Sherlock Holmes and the curious case of the search for meaning

Benedict Cumberpatch:  BBC's Sherlock

In his recent book of published lectures, Surprised by Meaning, renowned theologian and academic (and Northern Irish born) Alister McGrath, unexpectedly begins by highlighting our cultural obsession with detective fiction.  Dorothy L Sayers' explanation for this was humanity's "deep yearnings to make sense of what seem to be an unrelated series of events".  The detective novel, says McGrath, appeals to our implicit belief in the intrinsic rationality of the world around us and to our longing and ability to discover its deeper patterns.

The point of this?  "We long to make sense of things. We yearn to see the big picture, to know the greater story, of which our story is but a small but nonetheless important part.  We rightly discern the need to organise our lives around some controlling framework or narrative.  The world around us seems to be studded with clues to a greater vision of life." (p.2-3)

But in our present age, confronted with a growing deluge of diverse and incoherent information, it is tempting to believe that grasping a universal 'meaning', if one is there at all, will be beyond us.  For many, to live in such a world considered 'meaningless' is unbearable.  Without meaning, life is pointless.
For others, including such vocal partisans as Richard Dawkins, science, which it is claimed alone offers the best answers to the meaning of life, tells us that there is no deeper meaning or significance to the universe, having "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference" (River Out of Eden).
So, in our relentless search for 'meaning' for life, the universe and everything, where may such meaning and purpose be found?  McGrath answers, like CS Lewis's hidden door into Narnia, there is a new way of understanding, of living, of hoping:  faith.  Not an irrational blind leap into the dark, but a God-given and God-sustained vision which enables us to see what others cannot, to see what is really there.

"Faith is about seeing things what others have missed, and grasping their deeper significance (see Mark 8: 22-25; 10:46-45)...Faith does not contradict reason, but transcends it through a joyous deliverance from the cold and austere limits of human reason and logic.  We are surprised and delighted by a meaning of life that we couldn't figure out for ourselves.  But once we've seen it, everything else makes sense and fits into place. The framework of faith, once grasped, gives us a new way of seeing the world, and making sense of our place in the greater scheme of things... 

"[Re Psalm 23] The Christian tradition speaks of God as our companion and healer, one who makes sense of the puzzles and enigmas of life.  The world may seem like the shadowlands; yet God is our light, who illuminates our paths as we travel." (p.6-7)