The Gifford Lectures (/ˈɡɪfərd/) 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.[1][2][3]
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[4]) 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".[5] 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.[6] The first woman appointed was Hannah Arendt who presented in Aberdeen between 1972 and 1974.[7]
A comparable lecture series is the John Locke Lectures, which are delivered annually at the University of Oxford.
| Year | Speaker(s) | Lecture(s)[8] | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1889–91 | E.B. Tylor | The Natural History of Religion | |
| 1892–94 | Andrew Martin Fairbairn | The Philosophy of the Christian Religion | |
| 1896–98 | James Ward | Naturalism and Agnosticism | |
| 1898–00 | Josiah Royce | The World and the Individual | |
| 1904–06 | James Adam | The Religious Teachers of Greece | |
| 1907–08 | Hans Driesch | The Science and Philosophy of the Organism | |
| 1911–13 | Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison | The Idea of God in the light of Recent Philosophy | |
| 1914–15 | William Ritchie Sorley | Moral Values and the Idea of God | |
| 1930–32 | Etienne Gilson | The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy | |
| 1936–38 | Karl Barth | The Knowledge of God and the Service of God according to the Teaching of the Reformation | |
| 1939–40 | Arthur Darby Nock | Hellenistic Religion - The Two Phases | |
| 1949–50 | Gabriel Marcel | The Mystery of Being and Faith and Reality | ISBN 1-890318-85-X ISBN 1-890318-86-8 |
| 1951–52 | Michael Polanyi | Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy | ISBN 0-226-67288-3 |
| 1953–54 | Paul Tillich | Systematic Theology (3 vols.) | ISBN 0-226-80337-6 ISBN 0-226-80338-4 ISBN 0-226-80339-2 |
| 1963–65 | Alister Hardy | The Living Stream and The Divine Flame | |
| 1965–67 | Raymond Aron | La Conscience historique dans la pensée et dans l'action | |
| 1970–72 | Arend Theordore van Leeuwen | The Critique of Heaven and Earth | |
| 1972–74 | Hannah Arendt | Life of the Mind | |
| 1982–84 | Richard Swinburne | The Evolution of the Soul | ISBN 0-19-823698-0 |
| 1984–85 | Freeman Dyson | Infinite In All Directions | ISBN 0-06-072889-2 |
| 1989–91 | Ian Barbour | Religion in an Age of Science | ISBN 0-06-060383-6 |
| 1992–93 | Jaroslav Pelikan | Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter With Hellenism | ISBN 0-300-06255-9 |
| 1994–95 | John 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 | ||
| 1997–98 | Russell Stannard | The God Experiment | |
| 2000–01 | John S. Habgood | The Concept of Nature | |
| 2003 | Eleonore Stump | Wandering in the Darkness | |
| 2003–04 | John Haldane | Mind, Soul and Deity | |
| 2007 | Stephen Pattison | Seeing Things: Deepening Relations with Visual Artefacts | ISBN 978-0-334-04149-8 |
| 2009 | Alister McGrath | A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology | ISBN 978-0-664-23310-5 |
| 2012 | Sarah Coakley | Sacrifice Regained: Evolution, Cooperation and God | |
| 2014 | David N. Livingstone | Dealing with Darwin: Place, Politics and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution | ISBN 978-1-421-41326-6 |
| 2016 | Mona Siddiqui | Struggle, Suffering and Hope: Explorations in Islamic and Christian Traditions | ISBN 978-1-316-51854-0 |
| 2017 | David Novak | Athens and Jerusalem: God, Humans, and Nature | ISBN 978-1-487-50617-9 |
| 2018 | N. T. Wright | Discerning the Dawn: History, Eschatology and New Creation, published as History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology, 2019 | ISBN 978-1-4813-0962-2 |
| 2022 | John 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 | ||
| 2024 | Miri Rubin | The Feminine and the Religious Imagination | |
| 2025 | Miroslav Volf | TBC | |
| 2026 | Catherine Pickstock | TBC |
| Year | Speaker(s) | Lecture(s)[9] | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1889–90 | James Hutchison Stirling | Philosophy and Theology | |
| 1891 | George Gabriel Stokes | Natural Theology | |
| 1892–94 | Otto Pfleiderer | Philosophy and Development of Religion | |
| 1896–98 | Cornelis Tiele | On the Elements of the Science of Religion | ISBN 0-404-60480-3 |
| 1900–02 | William James | The Varieties of Religious Experience | ISBN 0-679-64011-8 |
| 1909–10 | William Warde Fowler | The Religious Experience of the Roman People | ISBN 0-8154-0372-0 |
| 1911–12 | Bernard Bosanquet | The Principle of Individuality and Value | ISBN 0-527-10036-6 |
| 1913–14 | Henri Bergson | The Problem of Personality | |
| 1915–16 | William Mitchell Ramsay | Asianic Elements in Greek Civilization | ISBN 0-89005-173-9 |
| 1919–21 | George Stout | Mind and Matter pub. 1931 | |
| 1921–23 | Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison | Studies in the Philosophy of Religion | ISBN 0-404-60474-9 |
| 1923–35 | James George Frazer | The Worship of Nature | ISBN 1-56459-532-3 |
| 1926–27 | Arthur Eddington | The Nature of the Physical World | ISBN 0-472-06015-5 |
| 1927–28 | Alfred North Whitehead | Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology | ISBN 0-02-934570-7 |
| 1928–29 | John Dewey | The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action | ISBN 1-4179-0845-9 |
| 1934–35 | Albert Schweitzer | The Problem of Natural Theology and Natural Ethics (unpublished) | |
| 1937–38 | Charles Sherrington | Man on His Nature | ISBN 0-521-06436-8 |
| 1938–40 | Reinhold Niebuhr | The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation | ISBN 0-664-25709-7 |
| 1947–49 | Christopher Dawson | Vol. 1 Religion and Culture Vol. 2 Religion and the Rise of Western Culture (1950) | ISBN 0-404-60498-6 ISBN 0-385-42110-9 |
| 1949–50 | Niels Bohr | Causality and Complementarity: Epistemological Lessons of Studies in Atomic Physics | ISBN 1-881987-14-0 |
| 1950–52 | Charles Earle Raven | Natural Religion and Christian Theology | |
| 1952–53 | Arnold J. Toynbee | An Historian's Approach to Religion | ISBN 0-19-215260-2 |
| 1954–55 | Rudolf Bultmann | History and Eschatology: The Presence of Eternity | ISBN 0-8371-8123-2 |
| 1961–62 | John Baillie | The Sense of the Presence of God | |
| 1970–71 | Eric Lionel Mascall | The Openness of Being | ISBN 0-232-51159-4 |
| 1973–74 | Owen Chadwick | The Secularisation of the European Mind in the 19th Century | ISBN 0-521-39829-0 |
| 1974–76 | Stanley Jaki | The Road of Science and the Ways to God | ISBN 0-226-39145-0 |
| 1978–79 | Sir John Eccles | The Human Mystery and The Human Psyche | ISBN 0-387-09954-9 |
| 1979–80 | Ninian Smart | The Varieties of Religious Identity, published as Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western Civilisation | ISBN 0-06-067402-4 |
| 1980–81 | Seyyed Hossein Nasr | Knowledge and the Sacred | ISBN 0-7914-0177-4 |
| 1981–82 | Iris Murdoch | Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals | ISBN 0-14-017232-7 |
| 1983–84 | David Daiches | God and the Poets | ISBN 0-19-812825-8 |
| 1984–85 | Jurgen Moltmann | God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God | ISBN 0-8006-2823-3 |
| 1985–86 | Paul Ricoeur | Oneself as another | ISBN 0-226-71329-6 |
| 1986–87 | John Hick | An Interpretation of Religion | ISBN 0-300-10668-8 |
| 1987–88 | Alasdair MacIntyre | Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry | ISBN 0-7156-2337-0 |
| 1988–89 | Raimon Panikkar | Trinity and Theism | ISBN 978-1-57075-855-3 |
| 1989–90 | Mary Douglas | Claims on God: published (much revised) as In the Wilderness | ISBN 1-85075-444-6 |
| 1991–92 | Annemarie Schimmel | Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam | ISBN 978-0791419823 |
| 1992–93 | Martha C. Nussbaum | Upheavals of Thought: A Theory of the Emotions | |
| 1993–94 | John Polkinghorne | Science and Christian Belief: Theological Reflections of a Bottom-up Thinker | ISBN 0-281-04714-6 |
| 1995–96 | G. A. Cohen | If you're an Egalitarian, how come you're so Rich? | ISBN 0-674-00693-3 |
| 1996–97 | Richard Sorabji | Emotions and How to Cope with Them, published as Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation | ISBN 0-19-825005-3 |
| 1997–98 | Holmes Rolston III | Genes, Genesis and God | ISBN 0-521-64674-X |
| 1998–99 | Charles Taylor | Living in a Secular Age, published as A Secular Age | ISBN 0-674-02676-4 |
| 1999–00 | David Tracy | This side of God | |
| 2000–01 | Onora O'Neill | Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics | |
| 2001–02 | Mohammed Arkoun | Inaugurating a Critique of Islamic Reason | |
| 2002–03 | Michael Ignatieff | The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror | ISBN 0-691-11751-9 |
| 2003–04 | J. Wentzel van Huyssteen | Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology | ISBN 0-8028-3246-6 |
| 2004–05 | Margaret Anstee Stephen Toulmin Noam Chomsky |
Delivered a series of lectures dedicated to Edward Said who was scheduled to give the 2004–05 series before his death in 2003 | |
| 2005–06 | Jean Bethke Elshtain | Sovereign God, Sovereign State, Sovereign Self | |
| 2006–07 | Simon Conway Morris | Darwin 's Compass: How Evolution Discovers the Song of Creation | |
| Jonathan Riley-Smith | The Crusades and Christianity | ||
| 2007–08 | Alexander Nehamas | "Because it was he, because it was I": Friendship and Its Place in Life | |
| 2008 | Robert M. Veatch | Hipprocratic, Religious and Secular Medical Ethics: The Point of Conflict | |
| 2008–09 | Diana Eck | The Age of Pluralism [April–May 2009] | |
| 2009–10 | Michael Gazzaniga | Mental Life [October 2009] | |
| Terry Eagleton | The God Debate [March 2010] | ||
| 2010–11 | Peter Harrison | Science, Religion and the Modern World, published as The Territories of Science and Religion | ISBN 978-0226184487 |
| Gordon Brown | The Future of Jobs and Justice | ||
| 2011–12 | Lord Sutherland of Houndwood | David Hume and Civil Society | |
| Diarmaid MacCulloch | Silence 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 | ||
| 2012–13 | Bruno Latour | "Once Out of Nature" - Natural Religion as a Pleonasm | |
| Steven Pinker | The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity[10] | ||
| 2013–14 | Onora 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 | ||
| 2014–15 | Jeremy Waldron | One Another's Equals: The Basis of Human Equality | |
| Helga Nowotny | Beyond Innovation. Temporalities. Re-use. Emergence. | ||
| 2015–16 | Kathryn Tanner | Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism | |
| 2016–17 | Richard English | Nationalism, Terrorism and Religion | |
| Jeffrey Stout | Religion Unbound: Ideals and Powers from Cicero to King | ||
| 2017–18 | Agustín Fuentes | Why We Believe: evolution, making meaning, and the development of human natures | |
| Elaine Howard Ecklund | Science and Religion in Global Public Life | ||
| 2018–19 | Mary Beard | The Ancient World and Us: From Fear and Loathing to Enlightenment and Ethics | |
| 2019–20 | Michael Welker | In God's Image: Anthropology | |
| 2020–21 | David Hempton | Networks, Nodes, and Nuclei in the History of Christianity, c. 1500-2020 | |
| 2021–22 | Susan Neiman | Heroism for a Time of Victims | |
| 2022–23 | John Dupré | A Process Perspective on Human Life | |
| 2023–24 | Cornel West | A Jazz-soaked Philosophy for our Catastrophic Times: From Socrates to Coltrane | |
| 2024–25 | Alexandra Walsham | TBC | |
| 2025–26 | Paula Fredriksen | TBC |
| Year | Speaker(s) | Lecture(s)[11] | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1888–92 | Friedrich Max Müller | 1888: Natural Religion Vol. 1 & 2; 1890: Physical Religion; 1891: Anthropological Religion: 1892: Theosophy or Psychological Religion | |
| 1892–96 | John Caird | The Fundamental Ideas of Christianity Vol. 1 & 2 | |
| 1896–98 | Alexander Balmain Bruce | The Moral Order of the World and The Providential Order of the World | |
| 1900–02 | Edward Caird | The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers | |
| 1914 | Arthur Balfour | Theism and Humanism | ISBN 1-58742-005-8 |
| 1916–18 | Samuel Alexander | Space, Time, and Deity | ISBN 0-7661-8701-2 ISBN 0-7661-8702-0 |
| 1922 | Arthur Balfour | Theism and Thought | |
| 1927–28 | J. S. Haldane | The Sciences and Philosophy | ISBN 0-404-60479-X |
| 1932–34 | William Temple | Nature, Man and God | |
| 1952–54 | John Macmurray | The Form of the Personal Vol.1 & 2: The Self as Agent and Persons in Relation | ISBN 1-57392-337-0 ISBN 1-57392-625-6 |
| 1959 | Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker | The Relevance of Science | |
| 1965 | Herbert Butterfield | Historical Writing and Christian Beliefs and Human Beliefs and the Development of Historical Writing[12] | |
| 1970 | Richard William Southern | The Rise and Fall of the Medieval System of Religious Thought | |
| 1974-76 | Basil Mitchell | Morality, Religious and Secular | |
| 1981 | Stephen R. L. Clark | From Athens to Jerusalem | |
| 1985 | Carl Sagan | The Search for Who We Are | ISBN 1-59420-107-2 |
| 1986 | Donald M. MacKay | Behind the Eye[13] | |
| 1988 | Don Cupitt | Nature and Culture | |
| Richard Dawkins | Worlds in Microcosm | ||
| 1992 | Mary Warnock | Imagination and Understanding, published as Imagination and Time | ISBN 0-631-19019-8 |
| 1993–94 | Keith Ward | Religion and Revelation | ISBN 978-0-19-826375-3 |
| 1995–96 | Geoffrey Cantor John Hedley Brooke |
Reconstructing Nature | |
| 1997–98 | R. J. Berry | Gods, Genes, Greens and Everything | |
| 1999–00 | Ralph McInerny | Characters in Search of Their Author | |
| 2001 | Lynne Baker Brian Hebblethwaite Philip Johnson-Laird George Lakoff Michael Ruse |
The Nature and Limits of Human Understanding | |
| 2003–04 | Simon Blackburn | Reason's Empire | |
| 2005 | Lenn Goodman Abdulaziz Sachedina John E. Hare |
Thou Shall Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself | |
| 2007–08 | David Fergusson | Religion and Its Recent Critics published as Faith and Its Critics: A Conversation | ISBN 978-0-19-956938-0 |
| 2008–09 | Charles Taylor | The Necessity of Secularist Regimes | |
| 2009–10 | Gianni Vattimo | The End of Reality | |
| 2012 | Vilayanur Ramachandran | Body and Mind: Insights from Neuroscience | |
| 2014 | Jean-Luc Marion | Givenness and Revelation | |
| 2015 | Perry Schmidt-Leukel | Interreligious Theology: The Future Shape of Theology | |
| 2016 | Sean M. Carroll | The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself | |
| 2018 | Judith Butler | My Life, Your Life: Equality and the Philosophy of Non-Violence | |
| 2019 | Kevin Hart | Philosophia and Religions | |
| Mark Pagel | Wired for Culture: The Origins of the Human Social Mind, or Why Humans Occupied the World | ||
| 2020 | T.J. Clark | Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come | |
| 2022 | Manthia Diawara Terri Geis |
Towards a New Sacred | |
| Jack Halberstam | Collapse, Demolition, and the Queer Geographies and Unworlding: An Aesthetics of Collapse | ||
| 2023 | Mark Williams | The Japanese Religious Melting Pot and the Significance of Christianity | |
| Jean-Luc Marion Kevin Hart |
Revelation and Contemplation |
| Year | Speaker(s) | Lecture(s)[14] | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1889–90 | Andrew Lang | The Making of Religion[15] | |
| 1890–92 | Edward Caird | The Evolution of Religion | |
| 1894–96 | Lewis Campbell | Religion in Greek Literature | |
| 1899–01 | Rodolfo Lanciani | New Tales of Old Rome | |
| 1902–04 | Richard Haldane | The Pathway to Reality | ISBN 0-404-60459-5 |
| 1907–09 | James Ward | The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism | |
| 1911–13 | James George Frazer | The Belief in Immortality | |
| 1914–16 | J. A. Thomson | The System of Animate Nature | |
| 1917–19 | William Ralph Inge | The Philosophy of Plotinus | ISBN 1-59244-284-6 |
| 1919–20 | Lewis Richard Farnell | Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality | |
| 1921–22 | C. Lloyd Morgan | Emergent Evolution (1923) and Life, Mind, and Spirit (1925) | ISBN 0-404-60468-4 |
| 1924–25 | Lewis Richard Farnell | The Attributes of God | |
| 1926–28 | Alfred Edward Taylor | The faith of a moralist, The Theological Implications of Morality; Natural Theology and the Positive Religions (1930) | |
| 1929–30 | Charles Gore | The Philosophy of the Good Life (1930) | |
| 1930–32 | Robert Ranulph Marett | Faith, Hope & Charity in Primitive Religion | |
| 1935–36 | Hensley Henson | Christian Morality | |
| 1936–37 | Werner Jaeger | The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (1936) | |
| 1937–38 | William G. de Burgh | From Morality to Religion | |
| 1938 | Joseph Bidez | Plato and the Orient | |
| 1939–40 | Richard Kroner | The Primacy of Faith | |
| 1946–48 | Emil Brunner | Christianity and Civilisation | |
| 1949–50 | Herbert James Paton | The Modern Predicament | |
| 1951–53 | Brand Blanshard | Reason, Belief and Goodness | |
| 1953–55 | C. A. Campbell | On Selfhood and Godhood | |
| 1955–56 | Werner Heisenberg | Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science | ISBN 1-57392-694-9 |
| 1959–60 | Georg Henrik von Wright | Norm and Action (1963)[16] and The Varieties of Goodness (1963)[17] | |
| 1962–64 | Henry Chadwick | Authority in the Early Church | |
| 1964–66 | John Findlay | The Discipline of the Cave (1966), and The Transcendence of the Cave (1967) | ISBN 978-0-04-111002-9 |
| 1967–69 | Robert Charles Zaehner | Concordant Discord. The Interdependence of Faiths. | |
| 1969–71 | William Homan Thorpe | Animal Nature and Human Nature | |
| 1972–73 | Alfred Ayer | The Central Questions of Philosophy | ISBN 0-03-013116-2 |
| 1975–77 | Reijer Hooykaas | Fact, Faith and Fiction in the Development of Science | |
| 1977–78 | David Stafford-Clark | Myth, Magic and Denial | |
| 1979–80 | Frederick Copleston | Religion and the One: Philosophies East and West | |
| 1980–81 | Gregory Vlastos | Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher | |
| 1982–83 | Donald Geoffrey Charlton | New Images of the Natural, 1750-1800 | |
| 1983–84 | John Macquarrie | In Search of Deity | |
| 1984–85 | Adolf Grünbaum | Psychoanalytic Theory and Science | |
| 1986–87 | Antony Flew | The Logic of Mortality | |
| 1988–89 | Walter Burkert | Tracks of Biology and the Creation of Sense | |
| 1990–91 | Hilary Putnam | Renewing Philosophy | |
| 1992–93 | Arthur Peacocke | Nature, God and Humanity | |
| Roger Penrose | The Question of Physical Reality | ||
| 1995 | Nicholas Wolterstorff | Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology | |
| 1996–97 | Michael Dummett | Thought and Reality | |
| 1998–99 | Robert Merrihew Adams | God and Being | |
| Marilyn McCord Adams | The Coherence of Christology | ||
| 2000–01 | Stanley Hauerwas | With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology | ISBN 1-58743-016-9 |
| 2002 | Peter van Inwagen | The Problem of Evil | ISBN 978-0-19-954397-7 |
| 2004–05 | Alvin Plantinga | Science and Religion: Conflict or Concord | |
| 2007 | Martin Rees | 21st Century Science: Cosmic Perspective and Terrestrial Challenges | |
| 2010 | Roger Scruton | The Face of God | |
| 2012 | Denis Alexander | Genes, Determinism and God | |
| 2015 | Linda Zagzebski | Exemplarist Virtue Theory published as Exemplarist Moral Theory | ISBN 978-0-19-065584-6 |
| 2017 | Michael Rea | Though the Darkness Hide Thee: Seeking the Face of the Invisible God | |
| 2019 | Mark Johnston | Ontotheology as Antidote for Idolatry | |
| 2021 | Oliver O'Donovan | The Disappearance of Ethics[18] | |
| 2024 | Clare Carlisle | Transcendence for Beginners: Life Writing and Philosophy |
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.
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