John Polkinghorne (b. 1930), former Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge, is particularly well suited for a scientific exploration of the substance of the Christian faith.
David Fergusson’s Faith and Its Critics: A Conversation is written in response to the new atheists, especially Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Fergusson regards it as incumbent on Christians to give an answer for the hope that is in them and in this sense his book is certainly an apologetic work.
In A Faith That Enquires, Sir Henry Jones seeks to demonstrate the importance of a rational and scientific investigation into Religion. The structure upon which he builds his argument finds its foundation in Lord Gifford’s injunction that Religion should be pursued and studied both logically and scientifically in order to prove whether it is true or false. Without relying upon special revelation or supernatural intervention, this type of enquiry has the benefit of allowing both adherents and non-adherents to verify whether religious faith is indeed something
Hodgson’s initial course of Gifford Lectures, delivered in 1955, aims to answer two ambitious questions: What is the nature of the Universe? and What is the meaning of life? He attempts to answer them without explicit appeal to Christian revelation. Yet, in each of the ten lectures given in this course, he concludes by refuting the effort to find solutions to these problems apart from the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
The present volume is the second course of Leonard Hodgson's Glasgow Gifford Lectures which were delivered in 1956/7. These ten lectures constitute the third part of Hodgson's overarching theological project, which began in his previous course of lectures with an exploration of his own theological and philosophical predispositions and concluded with a description of the sources of natural theology.
Those opting for nonviolence meet opposition from the outset. So begins Judith Butler’s The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (Verso, 2020), a book adapted from her 2018 Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. She begins with the problem of violence in contemporary life, and the inequality with which violence affects certain kinds of people more than others.
Ross’s series of lectures, The Foundations of Ethics, has as its starting point an acknowledgement of the moral consciousness, and proceeds to pursue a critical study of it in light of the two main moral theories. Ross asserts that the main strands found in common moral opinions are the idea of morality as obedience to laws and the notion that moral action is concerned with obtaining goods. Hence, his primary goal is to study the nature of and relations between rightness and goodness.
British philosopher Stephen R.L Clark, well-known for his arguments for Neoplatonism, delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow in 1981. The series of lectures aims to offer a philosophical and rational response to Christian belief. Beginning with an outline of possible responses to the doubts raised by philosophy, which might include a kind of worldly cynicism or relativism, Clark offers a new way forward. Arguing instead that faith and reason are closely interlinked, Clark goes on to argue for the value of truth in lecture three.
At the outset of From Morality to Religion, de Burgh indicates that it is necessary to make clear the difference between morality and religion as forms of rational activity. In chapter 1, then, the author considers morality and argues that two features of moral experience should especially be noted. First, the act of will, which is the object of moral judgment, as it is intended by the agent, and therefore includes the motive. Second, moral action as rational, as it implies knowledge, though the knowledge need not be prior to volition, and, further, is for the sake of action.
This two volume collection of John Caird’s Gifford Lectures, originally delivered at the University of Glasgow between 1892-3, and 1895-6 is a rare and valuable insight into the thought and work of a notable Scottish theologian and preacher.
The published version of Denis Alexander’s 2012 St Andrews Gifford Lectures begins with a straightforward summary: “The purpose of this book is to consider the relationship between genetic variation and human behaviour in the context of ideas about human freedom and determinism.”[p. 1] Taking a biological rather than a philosophical approach, Alexander introduces genetic determinism in contemporary discourse before getting into the nature-nurture debate in Chapters 1–2.
In Genes, Genesis and God, Holmes Rolston III investigates the development of diverse and complex species on earth, as well as the genesis of cumulative, transmissible culture and particularly the emergent phenomena of science, ethics, and religion. Behind his analysis lie a number of questions, particularly the suitability of contemporary neo-darwinist genetic theories to account for these events. How does more arise out of less?
Giveness and Revelation is a short and compelling volume, based on Jean-Luc Marion’s popular Gifford Lectures given at Glasgow University in 2014. The volume, grouped around four of his lectures has been carefully translated by Stephen E. Lewis and provides a useful way into understanding the theological and religious application of Marion’s particular approach to phenomenology. The guiding principle throughout the lectures is the notion of the saturated phenomenon as pure given — an idea recurrent in Marion’s body of work since God without Being.
Jürgen Moltmann’s God in Creation is the fruit of the Gifford Lecture series of 1984–85 as well as earlier work. It marks the second volume in Moltmann’s ongoing systematic series developing a messianic and eschatologically driven theology that flows from his social Trinitarian position outlined in The Trinity and the Kingdom of God.
In God and Personality, Webb examines the notion of personality as distinct from individuality and attempts to show its proper place in an adequate conception of God. For historical as well as philosophical reasons, Webb argues that the appropriate order in which to study the attribute of personality is to first study it as it relates to God, and then as it relates to man. This volume is concerned with the first stage of that project.
David Daiches (1912–2005) was a distinguished teacher, critic and writer.
This collection, reprinted with a new introduction from Jenni Calder, collects his Gifford Lectures, given at the University of Edinburgh in 1983. Daiches principal concern and passion is poetry—specifically the relationship between the poet, their work and the possibility of communicating something of the Divine, and thus the lectures form a compelling investigation of the link between human creativity and spirituality. Beginning with a close reading of the book of Job,
