Inspirational Quotes by Alister McGrath
“he believed that all language, except for the most basic and elementary, was metaphorical, and even the highly desiccated metaphors are not verbal algebra.”
“In the end, Christianity stands or falls with the trustworthiness and reliability of the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. By meditating on that first Good Friday, we can remind ourselves of the unreliability of our own judgment on one hand, and the faithfulness of God to his promises on the other- and thus we can put doubt in its proper perspective. For, seen properly, doubt is not a threat to faith, but a reminder of how fragile a hold we have on our knowledge of God, and how gracious God is in having revealed himself to us.”
“The Church is a living body; continuously active, continuously performing Christ in the myriad contexts within which it operates. It comprises those conformed to Christ in the past, being conformed to Christ in the present and who will be conformed to Christ in the future.”
“among the most important things to consider when it comes to gaining the skills of Christian living are things like discipline, physical actions, training and practice.”
“This might suggest that any successful exercise of apologetics, like indeed that of Lewis, must contain a strong confessional element which convinces precisely because it persuades through the force of an imaginative presentation of belief.”
“There is much more to apologetics than affirming the capacity of the Christian faith to make sense of things. Apologetics, we must recall, engages the mind, emotions and imagination. It appeals to beauty and morality, as much as to rationality.”
“Doctrines, though useful, are the product of analytical dissection; they recast the original, equivocal, historical material into abstract, less fully realized categories of meaning. In short, doctrines are not as richly meaningful as that which they are doctrines about.”
“Christianity does not displace scientific accounts of the world; rather, it lends them ontological depth and clarity, and in doing so, discloses a greater vision of reality – a vision that gives both intellectual resilience and existential motivation to the task of apologetics.”
“although apologetics is ‘a reasoned defence’, its basis is necessarily imaginative, for reason cannot work without imagination.”
“We are given no escape from ultimate questions. In one way or another they are in us, whether we like it or not. Scientific truth is exact, but it is incomplete.”
“The apologist can ask what literature and film reveal about the inchoate theological stirrings of our times.”
“Atheism is certainly a terrible error, but it would be too easy simply to condemn it. It is necessary to examine why so many men profess themselves to be atheists, and whom precisely is this ‘God’ they so sharply attack. Thus dialogue should be begun with them so that they may seek and recognize the true image of God who is perhaps concealed under the caricatures they reject. On our part, meanwhile, we should examine our way of speaking of God and living the faith, lest the sun of the living God is darkened for them.”
“Reading is a practice; good reading is a highly sophisticated practice. The practice has to be learnt.”
“Gnosticism tried to establish, or rather preserve, an intellectual oligarchy in religion. It had its hidden wisdom, its exclusive mysteries, its privileged class.”
“The aristocracy of intellectual discernment which Gnosticism upheld in religion is abhorrent to the first principles of the Gospel.”
“The apostolic doctrine of the Logos teaches us to regard the eternal Word as having the same relation to the universe which the incarnate Christ holds to the church. He is the source of its life, the center of all its developments, the mainspring of all its motions.”
“It is the very compression of the thoughts which creates the difficulty.”
“Faith involves putting to death the old self and rising to a new life. We do not lose our individuality; rather, we gain a new identity while still remaining individuals who are loved by God. In other words, we become new individuals without ceasing to be individuals.”
“The story we believe we are in determines what we think about ourselves and consequently how we live. For Lewis, Christianity doesn't just make sense of things. It changes our stories. It invites us to enter into, and be part of, a new story.”
Group of Brands
© 2026 Bibleportal.com All rights reserved.
Alister Edgar McGrath is a Christian theologian and apologist, who holds both a PhD (in molecular biophysics) and an earned Doctor of Divinity degree from Oxford. He is noted for his work in historical, systematic and scientific theology. He was formerly an atheist.
In his writing and public speaking, he promotes "scientific theology" and opposes antireligionism. McGrath was until recently Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, but has now taken up the chair of Theology, Religion and Culture at King's College London since September 2008. Until 2005, he was principal of Wycliffe Hall.
McGrath is a prolific writer. His work often refers both to the early Church Fathers and to contemporary evangelical stalwarts such as Thomas Torrance and J. I. Packer. His areas of expertise include doctrine, Church history, the interaction of science and faith, and evangelical spirituality.
In 2005 he resigned as Principal of Wycliffe Hall, whilst remaining President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics which was based there.