"Inventing the Universe" - A Conversation with Prof Alister A. McGrath

A while ago, I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr Alister A. McGrath, who is Prof. of Science and Religion at Oxford University, about his new book. While some of this was published in Solas Magazine, this is the whole interview,  reproduced here with permission, following the demise of that publication.

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Tell us about your new book, “Inventing the Universe”. What is it about? Why did you write it, and who is it pitched at?

AEM:  I wrote it because I wanted to explain to people the kind of journey I made from being an atheist, who thought that science explained everything – and that was it; to a Christian, who sees science as very important as filling in parts of a picture, but that there is a bigger picture as well. So I am writing this for anyone who is interested in the whole area of science and faith, I think particularly for scientist who are Christians who want to articulate the way they think more clearly, or for other people who just want to know that there are other ways of holding science and faith together – which is why I use the language of “enrichment”, which is effect allow us to see a bigger picture of reality in which both science and faith have very important roles to play.

Something of an intellectual autobiography as well, then?

AEM: Well, it is actually, yes! So its really me saying that over a 40 year period, this is what I have come to think – does this help you!? It’s not saying, “this is right”, it’s saying, “this is what I have found my way towards, and if it helps you, I’ll be delighted!”

I notice that in the book you often refer to the “warfare model”, of Science versus Christianity. Why do you think that has come to dominate – at least in the public discourse, so much, and seize people’s minds, and create such a problem for giving the Christian faith, or Christian apologetics, even a fair hearing?

AEM: I think it’s become a defining narrative or our culture. In part, because it’s been propagated by a media who tend to just repeat what everyone’s said in the past. But more importantly, I think, the New Atheism, has made this conflict narrative as normative, in other words “this is the way it is”. And I think that when you have very influential cultural figures supporting this, its quite difficult to break that stranglehold. And so, one of the things I say, is that we need to tell a different story and show that, a) it makes more sense of things and b), it’s much more exciting and attractive.

How do we help people to hear Christian apologetics when their plausibility structure has already told them that what we are saying is irrelevant?

AEM: Well what I think you need to do is to say, “look, here is a narrative which has been suppressed, here is a way of thinking that people are trying to drown out”. They find it threatening, they find it challenging, and we need to say that they may not like it, but they’ve got to hear it. You owe it to us to give us a hearing. I think that is something we need to say. C.S. Lewis; I don’t know if you know his sermon called “The Weight of Glory”?

Yes!

AEM: Well in it, he says, look, the dominant narrative in our culture is, ‘what you see is what you get’, and he says we have been ‘entranced’ by that, and we need to break that spell! And then he says something interesting, he says, the way of breaking a spell is by casting a better spell! What he means by that is portraying Christianity in an attractive, intelligible, and an imaginatively compelling way, so that people stop and say, ‘we’ve got to think about this’. And we haven’t done that very well.

And the media is encaptured by this vision? And prevents people like you being heard at the public level, I suppose?

AEM: It’s become the dominant media narrative. If you read Charles Taylor’s book, “The Secular Age”, he talks about how this sort of thing happens, and the difficulty is that once a narrative takes root, anyone who contradicts it is seen as being irrational. And Taylor says, that once that mindset develops it’s very, very hard to break it. So we’ve got to see ourselves as a counterculture, a fifth-column, (or something like that), but we are subversives who are challenging the dominant narrative – a) because it’s wrong but b), because it’s pressing a much more meaningful and exciting narrative.

And your book is going towards doing that..

AEM: Well, it’s a small step in that direction, I mean, scholarship disproved this ‘conflict narrative’ a generation ago, but it’s taken ages for it to filter through to the media who keep on repeating this old fashioned out-dated approach.

Is this a book you’ve been wanting to write for a long time? I notice that previously you’ve published books addressing particular New Atheists and their thought, or about CS Lewis as a Christian apologist; but this is drawing back and looking at the bigger picture? Is this something you’ve been working towards for a while?

AEM: It is! (we’re just getting into a cab, so there will be a gap for a minute or so). Yes, basically this is a book I have been meaning to write for ages, and it is cast as a personal journey because that is much more interesting format – and it does raise all the intellectual issues I’ve raised elsewhere, but it does it in a much better form and I introduce a lot of new material that I think people will find really interesting.

I was impressed because I’m not a scientist (my background is in history) but it did make a lot of scientific ideas accessible to a non-scientist reader like me which was one of the things that I found so exciting about it.

AEM: Well, it is written for a general audience, although I think scientists will particularly like it. In fact we’ve just been doing a programme here at Premier Radio in which I’ve been debating with a leading British physicist – who is also president of the British Humanist Association, and actually we had an incredibly civil and interesting conversation because basically my science is right, and that makes it much harder for atheists to write it off. But also because it gets a really good conversation underway.

Interesting you were speaking to a physicist, One of my friends who is a physicist asked me to ask you, “Is it harder to be a biologist who is a believer than a physicist”? Because he knows so many  people in physics and maths who are believers and so few in life sciences/biology..

AEM: And that’s my experience too. I think the answer is ‘yes’, and that’s partly because if you think of someone like Richard Dawkins, Biology has been ‘weaponised’, (if I can use that phrase), whereas Physics has not, if anything Physics is going in the other direction. Physics is very, very, supportive of a generally theistic world-view. Whereas Biology, precisely because, if interpreted in a certain way, seems to be anti-theistic, is being seized upon and in effect being made the weapon of choice by those who want to continue the conflict narrative and also offer an atheist apologetic.

Delving a little more into the book. The idea of ‘multiple maps’ seems to be a key idea in the book, to reconcile the supposed conflict between science and faith. Can you tell us what you mean by multiple maps, what did you have in mind here?

AEM: What I mean is, let me put it like this, assuming there is a big picture, science gives us one bit of that picture – religion gives us another bit. We want to see the full big picture, that means that we need to recognize that science is going to tell us some things, but not others and its really saying, ‘Look you can approach things from only one perspective and say that’s all there is to it’; but that’s simply unacceptable because if you are simply a scientist and you say that’s it. then you leave out massive things like the issue of meaning, the issue of value and so on. And so the idea of ‘multiple maps’ is to ensure that you have a full palate of colours to do justice to the richness of the world, our experience and so on,  and it seems to me that that is a helpful metaphor for people to get into their heads the idea that any approach that says there is only one map and that’s it – is simply going to miss out on a lot of interesting stuff.

Which also would not just be an assault on Atheist Scientists, but also on Christian Fundamentalists, I suppose?

AEM: Absolutely. I think that what they’re doing is in effect locking themselves into a very small area and saying ‘this is it’ and I’m not able to dialogue with anyone beyond that. The method I’m adopting in effect is a wonderful platform for apologetics because it is saying, ‘look, we can talk and a very good conversation is going to be had here’, and in effect Christianity has a marvellous contribution to make, and it cannot be ridiculed, it cannot be ignored, there is something very significant here which needs to be heard.

Was I right in thinking that ‘multiple maps’ are the big idea of the book? A centralising thought?

AEM: I think it is a big idea – I supplement it with other approaches to make sure that there are other approaches that I personally find helpful. But I know from talking to people that the ‘multiple maps’ idea is so accessible that people find it very, very useful and I think in apologetics it has got a lot to offer.

And thought if multiple maps were a big idea in the book, “Scientism” was the big target in the book, Can you tell me (our readers), what do you mean by ‘scientism’, and the overreach of science/

AEM: Sure. Scientism is a non-Scientific viewpoint which says that science answers all meaningful questions and that if science can’t answer questions then they are not meaningful. So – in effect science tells us what the meaning of life is, it tells us what is good and what is bad. And you do find people like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris particularly – I don’t know if you’ve read his book on moral landscape, that’s very much the line that he’s taking. And my point is simple this, that this is an abuse of science! Science is science, you’ve got make sure that you respect it, not convert it into something else, and when science is done properly it has limits, and that is the best way of preserving its identity, its integrity, by forcing it to answer questions which its methods don’t allow it to do. So what I am saying is, I am protesting strongly against those scientists who exaggerate the explanatory capacity of science and I know the scientific community would do the same.

So why is there this persistent element among some quarters of science that wants to over-reach, into scientism. Is it purely a power-play or … what is driving that agenda?

AEM: It’s partly a power-play because some scientists feel threatened by cultural developments which they see as marginalising themselves. But the real answer goes back to that conflict narrative. It’s all about an understanding about intellectual history which sees a trajectory from the dark ages, to a modern, enlightenment period in which reason and science, are the drivers of progress and therefore science is the guarantor of rationality and progress, and anything else such as religion is seen as backward and unhelpful. And that is a world-view, not an empirical observation. That is in effect the imposition of a world-view and science is being ‘weaponised’ to consolidate that world-view.

 ‘Weaponised’ that word again! But are there any other key things from the book, that you’d like to mention, which I haven’t asked you about?

AEM: Well I think there are two things to emphasise. One is that I do not in any way criticise science. I think science is wonderful, I think it is great, but incomplete. We need a full picture, not just a partial picture. That’s very important.  And secondly, I do hope that the book will encourage Christians to talk about these things, to feel more confident about their faith, but also to begin to really open up some of the questions I raise in that book, in public.

And where is your research and writing going to take you next?

AEM: Well, the next big book, written for an identical audience, is going to be on ‘what are we?’, ‘what is human nature?’, and that is a big debate in today’s culture and its going to be looking a scientific insights, cultural insights, philosophical insights, and in effect saying, ‘look there is a big problem in the naïve enlightenment view of humanity, which still dominates Western-culture, and here’s a better way of looking at it.’ And it will be very sympathetic, very friendly towards traditional Christian ideas of ‘The Image of God” and sin and so on, so in effect it will be absolutely rigorous in terms of engaging with where we are, but at the same time it will offer a perspective which often isn’t heard. And that will enter into a debate… I don’t know if you have read John Gray’s book, “Straw Dogs”, things like that. It really is entering into a big discussion underway right now about what is human nature that’s essential to so many political, social, and religious debates.

So is that a book-length treatment of what you probed at in Ch6, of the present book

AEM: Yes – that expanding it to a complete book, and taking off into new directions as well. Same readership, same length book, but the big topic is what’s in ch6 [of Imagining the Universe], but that will be expanded massively.

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Alister McGrath is the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University, and Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford. After initial academic work in the natural sciences, Alister turned to the study of theology and intellectual history, while also engaging in broader cultural debates about the rationality and relevance of the Christian faith. He is the author of many academic and theological works, as well as the bestselling The Dawkins Delusion and his acclaimed C. S. Lewis - A Life.