Keith Ward Information

Keith Ward FBA (born 1938) is a British Anglican priest, philosopher, and theologian. He is a fellow of the British Academy and a priest of the Church of England. He was a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, until 2003. Comparative theology and the relationship between science and religion are two of his main topics of interest. He was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford from 1991 to 2004.

Ward was born on 22 August 1938. He graduated in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wales and from 1964 to 1969 was a lecturer in logic at the University of Glasgow. He earned a Bachelor of Letters degree from Linacre College, Oxford, in 1968. From 1969 to 1971 he was lecturer in philosophy at the University of St Andrews. In 1972, he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England. From 1971 to 1975 he was lecturer in philosophy of religion at the University of London. From 1975 to 1983, he was dean of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was appointed the F. D. Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology at the University of London in 1982, professor of history and philosophy of religion at Kings College London in 1985 and Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford in 1991, a post from which he retired in 2004.

In 1992, Ward was a visiting professor at the Claremont Graduate University in California. In 1993–94, he delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow. He was the Gresham Professor of Divinity between 2004 and 2008 at Gresham College, London.

Ward is on the council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and is a member of the editorial boards of Religious Studies, the Journal of Contemporary Religion, Studies in Inter-Religious Dialogue and World Faiths Encounter. He is a member of the board of governors of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. He has also been a visiting professor at Drake University, Iowa, and at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Ward has MA and DD degrees from both Cambridge and Oxford universities, and an honorary DD from the University of Glasgow.

One of Wards main focuses is the dialogue between religious traditions, an interest which led him to be joint president of the World Congress of Faiths (WCF) from 1992 to 2001. His work also explores concepts of God and the idea of revelation. He has also written on his opinion of a relationship between science and religion. As an advocate of theistic evolution, he regards evolution and Christianity as essentially compatible, a belief he has described in his book God, Chance and Necessity and which is in contrast to his Oxford colleague Richard Dawkins, a vocal and prominent atheist. Ward has said that Dawkinss conclusion that there is no God or any purpose in the universe is "naive" and not based on science but on a hatred of religion. Dawkinss strong anti-religious views originate, according to Ward, from earlier encounters with "certain forms of religion which are anti-intellectual and anti-scientific ... and also emotionally pressuring." He has also been highly critical of materialist philosophers of consciousness such as Daniel Dennett, as well as social scientists such as Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, arguing that they each attempt to reduce the human person into aspects of their own discipline.

Ward has described his own Christian faith as follows:

Ward has criticised modern-day Christian fundamentalism, most notably in his 2004 book What the Bible Really Teaches: A Challenge for Fundamentalists. He believes that fundamentalists interpret the Bible in implausible ways and pick and choose which of its passages to emphasise to fit pre-existing beliefs. He argues that the Bible must be taken "seriously" but not always "literally" and does not agree with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, saying that it is not found in the Bible, elaborating that

Ward is the author of many books including:

Books about Ward and his theology include:

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