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Surprised by Meaning: Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things

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Alistair McGrath is always worth reading. In recent years he has written a number of excellent critiques of the "New Atheism" of people like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. As a convert from atheism he has an insight into the fallacies of that movement which he exposes with great skill. In this book, though, his horizons are broader and more focussed on Christianity. His purpose is to show that Christian belief is rational, reasonable, is in accord with the world we see around us and - most importantly - makes good sense of that world. He is particularly clear that, whatever religious perspective one might come from - including Atheism - we feel driven to create patterns of meaning in what we see around us, and that those patterns of meaning always spring from unprovable beliefs
One weakness the book has, though, is that its origins as a set of separate lectures is sometimes a little too obvious. The progression from one chapter to the next is not always as smooth as it might be and occasionally we find ourselves reading the same thing several times over.

In the book he looks at different aspects of the Christian world view, using the lens of science and theology. The book is based on a series of lectures in London, Scotland and Hong Kong delivered between 2009 and 2010. This time the book includes an index. This is vintage McGrath with a wider range of topics than his recent books on the New Atheism; as usual he is a very enjoyable read. Here are the chapter headings:

1. Looking at the big picture
2. Longing to make sense of things
3. Patterns on the shore of the universe
4. How we make sense of things
5. Musings of a lapsed atheist (here he looks at the New Atheism)
6. Beyond the scientific horizon
7. A Christian viewpoint
8. The deep structure of the universe (here he looks at the Anthropic Principle)
9. The mystery of the possibility of life (a further look at the Anthropic Principle)
10. The accidents of biological history? (a look at Darwinism)
11. History, culture and faith.
12. The heart's desire: Longing for significance
13. Surprised by meaning

NB My copy of the book has 136 pages not the 112 pages as shown on Amazon.

This is an excellent book. It shows the coherence of the Christian worldview, and how meaning naturally arises from our encounter with the wonders of the world. The incoherence of athiest viewpoints that "it's just the way it is around this universe" is well shown.

McGrath has written this book well, arguing through to his conclusions gradually, and acknowledging other views both for and against his own.

I can recommend this book to other readers, particularly Christians for enjoyment and education. Atheists will mostly dislike this book, as it is dismantling their pieties and certainties in a thorough and well argued manner.

I found this an interesting and reflective summary of some of the arguments and themes covered in McGrath's earlier works on New Atheism. The first chapter was rather woolly and almost failed to hold my interest to continue, instead I followed up McGrath's reference to Terry Eagleton's marvellous book Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (The Terry Lectures Series) cited at the start of chapter two. Invigorated by Eagleton, I returned to this book which I have to say improved markedly in subsequent chapters.

I am left to ponder how many more rebuttals of New Atheism it is necessary to read however; the driving force of New Atheism seems to have demonstrably lost the intellectual credentials it aspired to portray that would set it apart from religious thinking. There are perhaps other writers to engage with now, not least other more incisive atheist writers.

This book provides some nice short overviews of areas of the philosophy of science and in particular the anthropic principle. For me it provides a good summary and a pointer to other books for further study.

I am perplexed about the emphasis on Christianity however. In the book McGrath makes numerous statements about this or that aspect supporting the Trinitarian viewpoint contained in Christian theology. I could not see that however; he appeared to be making pro-theist arguments or more specifically those consistent with the Abrahamic faiths, but rarely until the very end of the book was Christ specifically mentioned to support this pro-Christian argument.

I am not a Christian, but seek out serious pro-theist perspectives in the science/ philosophy and religion area. Since many writers in English are Christian a certain Christian bias is inevitable; but such arguments rarely depend on Christian theology to the exclusion of other viewpoints. If I was not familiar with McGrath's previous work, this over-emphasis (in my view) on Christianity in the book reviews would have made me dismiss this book as a simple apologetic. As a single example, even the quotes from CS Lewis in the book are pro-theist in outlook rather than pro-Christian!

This is quite interesting book, not best by the author. In this interesting piece McGrath explore big questions from science to theology which is raised in our culture - how science is related to meaning, what is it meaning of life, what is relation of traditional religious concepts and modern scientific discoveries. Nice start for anyone interested in this questions.

Despite being a stringing together of already existing material, McGrath has woven a persuasive and intelligible argument counteracting the secularists' assertion that the universe does not (can not) display signs of purpose. By its nature the book cannot count as a deep exploration of the issues, and because of this might well be open to challenge from his opponents on a number of points, but as a general, and readable, introduction to the issues involved it is to be welcomed.

An excellent review of the current position of Neo-Darwenism and the New Atheists. The book makes a reasoned claim that whilst science is neutral with regard to proof or otherwise of a creator, there are clear pointers suggesting an intelligence behind creation, refuting the claim of of the new atheists that Darwen has destroyed religeon. One problem with the book is that a dictionary is necassary whilst reading it.

My friend who is 95 years young was delighted with the book and the price. The book was exactly what he wanted and he was delighted by the content and the speed of deilvery.

Many thanks