (both at Oxford), Alister studied in the School of Theology where he gained first-class honors. The interaction of Christian theology and the natural sciences has subsequently been a major theme of his research work, and is best seen in the three volumes of his A Scientific Theology, the publication of which generated a high degree of interest in its themes and distinctive approach. The three volumes – subtitled Nature, Reality and Theory respectively – set out an approach to theology which respects the unique nature of that discipline, while at the same time drawing on the insights of the natural sciences in a process of respectful and principled dialogue. The projects represent a sustained and extended attempt by a single author to “explore the interface between Christian theology and the natural sciences, on the assumption that this engagement is necessary, proper, legitimate and productive”. While the work can be read both as a treatise on the relation of Christian theology and the natural sciences and a full-blown work on theological methodology, it is probably best seen as a defense of the entire theological enterprise itself. Christian theology is argued to be a distinct legitimate intellectual discipline in its own right, with its own sense of identity and purpose, linked with an appreciation of its own limitations and distinctive emphases within the human quest for wisdom as a whole.