Inspirational Quotes by Alister McGrath
“Reading is a practice; good reading is a highly sophisticated practice. The practice has to be learnt.”
“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.”
“The apologist can ask what literature and film reveal about the inchoate theological stirrings of our times.”
“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.”
“although apologetics is ‘a reasoned defence’, its basis is necessarily imaginative, for reason cannot work without imagination.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The stories of Narnia seem childish nonsense to some. But to others, they are utterly transformative. For the latter group, these evocative stories affirm that it is possible for the weak and foolish to have a noble calling in a dark world; that our deepest intuitions point us to the true meaning of things; that there is indeed something beautiful and wonderful at the heart of the universe; and that this may be found, embraced, and adored.”
“A failure to understand something does not mean it is irrational. It may simply mean that it lies on the far side of our limited abilities to take things in and make complete sense of them.”
“Mere Christianity allows us to understand Christian ideas; the Narnia stories allow us to step inside and experience the Christian story and judge it by its ability to make sense of things and “chime in” with our deepest intuitions about truth, beauty, and goodness. If”
“The famous injunction, normally attributed to Saint Francis, to ‘preach the gospel at all times; use words if necessary’, like many timeworn phrases, contains much that is true.”
“As an apologetic strategy, it only makes sense to meet people where they are. Where else, indeed, can they be met?”
“The Church knows fully that its message is in harmony with the most secret desires of the human heart, when it champions the dignity of the human vocation, restoring hope to those who now despair of anything higher than their present lot. Its message, far from belittling man, secures the light, life and freedom of his development. Nothing other than this can satisfy the human heart: ‘You have made us for yourself,’ Lord, ‘and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
“Christian ethics makes sense of human life from a moral perspective, presenting us with a vision of what it means to be a flourishing human person. Christian ethics suggests a path to a full-blooded and worthwhile life. It doing so, it simultaneously redefines, in countercultural ways, what such a ‘successful’ human life would look like.”
“In the end, Christianity stands or falls with the trustworthinss 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.”
“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.”
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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.