Surf Wiki
Save to docs
geography/united-kingdom

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Gifford Lectures

Annual series of lectures on natural theology

Annual series of lectures on natural theology

The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford at the four ancient universities of Scotland: St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God." A Gifford lectures appointment is one of the most prestigious honours in Scottish academia.

University calendars record that at the four Scottish universities, the Gifford Lectures are to be "public and popular, open not only to students of the university, but the whole community (for a tuition fee) without matriculation. Besides a general audience, the Lecturer may form a special class of students for the study of the subject, which will be conducted in the usual way, and tested by examination and thesis, written and oral". The lectures 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 the relationship between religion and science.

In 1889, those attending the Gifford Lectures at the University of St Andrews were described as "mixed" and included women as well as male undergraduates. The first woman appointed was Hannah Arendt who presented in Aberdeen between 1972 and 1974.

A comparable lecture series is the John Locke Lectures, which are delivered annually at the University of Oxford.

List of lectures

Aberdeen

YearSpeaker(s)Lecture(s)ISBN
1889–91E. B. Tylor*The Natural History of Religion*
1892–94Andrew Martin Fairbairn*[The Philosophy of the Christian Religion](https://giffordlectures.org/speaker/andrew-martin-fairbairn/)*
1896–98James Ward*Naturalism and Agnosticism*
1898–00Josiah Royce*The World and the Individual*
1904–06James Adam[*The Religious Teachers of Greece*](https://archive.org/stream/religiousteache00marigoog#page/n11/mode/1up)
1907–08Hans Driesch*The Science and Philosophy of the Organism*
1911–13Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison*The Idea of God in the light of Recent Philosophy*
1914–15William Ritchie Sorley[*Moral Values and the Idea of God*](https://archive.org/details/moralvaluesideao00sorlrich)
1930–32Etienne Gilson*The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy*
1936–38Karl Barth*The Knowledge of God and the Service of God according to the Teaching of the Reformation*
1939–40Arthur Darby Nock*Hellenistic Religion - The Two Phases*
1949–50Gabriel Marcel*The Mystery of Being* and * Faith and Reality*
1951–52Michael Polanyi*Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy*
1953–54Paul Tillich*Systematic Theology* (3 vols.)
1963–65Alister Hardy*The Living Stream* and *The Divine Flame*
1965–67Raymond Aron*La Conscience historique dans la pensée et dans l'action*
1970–72Arend Theordore van Leeuwen*The Critique of Heaven and Earth*
1972–74Hannah Arendt*Life of the Mind*
1982–84Richard Swinburne*The Evolution of the Soul*
1984–85Freeman Dyson*Infinite In All Directions*
1989–91Ian Barbour*Religion in an Age of Science*
1992–93Jaroslav Pelikan*Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter With Hellenism*
1994–95John W. Rogerson*Faith and Criticism in the Work of William Robertson Smith, 1846-1894*
M. A. Stewart*New Light and Enlightenment*
Peter Jones*Science and Religion before and after Hume*
James H. Burns*The Order of Nature*
Alexander Broadie*The Shadow of Scotus*
1997–98Russell Stannard*The God Experiment*
2000–01John S. Habgood*The Concept of Nature*
2003Eleonore Stump*Wandering in the Darkness*
2003–04John Haldane*Mind, Soul and Deity*
2007Stephen Pattison*Seeing Things: Deepening Relations with Visual Artefacts*
2009Alister McGrath*A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology*
2012Sarah Coakley*Sacrifice Regained: Evolution, Cooperation and God*
2014David N. Livingstone*Dealing with Darwin: Place, Politics and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution*
2016Mona Siddiqui*Struggle, Suffering and Hope: Explorations in Islamic and Christian Traditions*
2017David Novak*Athens and Jerusalem: God, Humans, and Nature*
2018N. T. Wright*Discerning the Dawn: History, Eschatology and New Creation*, published as *History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology*, 2019
2022John Dupré*A Brief History of Form*
Tim Whitmarsh*Religion and Ancient Mediterranean Thought*
Lisa Sideris*Unnatural Theology in the Anthropocene*
Robert McCauley*Religions and their Cognitive Kin*
John Witte Jr.*A New Calvinist Reformation of Rights*
2024Miri Rubin*The Feminine and the Religious Imagination*
2025Miroslav Volf*Amor Mundi: God and the Character of Our Relation to the World*
2026Jeremy Begbie*TBC*
TBDCatherine Pickstock*TBC*

Edinburgh

YearSpeaker(s)Lecture(s)ISBN
1889–90James Hutchison Stirling*[Philosophy and Theology](https://giffordlectures.org/speaker/james-hutchison-stirling/)*
1891George Gabriel Stokes*Natural Theology*
1892–94Otto Pfleiderer*[Philosophy and Development of Religion](https://giffordlectures.org/speaker/otto-pfleiderer/)*
1896–98Cornelis Tiele*On the Elements of the Science of Religion*
1900–02William James*The Varieties of Religious Experience*
1909–10William Warde Fowler*The Religious Experience of the Roman People*
1911–12Bernard Bosanquet*The Principle of Individuality and Value*
1913–14Henri Bergson*The Problem of Personality*
1915–16William Mitchell Ramsay*Asianic Elements in Greek Civilization*
1919–21George Stout*Mind and Matter* pub. 1931
1921–23Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison*Studies in the Philosophy of Religion*
1923–35James George Frazer*The Worship of Nature*
1926–27Arthur Eddington*The Nature of the Physical World*
1927–28Alfred North Whitehead*Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology*
1928–29John Dewey*The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action*
1934–35Albert Schweitzer*The Problem of Natural Theology and Natural Ethics* (unpublished)
1937–38Charles Sherrington*Man on His Nature*
1938–40Reinhold Niebuhr*The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation *
1947–49Christopher DawsonVol. 1 *Religion and Culture* Vol. 2 [*Religion and the Rise of Western Culture*](https://books.google.com/books?id=d5rTOQqqTywC&pg=PT3) (1950)
1949–50Niels Bohr*Causality and Complementarity: Epistemological Lessons of Studies in Atomic Physics*
1950–52Charles Earle Raven*Natural Religion and Christian Theology*
1952–53Arnold J. Toynbee*An Historian's Approach to Religion*
1954–55Rudolf Bultmann*History and Eschatology: The Presence of Eternity*
1961–62John Baillie[*The Sense of the Presence of God*](http://www.giffordlectures.org/lectures/sense-presence-god)
1970–71Eric Lionel Mascall*The Openness of Being*
1973–74Owen Chadwick*The Secularisation of the European Mind in the 19th Century*
1974–76Stanley Jaki*The Road of Science and the Ways to God*
1978–79Sir John Eccles*The Human Mystery* and *The Human Psyche*
1979–80Ninian Smart*The Varieties of Religious Identity*, published as *Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western Civilisation*
1980–81Seyyed Hossein Nasr*Knowledge and the Sacred*
1981–82Iris Murdoch*Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals*
1983–84David Daiches*God and the Poets*
1984–85Jurgen Moltmann*God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God*
1985–86Paul Ricoeur*Oneself as another*
1986–87John Hick*An Interpretation of Religion*
1987–88Alasdair MacIntyre*Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry*
1988–89Raimon Panikkar*Trinity and Theism*
1989–90Mary Douglas*Claims on God*: published (much revised) as *In the Wilderness*
1991–92Annemarie Schimmel*Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam*
1992–93Martha C. Nussbaum*Upheavals of Thought: A Theory of the Emotions*
1993–94John Polkinghorne*Science and Christian Belief: Theological Reflections of a Bottom-up Thinker*
1995–96G. A. Cohen*If you're an Egalitarian, how come you're so Rich?*
1996–97Richard Sorabji*Emotions and How to Cope with Them*, published as *Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation*
1997–98Holmes Rolston III*Genes, Genesis and God*
1998–99Charles Taylor*Living in a Secular Age*, published as *A Secular Age*
1999–00David Tracy*This side of God*
2000–01Onora O'Neill*Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics*
2001–02Mohammed Arkoun*Inaugurating a Critique of Islamic Reason*
2002–03Michael Ignatieff*The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror*
2003–04J. Wentzel van Huyssteen*Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology*
2004–05Margaret Anstee
Stephen Toulmin
Noam ChomskyDelivered a series of lectures dedicated to Edward Said who was scheduled to give the 2004–05 series before his death in 2003
2005–06Jean Bethke Elshtain*Sovereign God, Sovereign State, Sovereign Self*
2006–07Simon Conway Morris*Darwin 's Compass: How Evolution Discovers the Song of Creation*
Jonathan Riley-Smith*The Crusades and Christianity*
2007–08Alexander Nehamas*"Because it was he, because it was I": Friendship and Its Place in Life*
2008Robert M. Veatch*Hipprocratic, Religious and Secular Medical Ethics: The Point of Conflict*
2008–09Diana Eck*The Age of Pluralism* [April–May 2009]
2009–10Michael Gazzaniga*Mental Life* [October 2009]
Terry Eagleton*The God Debate* [March 2010]
2010–11Peter Harrison*Science, Religion and the Modern World*, published as *The Territories of Science and Religion*
Gordon Brown*The Future of Jobs and Justice*
2011–12Lord Sutherland of Houndwood*David Hume and Civil Society*
Diarmaid MacCullochSilence in Christian History: the witness of Holmes' Dog
Jim Al-Khalili*Alan Turing: Legacy of a Code Breaker* – one-off joint lecture between the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the School of Informatics
2012–13Bruno Latour*"Once Out of Nature" - Natural Religion as a Pleonasm*
Steven Pinker*The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity*
2013–14Onora O'Neill*From Toleration to Freedom of Expression*
Rowan Williams*Making representations: religious faith and the habits of language*
Catherine O'Regan*"What is Caesar's?" Adjudicating faith in modern constitutional democracies*
2014–15Jeremy Waldron*One Another's Equals: The Basis of Human Equality*
Helga Nowotny*Beyond Innovation. Temporalities. Re-use. Emergence.*
2015–16Kathryn Tanner*Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism*
2016–17Richard English*Nationalism, Terrorism and Religion*
Jeffrey Stout*Religion Unbound: Ideals and Powers from Cicero to King*
2017–18Agustín Fuentes*Why We Believe: evolution, making meaning, and the development of human natures*
Elaine Howard Ecklund*Science and Religion in Global Public Life*
2018–19Mary Beard*The Ancient World and Us: From Fear and Loathing to Enlightenment and Ethics*
2019–20Michael Welker*In God's Image: Anthropology*
2020–21David Hempton*Networks, Nodes, and Nuclei in the History of Christianity, c. 1500-2020*
2021–22Susan Neiman*Heroism for a Time of Victims*
2022–23John Dupré*A Process Perspective on Human Life*
2023–24Cornel West*A Jazz-soaked Philosophy for our Catastrophic Times: From Socrates to Coltrane*
2024–25Alexandra Walsham*Religious Movements: Motion and Emotion in Early Modern Christian History*
2025–26Paula Fredriksen*TBC*

Glasgow

YearSpeaker(s)Lecture(s)ISBN
1888–92Friedrich Max Müller1888: *[Natural Religion](https://giffordlectures.org/speaker/friedrich-max-muller/)* Vol. 1 & 2; 1890: *Physical Religion*; 1891: *Anthropological Religion*: 1892: *Theosophy or Psychological Religion*
1892–96John Caird*The Fundamental Ideas of Christianity* Vol. 1 & 2
1896–98Alexander Balmain Bruce*The Moral Order of the World* and *The Providential Order of the World*
1900–02Edward Caird*[The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers](https://giffordlectures.org/speaker/edward-caird/)*
1914Arthur Balfour*Theism and Humanism*
1916–18Samuel Alexander*Space, Time, and Deity*
1922Arthur Balfour*Theism and Thought*
1927–28J. S. Haldane*The Sciences and Philosophy*
1932–34William Temple*Nature, Man and God*
1952–54John Macmurray*The Form of the Personal* Vol.1 & 2: *The Self as Agent* and *Persons in Relation*
1959Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker*The Relevance of Science*
1965Herbert Butterfield*Historical Writing and Christian Beliefs* and *Human Beliefs and the Development of Historical Writing*
1970Richard William Southern*The Rise and Fall of the Medieval System of Religious Thought*
1974-76Basil Mitchell*Morality, Religious and Secular*
1981Stephen R. L. Clark*From Athens to Jerusalem*
1985Carl Sagan*The Search for Who We Are*
1986Donald M. MacKayurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923153843/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPBEYE&Cover=TRUEdate=2013-09-23 }}
1988Don Cupitt*Nature and Culture*
Richard Dawkins*Worlds in Microcosm*
1992Mary Warnock*Imagination and Understanding*, published as *Imagination and Time*
1993–94Keith Ward*Religion and Revelation*
1995–96Geoffrey Cantor
John Hedley Brooke*Reconstructing Nature*
1997–98R. J. Berry*Gods, Genes, Greens and Everything*
1999–00Ralph McInerny*Characters in Search of Their Author*
2001Lynne Baker
Brian Hebblethwaite
Philip Johnson-Laird
George Lakoff
Michael Ruse*The Nature and Limits of Human Understanding*
2003–04Simon Blackburn*Reason's Empire*
2005Lenn Goodman
Abdulaziz Sachedina
John E. Hare*Thou Shall Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself*
2007–08David Fergusson*Religion and Its Recent Critics* published as *Faith and Its Critics: A Conversation*
2008–09Charles Taylor*The Necessity of Secularist Regimes*
2009–10Gianni Vattimo*The End of Reality*
2012Vilayanur Ramachandran*Body and Mind: Insights from Neuroscience*
2014Jean-Luc Marion*Givenness and Revelation*
2015Perry Schmidt-Leukel*Interreligious Theology: The Future Shape of Theology*
2016Sean M. Carroll*The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself*
2018Judith Butler*My Life, Your Life: Equality and the Philosophy of Non-Violence*
2019Kevin Hart*Philosophia and Religions*
Mark Pagel*Wired for Culture: The Origins of the Human Social Mind, or Why Humans Occupied the World*
2020T.J. Clark*Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come*
2022Manthia Diawara
Terri Geis*Towards a New Sacred*
Jack Halberstam*Collapse, Demolition, and the Queer Geographies* and *Unworlding: An Aesthetics of Collapse*
2023Mark Williams*The Japanese Religious Melting Pot and the Significance of Christianity*
Jean-Luc Marion
Kevin Hart*Revelation and Contemplation*

St Andrews

YearSpeaker(s)Lecture(s)ISBN
1889–90Andrew Lang*The Making of Religion*
1890–92Edward Caird[The Evolution of Religion](https://giffordlectures.org/speaker/edward-caird/)
1894–96Lewis Campbell*[Religion in Greek Literature](https://web.archive.org/web/20070814104900/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPRIGL&Cover=TRUE)*
1899–01Rodolfo Lanciani*New Tales of Old Rome*
1902–04Richard Haldane*The Pathway to Reality*
1907–09James Ward*The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism*
1911–13James George Frazer*The Belief in Immortality*
1914–16J. A. Thomson*The System of Animate Nature*
1917–19William Ralph Inge*The Philosophy of Plotinus*
1919–20Lewis Richard Farnell*Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality*
1921–22C. Lloyd Morgan*Emergent Evolution* (1923) and *Life, Mind, and Spirit* (1925)
1924–25Lewis Richard Farnell*The Attributes of God*
1926–28Alfred Edward Taylor*The faith of a moralist, The Theological Implications of Morality; Natural Theology and the Positive Religions* (1930)
1929–30Charles Gore*[The Philosophy of the Good Life](https://books.google.com/books?id=jO8sAAAAMAAJ)* (1930)
1930–32Robert Ranulph Marett*Faith, Hope & Charity in Primitive Religion*
1935–36Hensley Henson*Christian Morality*
1936–37Werner Jaeger[*The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers*](https://books.google.com/books?id=ChwGAAAACAAJ) (1936)
1937–38William G. de Burgh*From Morality to Religion*
1938Joseph Bidez*Plato and the Orient*
1939–40Richard Kroner*The Primacy of Faith*
1946–48Emil Brunner*Christianity and Civilisation*
1949–50Herbert James Paton*The Modern Predicament*
1951–53Brand Blanshard*Reason, Belief and Goodness*
1953–55C. A. Campbell*On Selfhood and Godhood*
1955–56Werner Heisenberg*Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science*
1959–60Georg Henrik von Wright*Norm and Action* (1963) and *The Varieties of Goodness* (1963)
1962–64Henry Chadwick*Authority in the Early Church*
1964–66John Findlay*The Discipline of the Cave* (1966), and *The Transcendence of the Cave* (1967)
1967–69Robert Charles Zaehner*Concordant Discord. The Interdependence of Faiths.*
1969–71William Homan Thorpe*Animal Nature and Human Nature*
1972–73Alfred Ayer*The Central Questions of Philosophy*
1975–77Reijer Hooykaas*Fact, Faith and Fiction in the Development of Science*
1977–78David Stafford-Clark*Myth, Magic and Denial*
1979–80Frederick Copleston*Religion and the One: Philosophies East and West*
1980–81Gregory Vlastos*Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher*
1982–83Donald Geoffrey Charlton*New Images of the Natural, 1750-1800*
1983–84John Macquarrie*In Search of Deity*
1984–85Adolf Grünbaum*Psychoanalytic Theory and Science*
1986–87Antony Flew*The Logic of Mortality*
1988–89Walter Burkert*Tracks of Biology and the Creation of Sense*
1990–91Hilary Putnam*Renewing Philosophy*
1992–93Arthur Peacocke*Nature, God and Humanity*
Roger Penrose*The Question of Physical Reality*
1995Nicholas Wolterstorff*Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology*
1996–97Michael Dummett*Thought and Reality*
1998–99Robert Merrihew Adams*God and Being*
Marilyn McCord Adams*The Coherence of Christology*
2000–01Stanley Hauerwas*With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology*
2002Peter van Inwagen*The Problem of Evil*
2004–05Alvin Plantinga*Science and Religion: Conflict or Concord*
2007Martin Rees*21st Century Science: Cosmic Perspective and Terrestrial Challenges*
2010Roger Scruton*The Face of God*
2012Denis Alexander*Genes, Determinism and God*
2015Linda Zagzebski*Exemplarist Virtue Theory* published as *Exemplarist Moral Theory*
2017Michael Rea*Though the Darkness Hide Thee: Seeking the Face of the Invisible God*
2019Mark Johnston*Ontotheology as Antidote for Idolatry*
2021Oliver O'Donovan*The Disappearance of Ethics*
2024Clare Carlisle*Transcendence for Beginners: Life Writing and Philosophy*

Support from Templeton Religion Trust

Established at the behest of John Templeton, the Gifford Lectures website was designed to increase the strategic impact of the Gifford program. Developed and managed by Templeton Press through May 2021, the website is now managed through a grant from Templeton Religion Trust.

References

Bibliography

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

References

  1. (1988). "Lord Gifford and his Lectures: The First Year (1888-1889)". Studies in Scottish Literature.
  2. (2013). "Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions".
  3. (29 September 2021). "HDS Dean Hempton to Deliver Prestigious Gifford Lectures". Harvard Divinity School.
  4. (8 September 2014). "100 Years of Lectures on Natural Theology - Lord Adam Gifford's Will TRUST DISPOSITION and SETTLEMENT of the late Adam Gifford, sometime one of the Senators of the College of Justice, Scotland, dated 21st August 1885.". The Gifford Lectures.
  5. (1922). "The St. Andrews University Calendar for the Year 1922". University of St Andrews.
  6. (1892). "25 Years At St Andrews".
  7. (n.d.). "Home :: Lecturers & Authors :: Hannah Arendt".
  8. "The Gifford Lectures". University of Aberdeen.
  9. (28 August 2024). "Gifford Lectures". University of Edinburgh.
  10. "2012-13 Gifford Lecture". University of Edinburgh College of Humanities and Social Science website.
  11. "The Glasgow Gifford Lectures". University of Glasgow.
  12. (18 August 2014). "Herbert Butterfield".
  13. link. (2013-09-23)
  14. "The St Andrews Gifford Lectures". University of St Andrews.
  15. (18 August 2014). "The Gifford Lectures". The Gifford Lectures.
  16. (18 August 2014). "Norm and Action".
  17. (21 June 2008). "Gifford Lecture Series - Books".
  18. (2021-09-16). "Gifford lectures 2021".
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1888-establishments-in-scotland british-lecture-series lectures-on-religion-and-science recurring-events-established-in-1888 john-templeton-foundation scottish-education-related-lists university-and-college-lecture-series
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Gifford Lectures — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report