Gifford Lectures

Information about Gifford Lectures

The Gifford Lectures were established by the will of Adam Lord Gifford (d. 1887). They were established to "promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term — in other words, the knowledge of God." The term natural theology as used by Gifford means theology supported by science and not dependent on the miraculous. The lectures are given at the Scottish universities: University of St Andrews, University of Glasgow, University of Aberdeen and University of Edinburgh.

A Gifford lectures appointment is one of the most prestigious honors in academia. They are normally presented as a series over an academic year and given with the intent that the edited content be published in book form. A number of these works have become classics in the fields of theology or philosophy and their relationship to science.

Notable lectures

Aberdeen

  • 1936–38 Karl Barth The Knowledge of God and the Service of God according to the Teaching of the Reformation
  • 1951–52 Michael Polanyi Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, ISBN 0-226-67288-3
  • 1952–54 Paul Tillich Systematic Theology (3 vols.): ISBN 0-226-80337-6, ISBN 0-226-80338-4, ISBN 0-226-80339-2
  • 1965-1967 Raymond Aron La Conscience historique dans la pensée et dans l'action
  • 1973 Hannah Arendt Life of the Mind
  • 1982–84 Richard Swinburne The Evolution of the Soul, ISBN 0-19-823698-0
  • 1984–85 Freeman Dyson Infinite In All Directions, ISBN 0-06-072889-2
  • 1989–91 Ian Barbour Religion in an Age of Science, ISBN 0-06-060383-6
  • 1992–93 Jaroslav Pelikan Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter With Hellenism, ISBN 0-300-06255-9
  • 1994–95 John W. Rogerson Faith and Criticism in the Work of William Robertson Smith, 1846-1894
  • 1994–95 M. A. Stewart New Light and Enlightenment
  • 1994–95 Peter Jones Science and Religion before and after Hume
  • 1994–95 James H. Burns The Order of Nature
  • 1994–95 Alexander Broadie The Shadow of Scotus
  • 1997–98 Russell Stannard The God Experiment
  • 2000–01 John S Habgood The Concept of Nature
  • 2003–04 John Haldane Mind, Soul and Deity
  • 2003 Eleonore Stump Wandering in the Darkness

Edinburgh

  • 1891 George Gabriel Stokes Natural Theology
  • 1900–02 William James The Varieties of Religious Experience, ISBN 0-679-64011-8 (several editions in print)
  • 1909–10 William Warde Fowler The Religious Experience of the Roman People, ISBN 0-8154-0372-0
  • 1911–12 Bernard Bosanquet The Principle of Individuality and Value, ISBN 0-527-10036-6
  • 1913–14 Henri Bergson The Problem of Personality
  • 1915–16 William Mitchell Ramsay Asianic Elements in Greek Civilization, ISBN 0-89005-173-9
  • 1919–21 George Stout Mind and Matter pub. 1931
  • 1921–23 Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, ISBN 0-404-60474-9
  • 1923–25 James George Frazer The Worship of Nature ISBN 1-56459-532-3
  • 1926–27 Arthur Eddington The Nature of the Physical World, ISBN 0-472-06015-5
  • 1927–28 Alfred North Whitehead Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, ISBN 0-02-934570-7
  • 1928–29 John Dewey The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action, ISBN 1-4179-0845-9
  • 1934–35 Albert Schweitzer The Problem of Natural Theology and Natural Ethics (unpublished)
  • 1937–38 Charles Sherrington Man on His Nature, ISBN 0-521-06436-8
  • 1938–40 Reinhold Niebuhr The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation , (2 vol set): ISBN 0-664-25709-7
  • 1947–49 Christopher Dawson part 1:Religion and Culture ISBN 0-404-60498-6 part 2: Religion and the Rise of Western Culture ISBN 0-385-42110-9
  • 1949–50 Niels Bohr Causality and Complementarity: Epistemological Lessons of Studies in Atomic Physics, ISBN 1-881987-14-0
  • 1952–53 Arnold J. Toynbee An Historian's Approach to Religion, ISBN 0-19-215260-2
  • 1954–55 Rudolf Bultmann History and Eschatology: The Presence of Eternity, ISBN 0-8371-8123-2
  • 1973–74 Owen Chadwick The Secularisation of the European Mind in the 19th Century, ISBN 0-521-39829-0
  • 1974–76 Stanley Jaki The Road of Science and the Ways to God, ISBN 0-226-39145-0
  • 1978–79 Sir John Eccles The Human Mystery, The Human Psyche, ISBN 0-387-09954-9
  • 1979–80 Ninian Smart "The Varieties of Religious Identity", published as Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western Civilisation, ISBN 0-06-067402-4
  • 1980–81 Seyyed Hossein Nasr Knowledge and the Sacred, ISBN 0-7914-0177-4
  • 1981–82 Iris Murdoch Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, ISBN 0-14-017232-7
  • 1984–85 Jurgen Moltmann God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, ISBN 0-8006-2823-3
  • 1986–87 John Hick An Interpretation of Religion, (2nd ed.): ISBN 0-300-10668-8
  • 1987–88 Alasdair MacIntyre Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: ISBN 0-7156-2337-0
  • 1993–94 John Polkinghorne Science and Christian Belief: Theological Reflections of a Bottom-up Thinker, ISBN 0-281-04714-6
  • 1997–98 Holmes Rolston III Genes, Genesis and God, ISBN 0-521-64674-X
  • 1998–99 Charles Taylor, Living in a Secular Age
  • 1999–2000 David Tracy, This side of God
  • 2000–01 Onora O'Neill, Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics
  • 2001–02 Mohammed Arkoun, Inaugurating a Critique of Islamic Reason
  • 2002–03 Michael Ignatieff The Lesser Evil - Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, ISBN 0-691-11751-9
  • 2003–04 J. Wentzel van Huyssteen Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology, ISBN 0-8028-3246-6
  • 2004–05 Dame Margaret Anstee, Stephen Toulmin, and Noam Chomsky, delivering a series of lectures dedicated to Edward Said who was scheduled to give the 2004–05 series before his death in 2003.
  • 2005–06 Jean Bethke Elshtain, Sovereign God, Sovereign State, Sovereign Self
  • 2006–07 Simon Conway Morris Darwin 's Compass: How Evolution Discovers the Song of Creation and Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades and Christianity
  • 2007–08 Alexander Nehamas, TBA and Robert M. Veatch, Hipprocratic, Religious and Secular Medical Ethics: The Point of Conflict

Glasgow

  • 1888–92 Friedrich Max Müller 1888: Natural Religion vol. 1 & 2; 1890: Physical Religion; 1891: Anthropological Religion: 1892: Theosophy or Psychological Religion
  • 1892–96 John Caird The Fundamental Ideas of Christianity Vol.1&2
  • 1896–98 Alexander Balmain Bruce The Moral Order of the World, The Providential Order of the World
  • 1914 Arthur Balfour Theism and Humanism ISBN 1-58742-005-8
  • 1916–18 Samuel Alexander Space, Time, and Deity, volume one: ISBN 0766187012, volume two: ISBN 0766187020
  • 1922 Arthur Balfour Theism and Thought
  • 1927–28 JBS Haldane The Sciences and Philosophy, ISBN 0-404-60479-X
  • 1932–34 William Temple Nature, Man and God
  • 1952-54 John Macmurray The Form of the Personal vol1: The Self as Agent ISBN 1573923370 vol2: Persons in Relation ISBN 1573926256
  • 1959 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker The Relevance of Science
  • 1970 Richard William Southern The Rise and Fall of the Medieval System of Religious Thought
  • 1985 Carl Sagan The Search for Who We Are, published in 2006 as The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, ISBN 1-59420-107-2
  • 1988 Don Cupitt Nature and Culture
  • 1988 Richard Dawkins Worlds in Microcosm
  • 1992 Mary Warnock Imagination and Understanding, published as Imagination and Time, ISBN 0-631-19019-8
  • 1993–94 Keith Ward Religion and Revelation ISBN 0-19-826375-9 (ISBN 13: 978-0-19-826375-3)
  • 1995–96 John Hedley Brooke Reconstructing Nature
  • 1997–98 R J (Sam) Berry Gods, Genes, Greens and Everything
  • 1999–00 Ralph McInerny Characters in Search of Their Author
  • 2001 Lynne Baker The Nature and Limits of Human Understanding
  • 2003–04 Simon Blackburn Reason's Empire

St Andrews

  • 1902–04 Richard Haldane The Pathway to Reality, ISBN 0-404-60459-5
  • 1917–18 William R. Inge The Philosophy of Plotinus, ISBN 1-59244-284-6
  • 1921–22 C. Lloyd Morgan Emergent Evolution (1923) ISBN 0-40460468-4, and Life, Mind, and Spirit (1925)
  • 1955–56 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science, ISBN 1-57392-694-9
  • 1972–73 Alfred Ayer The Central Questions of Philosophy, ISBN 0-03-013116-2
  • 1975–77 Reijer Hooykaas Fact, Faith and Fiction in the Development of Science
  • 1977–78 David Stafford-Clark Myth, Magic and Denial
  • 1980–81 Gregory Vlastos Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher
  • 1982–83 Donald Geoffrey Charlton New Images of the Natural, 1750-1800
  • 1983–84 John Macquarrie In Search of Deity
  • 1984–85 Adolf Grunbaum Psychoanalytic Theory and Science
  • 1986–87 Antony Flew The Logic of Mortality
  • 1988–89 Walter Burkert Tracks of Biology and the Creation of Sense
  • 1990–91 Hilary Putnam Renewing Philosophy
  • 1992–93 Arthur Peacocke Nature, God and Humanity:
  • 1992–93 Roger Penrose The Question of Physical Reality
  • 1995 Nicholas Wolterstorff Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology
  • 1996–97 Michael Dummett Thought and Reality
  • 1999 Robert Merrihew Adams God and Being
  • 1999 Marilyn McCord Adams The Coherence of Christology
  • 2001–02 Stanley Hauerwas With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology, ISBN 1-58743-016-9
  • 2002 Peter van Inwagen The Problem of Evil and the Argument from Evil
  • 2004–05 Alvin Plantinga Science and Religion: Conflict or Concord

References

  • Stanley Jaki, Lord Gifford and His Lectures: A Centenary Retrospect (1987). Scottish Academic Press, ISBN 0-7073-0465-2.
  • Larry Witham, The Measure of God: Our Century-Long Struggle to Reconcile Science & Religion (2005), HarperSanFrancisco hardcover: ISBN 0-06-059191-9; reprinted as The Measure of God: History's Greatest Minds Wrestle with Reconciling Science and Religion (2006), paperback: ISBN 0-06-085833-8.

External links

Lord Adam Gifford (February 29 1820 – 20 January 1887) was a Scottish judge, born in Edinburgh. He is titled Lord as a member of the Court of Session, not of the peerage.
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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
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God

General approaches
Agnosticism Atheism
Deism Dystheism
Henotheism Ignosticism
Monism Monotheism
Natural theology Nontheism
Pandeism Panentheism
Pantheism Polytheism
Theism Theology
Transtheism
Specific conceptions
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A miracle, derived from the old Latin word miraculum meaning "something wonderful", is a striking interposition of divine intervention by God in the universe by which the ordinary course and operation of Nature is overruled, suspended, or modified.
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Motto
Nemo me impune lacessit   (Latin)
"No one provokes me with impunity"
"Cha togar m'fhearg gun dioladh"   
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University of St Andrews (Scottish Gaelic: Oilthigh Chill Rìmhinn) is the oldest university in Scotland and third oldest in the English-speaking world, having been founded between 1410 and 1413.
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University of Glasgow (Scottish Gaelic: Oilthigh Ghlaschu, Latin: Universitas Glasguensis) was founded in 1451, in Glasgow, Scotland.
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University of Aberdeen is an ancient university founded in 1495, in Old Aberdeen, Scotland and a world-renowned centre for teaching and research. It is the fifth oldest university in the United Kingdom and the wider English-speaking world.
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University of Edinburgh (Scottish Gaelic: Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann), founded in 1582,[4] is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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God

General approaches
Agnosticism Atheism
Deism Dystheism
Henotheism Ignosticism
Monism Monotheism
Natural theology Nontheism
Pandeism Panentheism
Pantheism Polytheism
Theism Theology
Transtheism
Specific conceptions
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Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).
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Karl Barth (May 10, 1886 – December 10, 1968) (pronounced "bart") a Swiss Reformed theologian, was one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the 20th century.
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Michael Polanyi (born Polányi Mihály) (March 11, 1891 – February 22, 1976) was a Hungarian–British polymath whose thought and work extended across physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy.
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Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was, along with contemporary Karl Barth, one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century.
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Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron (March 14, 1905 — October 17, 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist and political scientist, well known to the broad public for his skeptical analyses of the post-war vogue in France for ideologies that took their inspiration from the
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Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a German Jewish political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she always refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular".
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Richard G. Swinburne (born December 26, 1934) is an eminent British professor and philosopher primarily interested in the philosophy of religion and philosophy of science.

Christian apologetics


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Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson
Born November 15 1923 (1923--) (age 85)
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Infinite In All Directions is a book on a wide range of subjects, including history, philosophy, research, technology, the origin of life and eschatology, by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson.
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Ian Graeme Barbour (b. 1923 Beijing, China) is an American scholar of the relationship between science and religion. He received his B.S. in physics from Swarthmore College, his M.S. in physics from Duke University in 1946, and a Ph.D. in physics from University of Chicago in 1950.
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Jaroslav Jan Pelikan (17 December 1923 – 13 May 2006) was one of the world's leading scholars in the history of Christianity and medieval intellectual history.

Pelikan was born in Akron, Ohio to a Slovak father and a Serbian mother.
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Peter Jones

Peter Jones in an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey

Born 12 May 1920(1920--)
Wem, Shropshire
Died 10 March 2000 (aged 81)

Spouse(s)
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Russell Stannard is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Open University. He was awarded the OBE for ‘contributions to physics, the Open University, and the popularisation of science’ (1998) and the The Bragg Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics for
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John Haldane may refer to:
  • John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
  • John Joseph Haldane
  • John Scott Haldane

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George Stokes

Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet
Born 13 July 1819(1819--)
Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland
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William James (January 11 1842 – August 26 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism.
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The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature is a book by the Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James that comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on "Natural Theology" delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland between 1901 and 1902.
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William Warde Fowler (May 16 1847–June 15 1921) was an English historian and ornithologist, and tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford. He was best known for his works on ancient Roman religion.
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Bernard Bosanquet (July 14, 1848, Alnwick, Northumberland, England – February 8, 1923, London) was an English philosopher and political theorist, and an influential figure on matters of political and social policy in late 19th and early 20th century Britain.
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Henri-Louis Bergson (IPA: [bɛʁkˈsɔn]; October 18, 1859–January 4, 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential in the first half of the 20th century.
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