![]() |
Philip Clayton (born 1956) is an American philosopher of religion and philosopher of science. His work focuses on the intersection of science, ethics, and society. He currently holds the Ingraham Chair at Claremont School of Theology [1] and serves as an affiliated faculty member at Claremont Graduate University. [2] Clayton specializes in the philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of religion, as well as in comparative theology.
As an administrator in higher education, Clayton served as Dean of the Claremont School of Theology, and as Provost and Senior Vice President of Claremont Lincoln University, which at that time was an interreligious university. [3] He was Principal Investigator for the Science and the Spiritual Quest project from 1999 to 2003.
Within the natural sciences, Clayton's research has focused on emergent dynamics in biology and on the neural correlates of consciousness in neuroscience. He has co-authored or edited a number of publications with physicists, chemists, and biologists, analyzing emerging natural systems and exploring their significance for the study of religion. He works in particular on the philosophical and religious implications of emergence theory. In this field his books include Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness and In Quest of Freedom:The Emergence of Spirit in the Natural World. He was also editor of The Reemergence of Emergence. He has also published extensively in the field of science and religion, and served as the co-editor for The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science.
Clayton received a joint PhD from Yale in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of religion. He has also held a variety of invited guest professorships at other universities, including the University of Munich, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard University. [4] As Fulbright Senior Fellow and Humboldt Professor he studied with Wolfhart Pannenberg in Theology and in Philosophy with Dieter Henrich and Lorenz Puntel. He later co-edited the English Festschrift for Pannenberg and translated Pannenberg's work into English.
Philip Clayton has taught at Haverford College, Williams College, and Sonoma State University. His international lectureships include India, [5] Great Britain, [6] France, [7] and China. [8] He speaks and writes extensively on issues at the intersection of science, religion, ethics, and politics. [9] [10]
William Lane Craig is an American analytic philosopher, Christian apologist, author and Wesleyan theologian who upholds the view of Molinism and neo-Apollinarianism. He is Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University and Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology . Craig has updated and defended the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God. He has also published work where he argues in favor of the historical plausibility of the resurrection of Jesus. His study of divine aseity and Platonism culminated with his book God Over All.
Systematic theology is a discipline of Christian theology that formulates an orderly, rational, and coherent account of the doctrines of the Christian faith. It addresses issues such as what the Bible teaches about certain topics or what is true about God and His universe. It also builds on biblical disciplines, church history, as well as biblical and historical theology. Systematic theology shares its systematic tasks with other disciplines such as constructive theology, dogmatics, ethics, apologetics, and philosophy of religion.
Nicholas Paul Wolterstorff is an American philosopher and theologian. He is currently Noah Porter Professor Emeritus Philosophical Theology at Yale University. A prolific writer with wide-ranging philosophical and theological interests, he has written books on aesthetics, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and philosophy of education. In Faith and Rationality, Wolterstorff, Alvin Plantinga, and William Alston developed and expanded upon a view of religious epistemology that has come to be known as Reformed epistemology. He also helped to establish the journal Faith and Philosophy and the Society of Christian Philosophers.
Richard John Mouw is an American theologian and philosopher. He held the position of President at Fuller Theological Seminary for 20 years (1993–2013), and continues to hold the post of Professor of Faith and Public Life.
John Boswell Cobb, Jr. is an American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist. Cobb is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Cobb is the author of more than fifty books. In 2014, Cobb was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Stanley L. Jaki was a Hungarian-born priest of the Benedictine order. From 1975 to his death, he was Distinguished University Professor at Seton Hall University, in South Orange, New Jersey. He held doctorates in theology and in physics and was a leading contributor to the philosophy of science and the history of science, particularly to their relationship to Christianity. In 2018, Jaki was named one of five Catholic scientists "that shaped our understanding of the world" by Aleteia; the other four are: Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Giuseppe Mercalli and Georges Lemaitre.
Wolfhart Pannenberg was a German Lutheran theologian. He made a number of significant contributions to modern theology, including his concept of history as a form of revelation centered on the resurrection of Christ, which has been widely debated in both Protestant and Catholic theology, as well as by non-Christian thinkers.
Edward John Carnell was a prominent Christian theologian and apologist, was an ordained Baptist pastor, and served as President of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He was the author of nine major books, several of which attempted to develop a fresh outlook in Christian apologetics. He also wrote essays that were published in several other books, and was a contributor of articles to periodicals such as The Christian Century and Christianity Today.
Nancey Murphy is an American philosopher and theologian who is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. She received the B.A. from Creighton University in 1973, the Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in 1980, and the Th.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (theology) in 1987.
Max Lynn Stackhouse was the Rimmer and Ruth de Vries Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the United Church of Christ and was the president of the Berkshire Institute for Theology and the Arts.
Reinhard Hütter is a Christian theologian and Professor of Fundamental and Dogmatic Theology at The Catholic University of America. During the 2012–2013 academic year, he held The Rev. Robert J. Randall Professor in Christian Culture chair at Providence College.
Jeremy Sutherland Begbie is Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Research Professor of Theology at Duke Divinity School, Duke University, where he directs Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts. He is a systematic theologian whose primary research interest is the correlation between theology and the arts, in particular the interplay between music and theology. He is also an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge.
Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind is a 1901 book by the psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke, in which the author explores the concept of cosmic consciousness, which he defines as "a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man".
Carl Edward Braaten is an American Lutheran theologian and minister.
Theistic rationalism is a hybrid of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism, in which rationalism is the predominant element. According to Henry Clarence Thiessen, the concept of theistic rationalism first developed during the eighteenth century as a form of English and German Deism. The term "theistic rationalism" occurs as early as 1856, in the English translation of a German work on recent religious history. Some scholars have argued that the term properly describes the beliefs of some of the prominent Founding Fathers of the United States, including George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson.
William James Abraham was a Northern Irish theologian, analytic philosopher, and Methodist pastor known for his contributions to the philosophy of religion, religious epistemology, evangelism, and church renewal. Abraham spent most of his career in the United States and was the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. He previously taught at Seattle Pacific University and was a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School. Abraham was associated with the Confessing Movement in the United Methodist Church and was a proponent of canonical theism, a church renewal movement that looks to the canons of the ancient ecumenical church as a source for renewing mainline Protestant churches.
Charles Stephen Evans is an American philosopher. He is one of the United States' leading experts on Søren Kierkegaard and has also published extensively on subjects including philosophy of religion and the relationship of psychology and Christianity. He is University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University.
Charles Taliaferro is an American philosopher specializing in theology and philosophy of religion. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, most recently The Image in Mind; Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination, co-authored with the American artist Jil Evans. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. Since 2013 Taliaferro is editor-in-chief of the journal Open Theology.
William T. Cavanaugh is an American Roman Catholic theologian, known for his work in political theology and Christian ethics.
Kelly James Clark is an American philosopher noted for his work in the philosophy of religion, science and religion, and the cognitive science of religion. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids Michigan.