Peter D. Harrison (born 1955) is an Australian Laureate Fellow and director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

Career

Peter Harrison holds a DLitt from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, a PhD from the

, and master's degrees from

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

and

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. His academic career began at

Bond University Bond University is Australia's first private not-for-profit university and is located in Robina, a suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland. Since its founding on 15 May 1989, Bond University has primarily been a teaching-focused higher ed ...

on Australia's Gold Coast, where for a number of years he was professor of history and philosophy. From 2007 to 2011 he was the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. During his time at Oxford, he was a fellow of

Harris Manchester College Harris Manchester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It was founded in Warrington in 1757 as a college for Unitarian students and moved to Oxford in 1893. It became a full college of t ...

and director of the Ian Ramsey Centre where he continues to hold a senior research fellowship. He became the inaugural director of the University of Queensland's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in July 2015. He is fellow of the

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australia ...

, a corresponding member of the

International Academy of the History of Science The International Academy of the History of Science (french: Académie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences) is a membership organization for historians of science. The academy was founded on 17 August 1928 at the Congress of Historical Science b ...

, and a member of the International Society for Science and Religion. In 2003 he was awarded a

Centenary Medal The Centenary Medal is an award which was created by the Australian Government in 2001. It was established to commemorate the centenary of the Federation of Australia and to recognise "people who made a contribution to Australian society or g ...

. He delivered the 2011 Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh published as ''The Territories of Science and Religion'' and named winner of the 2015 Aldersgate Prize. In 2014 he was awarded an

Australian Laureate Fellowship The Australian Laureate Fellowship is an Australian professorial research fellowship awarded by the Australian Research Council. Up to 17 fellows are chosen each year for five-year awards. Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Georgina Sweet fellowships In 20 ...

to conduct a five-year research project exploring science and secularization. He delivered the

Bampton Lectures The Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford, England, were founded by a bequest of John Bampton. They have taken place since 1780. They were a series of annual lectures; since the turn of the 20th century they have typically been biennial ...

at the University of Oxford in February 2019.

Writings

Harrison is best known for a number of influential writings on religion and the origins of modern science. He has argued that changing approaches to the interpretation of the Bible had a significant impact on the development of modern science. He has also suggested that the biblical story of the Fall played a key role in the development of

experimental science An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

. His earlier work traces changing conceptions of religion in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

. Harrison contends that the idea of religions as sets of beliefs and practices emerged for the first time in the 17th century. This earlier work on religion was revisited in his 2011 Gifford Lectures, where he argued that current conceptions of both "science" and "religion" are relatively recent Western inventions, and that contemporary relations between science and religion are to some extent already built into the categories themselves. Rethinking the relations between science and religion, on this account, is not a matter of considering relations between scientific and religious doctrines, but of rethinking the ways in which science and religion themselves are currently conceptualised. Similarly, he also contends that the concept of Western values is a quite recent, 20th-century Western emergence, despite being traced back to

classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...

and the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

. In 2017, Harrison demonstrated that the ''

Credo quia absurdum ''Credo quia absurdum'' is a Latin phrase that means "I believe because it is absurd", originally misattributed to Tertullian in his ''De Carne Christi''. It is believed to be a paraphrasing of Tertullian's "''prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum e ...

'' was a quote misattributed to

Tertullian Tertullian (; la, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; 155 AD – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of L ...

in the early modern period as a part of anti-religious and

anti-Catholic Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...

polemics.Harrison, Peter. "'I Believe Because It Is Absurd': The Enlightenment Invention of Tertullian's Credo". Church History 86.2 (2017): 339-364.

Selected publications

After Science and Religion: Fresh Perspectives from Theology and Philosophy'
with

John Milbank Alasdair John Milbank (born 23 October 1952) is an English Anglican theologian and is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham, where he is President of the Centre of Theology and ...

, Cambridge University Press, 2022. .
New Directions in Theology and Science: Beyond Dialogue
with Paul Tyson, Routledge, 2022. .
Science Without God? Rethinking the History of Scientific Naturalism
with Jon Roberts, Oxford University Press, 2019. .
''Narratives of Secularization''
Routledge 2018. .
''The Territories of Science and Religion''

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style' ...

, 2015. . The Gifford Lectures. Rea
an excerpt
*
Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science
'. with

Ronald Numbers Ronald Leslie Numbers (born 1942) is an American historian of science. He was awarded the 2008 George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society for "a lifetime of exceptional scholarly achievement by a distinguished scholar". Biography ...

and Michael Shank

, 2011. . *
The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion
'.

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...

, 2010. . *
The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science
'.

, 2007. . *
The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science
'.

, 1998. . *
'Religion' and the religions in the English Enlightenment
'.

, 1990. .

References

External links

Profile
at the University of Queensland {{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Peter (historian and philosopher) Living people Yale University alumni Members of the International Society for Science and Religion Fellows of Harris Manchester College, Oxford Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities University of Queensland faculty Recipients of the Centenary Medal Bond University faculty Historians of science Statutory Professors of the University of Oxford 1955 births