Alister McGrath, The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), x + 372 Pps., $44.95.
Indeed, it commonly said that the world at which the theologian looks and the world at which the secularist looks are one and the same. In fact, nature can be ‘read’ in theist, atheist, or agnostic ways. Alister E. McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, agrees. Also a scientist by training, McGrath seeks to open conversations, redirect thinking, explore new options, and lay the groundwork for a renewed vision of Christian natural theology. In so doing, he constructs a three part argument, which will be highlighted in what follows.
McGrath characterizes natural theology as the systematic exploration of a proposed link between the everyday world of our experience and an asserted transcendent reality (2). He broadly argues that if nature is to disclose the transcendent, it must be read in certain – specific – ways. Instead of continuing with the notoriously ambiguous, conceptually fluid, and imprecise traditional definition of natural theology, McGrath herein proposes a distinctively Christian approach to natural theology. He argues that a Christian view of it provides the interpretive framework by which nature can be seen to connect with the transcendent, thus picturing natural theology as an enterprise of discernment. He argues against the view of natural theology as designating an argument directly from the observation of nature to demonstrate the existence of God, a view which was popularized in the Enlightenment and formalized by William Alston in the twentieth century. Rather, a Christian natural theology points to the God of the Christian faith, and not some abstract deity. In this, he agrees with Hauerwas who maintains that “the God who moves the sun and the stars is the same God who was incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth” (Stanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology, 2002, p. 15–16).
Part one, composed of five chapters, considers the perennial human interest in what is perceived to be the transcendent. In spite of everything, we continue to speak about God in the contemporary culture, which attests to the divine’s status as an important and meaningful concept. He illustrates the concept’s persistence in supposed secular times, describing the methods and techniques that have been used to depict the significance and value of humanity along the way. In the third chapter, he discusses three recent examples of thinking about the transcendent: Iris Murdoch’s Platonic perspective, Roy Bhaskar’s critical realist, and John Dewey’s pragmatic perspective. In chapter four, he highlights four ways to encounter the transcendent, seemingly arguing for a conflation of the second and fourth models: 1) Ascending from nature to the transcendent, 2) Seeing through nature to the transcendent, 3) Withdrawing from nature into the human interior, and 4) Discerning the transcendent within nature.
The second part of the book moves beyond the general quest and sets the search for transcendence within as particularly Christian context in three lucid chapters. In chapter six, he elaborates on the notion that nature is not merely neutral, but actually ambiguous, as God is one who hides himself (cf. Isa 45:15). However, that God chose to inhabit the material order affirms that it has the capability to reveal the divine. Herein, he depicts natural theology as an engagement with nature resting on a trinitarian and incarnational ontology. Chapter seven includes a detailed exploration of the historical origins and flaws of several families of natural theology that arose in response to the influence of the Enlightenment and thereafter continued well into the twentieth century. In response to his explorations of past depictions of natural theology in chapter seven, McGrath sets forth his Christian approach to natural theology in chapter eight. He asserts that nature has the capacity to be a conduit of the divine (174).
Part three is composed of four chapters and is McGrath’s more constructive addition to the discussion of natural theology, offering suggestions to expand the concept of natural theology as well as its possibilities for engagement with the (post)modern world. He re-conceives natural theology to involve every aspect of the human encounter with nature—its rational, imaginative, and moral dimensions. In chapter nine, McGrath invokes the so-called Platonic triad of truth, beauty, and goodness as a heuristic framework for his proposed natural theology, reinterpreted in a Christian manner, allowing him a distinctly Christian way of beholding, envisaging and appreciating the natural order. The tenth chapter explores the place of sense-making for a natural theology, affirming its significance, yet denying that it can ‘prove’ the existence of God. Chapter eleven uses the category of beauty to explore the affective engagement with nature and how that perspective can be incorporated into a revised natural theology. The book ends with a short conclusion, recapitulating the main themes of the title.
All in all, McGrath has offered the academy a treasure in this title. He largely argues that ‘nature’ is an indeterminate concept, that natural theology is an inescapably empirical discipline, that a Christian natural theology concerns the Christian God, and that a natural theology is incarnational, not dualist. Nature is herein seen to be an ‘open secret’ in that it is a publicly accessed entity although it is only truly understood from the standpoint of Christian faith. As such, he affirms the notion that the empirical is a legitimate means of discovering and encountering the divine. Indeed, McGrath’s approach to natural theology holds that nature reinforces an existing belief in God retroactively through consonance between observation and theory.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA