“There are two fundamental benefits of a big picture . . . First, it gives us a way of seeing the world that brings it into focus and allows it to be seen more clearly. Second, a good theory shows how things are interconnected, allowing us to place events and observations within a web of meaning. . . .
Yet there are potential dangers to such an approach . . . The first is that a theory can easily make us blind to certain things, which we fail to see because we believe there is nothing to be seen. . . . The second is that we become so fixated on the intellectual pattern that we find in theories that we lose sight of the greater wonder and beauty of the universe itself that these theories represent or describe. . . . Yet there is a third cause for concern here: the risk of excessively ambitious or dogmatic theory-driven readings of nature. . . .
Whether consciously or unconsciously, we all see life through theoretical spectacles that shape what we see and – perhaps more importantly – what we fail to see. That’s why it matters to get the theory right” (Alister McGrath, Enriching our Vision of Reality: Theology and the Natural Sciences in Dialogue [West Conshohocken, Penn.: Templeton Press, 2017], 4, 5, 6)
Brian P. Baucom 