First published in 1929, Whitehead’s Process and Reality was his magnum opus and the product of his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1927-1928. The work itself is a kind of speculative metaphysics which attempts to set forward “a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted” (p. 3).
This fascinating and hugely readable series of lectures is an excellent introduction to J.Z. Young as well as a work which manages to synthesise insights from neurology, psychology and sociology of religion. With a title which includes the terms ‘program’ one might assume a lazy brain/computer analogy.
Alasdair MacIntyre began his 1988 Edinburgh Gifford Lectures as follows:
The series published as The Reality of God brings together the lectures which would have been given by Baron Friedrich von Hügel between 1924 and 1926, aptly summarized by the complete title “Concerning the Reality of Finites and the Reality of God: a Study of their Inter-relations and their Effects and Requirements within the Human Mind.” Ill health, however, prevented von Hügel from holding the lectures. This volume, then, includes the edited – in greater or lesser detail – outlines of 13 (of the original 20) lectures.
The latest book from renowned parliamentarian and philosopher Gianni Vattimo is not only an excellent introduction to his own particular brand of ‘weak thought’ but also a provocative exploration of the vital nature of hermeneutics as well as a lifelong engagement with the nature of reality. Structurally, the book is divided in two, grouped around two sets of lectures that Vattimo has delivered over his career. First comes the section passed on the Leuven lectures from 1998 followed by a section based on his popular Gifford Lectures from 2010.
In Reason and Belief, Blanshard surveys the relationship between faith and reason in the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions. After his broad discussion of such a relationship which includes attention to the thought of Luther, Kierkegaard, Brunner, and Barth, he turns to ethics and belief and finally to religion and rationalism. In the end, then, he argues that the sentiment of rationality, though fallible, is man’s best guide to navigating between reason and belief and has been active in the evolution of religion.
In volume two, Reason and Goodness, of his series on the position of reason in the theory of knowledge and ethics, Brand Blanshard explores the tension between reason and feeling through stoicism, love, objectivism, instrumentalism, and linguistic analysis, among other theories. He ends his discussion by considering the ideal of the rational man and subsequently argues that the rational mind—which he understands as more viable then the feeling and objectivism described above—requires a special temper of intellect, character and feeling.
The authors describe the book's primary aim as being "to show how new ways of understanding past science can be used to suggest fresh approaches to the science-religion domain." [xi] The "Introduction" kicks off with some discussion of "nature," as well as what it means to "construct" or "reconstruct nature." Brooke and Cantor explain: "In the world of science, as in art, nature is apprehended through idealisation. It is not encountered, as it were, in the raw." [p.
In Religion and the One, Frederick Copleston investigates the metaphysical relationship between the One and the Many found within both religious and philosophical enquiry. These lectures attempt to synthesize the “natural” or philosophical theology envisaged by Lord Gifford with the interest of non-western cultures espoused during his advanced years. This enquiry leads Copleston to conclude that the activity of synthesizing many empirical facts on the metaphysical level culminates in an elusive project of understanding the One.
This first volume of Ian Barbour’s Gifford Lectures from 1989-1991 at the University of Aberdeen is a foundational text for the increasingly popular field of theology and science. The questions Barbour raises have only become more current in the passing decades and thus this work serves as a valuable guide for the development of the field and an introduction to science and theology more generally. The volume as a whole is concerned with five features of the scientific age that must be reckoned with.
In Religion and Revelation, idealist theologian Keith Ward attempts to synthesize comparative and confessional theology and to provide an ecumenical theology of revelation which moves beyond strictly Christian terms. Acknowledging that there is no “proper” starting point for theology, Ward bases his entire intellectual project on this interdisciplinary and comparative methodology.
This volume brings together two series of Perry Schmidt-Leukel’s lectures: the first on religious pluralism delivered in 2014 at Zhejiang University in China (Part 1), and the second on interreligious theology delivered in 2015 as the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow in Scotland (Part 2).
