Ch. 1&7
Term of art that means a "“grand story that encompasses, positions, and explains ‘little stories,’ providing an imaginative or conceptual framework that weaves these into a coherent whole.”
What is a Metanarrative?
According to N. T. Wright, this is the whole point of Christianity.
What is “its story is the story of the whole world”?
The first of McGrath’s apologetic tasks requires engaging this barrier to religious belief.
What are cultural objections?
McGrath lays out four biblical narratives and expands on their application. This biblical narrative was used to apply meaning to a sense of not belonging in the world.
What is the Exile?
According to McGrath, this term is when individuals apply theological narratives to their own singular experience.
What is situational meaning?
The art of communicating "the vitality of the gospel faithfully and effectively to our culture."
What is Apologetics?
The book describes this as a larger pattern, a more inclusive hypothesis through which to understand each other’s and our own memories, as applied to Christianity.
What is the metanarrative of Christ?
This famous father of modern psychology proposed that religion was a coping mechanism for dealing with the imperfections of life.
Who was Sigmund Freud?
“Whereas Greek philosophy thought of truth as something that was timeless and changeless, biblical writers understand truth primarily as something that _____”.
What is “happened”?
McGrath explains that this kind of narrative allows meaning to be embodied.
What is personal narrative?
Aristotelian rhetorical category for logical argument.
What is logos?
In this decade, there was a resurgence of interest in narrative theology.
What is the 1970s?
McGrath uses this Lewis story to illustrate how narrative can address and comprehend atheistic objections.
What is The Silver Chair?
This phrase is used in the text to describe a natural desire in the human heart to relate to God.
What is desiderium naturale?
McGrath distinguishes between function (how things work) and this quality.
What is meaning (what things mean)?
Aristotelian rhetorical category for emotional argument.
What is pathos?
This famous writer and theologian said “reason is the natural organ of truth; imagination is the organ of meaning”.
Who was C.S. Lewis?
Roger Scruton: “The God of the philosophers disappeared behind the world, because he was described in [this].”
What is the third person?
“All ideologies aim to achieve [this quality] so that their ideas and values are simply assumed to be true.”
What is invisibility?
As opposed to other structures of meaning formation, McGrath says that religion uniquely answers this.
What is the unanswerable?
McGrath's proposed rhetorical category for argument based on the ability of narrative to expand the human capacity for visualizing reality.
What is mythos?
This famous writer and friend of Lewis stated, “Since human beings were created in the image of God, they possess a capacity to create stories that in some way reflect the divine rationally that remains embedded within humanity, despite the fall.”
Who was J.R.R Tolkien?
R.G. Collinwood: “The chief business of 20th century philosophy is to reckon with [this].”
What is 20th century history?
Citing Dorothy Sayers, McGrath argues that the cultural fascination with this genre of story particularly is due to the desire to connect seemingly unrelated things and make sense of them.
What are detective stories?
Of Baumeister’s four themes in the search for meaning, this theme specifically addresses the biological determinism that has thrown human significance into question.
What is value?