The Gifford Lectures

2019 ◽  
pp. 94-105
Author(s):  
Gordon Graham
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Educational Purpose ◽  
Two Cultures

Founded by Adam, Lord Gifford, an Edinburgh lawyer, at each of the four ancient universities of Scotland, the Gifford Lectureship promotes the study of ‘natural theology ‘in the widest sense of that term’. This chapter reviews the history and reception of the Gifford Lectures from the first series in 1888 and assesses their impact in three domains—the extent to which they have led to an advance in knowledge; the educational purpose of Lord Gifford in informing a wider public of developments in the field; and the most significant work that has been generated by the series (for example, by James, Macmurray, MacIntyre, Plantinga and Taylor). Finally, the extent to which the Giffords have overcome the split between C. P. Snow’s two cultures is considered.

Two Cultures; One Country

1986 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 451-452
Author(s):  
Harold W. Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Two Cultures

John Ray, physico-theology and afterwards

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
John Ray ◽  
The Way

Ray's most widely read book was his Wisdom of God manifested in the works of creation (1691), probably based on addresses given in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge 20 years previously. In it he forswore the use of allegory in biblical interpretation, just as he had done in his (and Francis Willughby's) Ornithology (1678). His discipline seeped into theology, complementing the influence of the Reformers and weakening Enlightenment assumptions about teleology, thus softening the hammer-blows of Darwinism on Deism. The physico-theology of the eighteenth century and the popularity of Gilbert White and the like survived the squeezing of natural theology by Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises a century after Wisdom … , and contributed to a peculiarly British understanding of natural theology. This undergirded the subsequent impact of the results of the voyagers and geologists and prepared the way for a modern reading of God's “Book of Works” (“Darwinism … under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend”). Natural theology is often assumed to have been completely discredited by Darwin (as well as condemned by Barth and ridiculed by Dawkins). Notwithstanding, and despite the vapours of vitalism (ironically urged – among others – by Ray's biographer, Charles Raven) and the current fashion for “intelligent design”, the attitudes encouraged by Wisdom … still seem to be robust, albeit needing constant re-tuning (as in all understandings influenced by science).

The new natural theology

1995 ◽  
Vol 1 (Part_1) ◽  
pp. 41-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Polkinghorne
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology
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