{"id":85,"date":"2009-07-28T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/07\/an-intellectual-sun.html"},"modified":"2014-05-19T09:16:16","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T13:16:16","slug":"an-intellectual-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/07\/an-intellectual-sun.html","title":{"rendered":"An Intellectual Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sunrise.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/202\/import\/sunrise.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px;text-align: center\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<div align=\"right\"><b>Source: mangtacio \/ Flickr \/ All Rights Reserved<br \/><\/b><\/p>\n<div align=\"left\"><b><br \/><\/b><i>&#8220;I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.&#8221;<\/i> <b>&#8211; C.S. Lewis<\/p>\n<p><\/b>Professor Alister McGrath begins his second of six <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abdn.ac.uk\/gifford\/uploads\/files\/2009%20Gifford%20Lecture%202.pdf\">Gifford Lectures<\/a> from 2009 with this quote, which he says highlights the ability of Christian theology to make sense in itself and to make sense of everything else. As McGrath puts it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>For Lewis, the Christian faith was like an intellectual sun, illuminating and irradiating the rich conceptual landscape of the natural world, enabling the observer to make sense of, and hence appreciate, the intricate patterns of the tapestry of human experience and thought.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>McGrath also believes in this ability of the Christian faith to help shed light on the world around us, and uses it as a fundamental theme throughout his lectures. As McGrath puts it, Christianity&#8217;s ability to makes sense of what we observe and experience is precisely what allows this theology to have a meaningful and harmonious relationship with the natural sciences, as well as art and other religious traditions.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abdn.ac.uk\/gifford\/lecture-texts\/\">transcripts<\/a> of all six of Alister McGrath&#8217;s Gifford Lectures can be read for free on the University of Aberdeen&#8217;s Web site. &nbsp;For more on this topic, be sure to visit our <a href=\"http:\/\/biologos.org\/questions\/biologos-and-christianity\/\">Question on Christianity<\/a> at Biologos.org.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button BEGIN -->\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=biologos\" class=\"addthis_button_compact\">Share<\/a><br \/>\n<span class=\"addthis_separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n<a href=\"editor-content.html?cs=utf-8\" class=\"addthis_button_facebook\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"editor-content.html?cs=utf-8\" class=\"addthis_button_myspace\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"editor-content.html?cs=utf-8\" class=\"addthis_button_google\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"editor-content.html?cs=utf-8\" class=\"addthis_button_twitter\"><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: mangtacio \/ Flickr \/ All Rights Reserved &#8220;I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.&#8221; &#8211; C.S. Lewis Professor Alister McGrath begins his second of six Gifford Lectures from 2009 with this quote, which he says&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An Intellectual Sun - Science and the Sacred<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/07\/an-intellectual-sun.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Intellectual Sun - Science and the Sacred\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source: mangtacio \/ Flickr \/ All Rights Reserved &#8220;I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.&#8221; &#8211; C.S. 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