Professor J Wentzel van Huyssteen: Alone in the World? Science and Theology on Human Uniqueness

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Event details

Lecture Series Theme: Alone in the World? Science and Theology on Human Uniqueness

Dates: April/May 2004

Biography

J. Wentzel van Huyssteen was Head of the Department of Religion at the University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, from 1972 through 1991. During this time he published numerous articles and several books. One of these, Theology and the Justification of Faith: Constructing Theories in Systematic Theology (Wm. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1989), was awarded the Andrew Murray Prize and also the Venter Prize for Academic Excellence.

J. Wentzel van Huyssteen has read numerous papers and lectured widely, not only in the USA, Canada and South Africa, but also in Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. He is also a member of several national and international academic societies, and has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Theology and Science Section of the American Academy of Religion since 1992.

Since moving to Princeton in 1992, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen has won three Templeton Awards: for his Inaugural Address 'Theology and Science: The Quest for a New Apologetics', and for two new courses he initiated at Princeton Theological Seminary: Theology and the New Physics and Theology and the Challenge of Darwinism. At Princeton Theological Seminary van Huyssteen lectures in philosophical theology (and specifically on theology and science issues) on a full-time basis.

His special field of interest is religious and scientific epistemology, and Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co. has published his latest books: Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology (July 1997), Rethinking Theology and Science: Six Models for the Current Discussion (edited with Niels H. Gregersen; July 1998), and most recently a major new work The Shaping of Rationality: Towards Interdisciplinarity in Theology and Science (July 1999).

In January 1998 J. Wentzel van Huyssteen gave the John Albert Hall Lectures at the University of Victoria (British Columbia). This lecture series, with the title "Duet of Duel? Theology and Science in a Postmodern World", was published in book form in September 1998 by Trinity International Press in the USA and SCM Press in London. Three of Van Huyssteen's most recent books, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology (1997), Rethinking Theology and Science (1998, with Niels H. Gregersen), and Duet or Duel? Theology and Science in a Postmodern World (1998), were all nominated for the Templeton Awards for Outstanding Books in Theology and the Natural Sciences.

In January 1999 the Dutch Royal Academy for Arts and Sciences invited J. Wentzel van Huyssteen to become the Chair of the International Committee for the Assessment of Theological Research in the Netherlands. Most recently, in September 2000, Professor van Huyssteen was appointed to the Worldwide Board of Advisors of the John Templeton Foundation. In November 2000, Dr. van Huyssteen accepted an invitation by MacMillan Publishers, New York, to become Editor-in-Chief of the new Encyclopedia for Religion and Science, to be published in March 2003.