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The Unknown God: Searching for Spiritual Fulfillment, Alister McGrath, Eerdmans, 123 pp., $18.00

Evangelical apologetics is a genre littered with historical proofs of the Resurrection, philosophical arguments for the reasonableness of the Christian faith, and feisty critiques of secular culture and postmodernism—which is exactly why I don't give such books to my unbelieving friends. I've discovered they no longer care much for proofs or arguments, and they're rarely in the mood for harangues against the culture they've embraced or the latest spirituality book they've dipped into.

Fortunately, I now have another choice, because into this apologetic cacophony speaks Alister McGrath, offering one of the freshest approaches in decades.

It's not that McGrath can't argue with the best of them: he is, after all, a theologian at Oxford University and author of books both scholarly (e.g., Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification) and popular (e.g., J. I. Packer: A Biography). Over 40 McGrath titles are currently in print, and he has deservedly earned a reputation as one of evangelicalism's most thoughtful writers. Yet in this book he chooses not to argue; instead, he invites readers to consider their experiences—in particular, their spiritual longings—and the unique promise of the Christian faith to satisfy them.

McGrath has timed it right: we're a culture long on spiritual longings. Type spiritual into Amazon.com's search engine, and you'll find over 9,000 titles. With such offerings as 100 Ways to Keep Your Soul Alive and Amazing Laws of Cosmic Mind Power, it's all too easy to poke fun (as, unfortunately, some evangelical apologists do), but McGrath will have none of it. Instead, he finds something deeper in the spiritual dead ends many searchers find themselves in:

"If there is something that has the power to fulfill truly and deeply, often for many it is something unknown, hidden in mystery and secrecy," he says early on. "We move from one thing and place to another, lingering only long enough to discover that it is not what we were hoping for before renewing our quest for fulfillment."

Then he teases readers to consider, "What if our sense of emptiness is like a signpost, pointing us in a certain direction? What if we were to explore what that direction might be, and what might await us?" From there he skillfully moves back and forth between our common experiences and the contours of the Christian faith, always pulling human experience into the larger truth of the gospel.

For example, take the "most wonderful thing" people say they experience: for some, it's falling in love; for others, it's making a scientific discovery; for others still, it's walking on an unspoiled island. McGrath does not condemn the shortsightedness of those who think such are "the most wonderful" things they can experience, but instead remarks, "Each of these experiences is real and important. Yet they are to be seen as pointers, indicating an analogy between the temporary joy and fulfillment we experience on earth and the profound and permanent fulfillment that we can have by knowing God."

The book's title and approach derive from the apostle Paul's speech recorded in Acts 17:22–31. Paul begins by acknowledging the Athenians' spiritual longing ("I have seen how extremely scrupulous you are in religious matters … ") and their despair, as evidenced in the statue dedicated to "an unknown God." In this setting, Paul proclaims, "What you worship as something unknown, I proclaim to you."

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September 6 1999, Vol. 43, No. 10