George MacDonald Exposes False Conflicts: "JESUS/GOD, JUSTICE/MERCY, SCIENCE/RELIGION"

I am a layperson who has found great pleasure, inspiration, and comfort in Mary Ellis Taylor's book. The writing is beautiful, and the content and organization show Taylor's long and deep study of George MacDonald, her profound thinking, and most of all her love of God and all that God has created.Taylor states three questions to whose answers the writings of MacDonald make valuable contributions. One might wish that in the twenty-first century it were not still necessary to face these questions, but our observations of churches, schools, halls of government, and even bumper stickers show that they continue unabatedly to generate debate and, yes, conflict. To each of the three questions the answer is an emphatic "No."First, "Can God be less loving than Jesus?" Despite some teachings that seem to indicate that God the Father has a major concern for his own glorification, Taylor gives MacDonald's convincing reasoning that the loving, suffering, and self-denial of Jesus express the same qualities of the Father. In MacDonald's own words, "Whatever is not like Christ is not like God."The second question is "Can God be less forgiving than Jesus?" One part of this question is whether God would ordain that some of his children would never find him. Two of MacDonald's thoughts that bear on this subject are "Human mercy cannot exceed God's, because God's mercy is infinite, no more, no less" and " God desires neither punishment nor revenge, but the destruction of sin within the sinner."Finally, "Must scientific truths and religious truths clash?" On this question MacDonald said of God, "That he should ever require us to believe of him what we think wrong, I do not believe." He saw God "as being under no law, but as law itself, and the cause of the laws we know." Not only does Taylor state many thoughts of George MacDonald, but also she quotes several modern-day scientists who offer light on the question. For example the physicist Stephen Hawking was thinking about the "Why" questions of religion as well as the "How" questions of science when he wrote, "Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?"I treasure Mary Taylor's book and strongly recommend it to others regardless of their religious convictions or their attitutde toward the relationship of science and religion. I think my favorite sentence in the book is from one of MacDonald's sermons: "Nothing is inexorable except love."

I have read Mrs. Taylor's book several times and discovered that George MacDonald was a theologian ahead of his time. His brillant insights into the nature of God (and Jesus) are now being discussed in many areas of Christianity by scholars like Spong, Borg, Crossan, Pagels, etc. I especially recommend this book to members of the George MacDonald Society and to fans of C.L. Lewis who was influenced by MacDonald to the extent that Lewis dedicated a book to him.

Shows deep understanding of the theological thoughts of George MacDonald, the 19th century Scottish writer.