Frederick Robert Tennant (1 September 1866 – 9 September 1957), best known as F. R. Tennant was a British theologian, philosopher of religion and author.

Career

Tennant studied mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry at

Caius College Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and ...

, Cambridge (1885–89) prior to becoming a theologian. After hearing the 1889 Huxley lectures, Tennant's interest in religion grew in the 1890s ultimately leading him to prepare for ordination in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. While he was ordained he taught science at Newcastle-under-Lyme High School (1891–94), and became a lecturer in Theology and

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

in 1913. As an Anglican theologian, Tennant assimilated much of Huxley's lectures culminating in the 1901–1902 Hulsean Lecture entitled ''Origin and Propagation of Sin'' where he integrated evolutionary ideas into a Christian synthesis. One of Tennant's goals in his writings was an integrative synthesis of the doctrines of the fall and original sin with Huxley’s claims of conflict between

Darwinian ''Darwinism'' is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural sele ...

thought and Christianity.

Evolution and purpose

Tennant believed that the existence of a god was needed to explain the alleged purposive quality of evolution. Tennant was the first theist widely known to put forward such an argument. In volume 2 of his book ''Philosophical Theology'' he says:

"The multitude of interwoven adaptations by which the world is constituted a theatre of life, intelligence, and morality, cannot reasonably be regarded as an outcome of mechanism, or of blind formative power, or aught but purposive intelligence."

He was an advocate of

theistic evolution Theistic evolution (also known as theistic evolutionism or God-guided evolution), alternatively called evolutionary creationism, is a view that God acts and creates through laws of nature. Here, God is taken as the primary cause while natural cau ...

. Tennant made an

argument from design The teleological argument (from ) also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent design argument, is a rational argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural worl ...

from the "quality of the evolution process". Kalin, Ibrahim. (2014). ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam''. Oxford University Press. p. 182. "Guided" or "theistic evolution is an attempt by the theistic camp to digest Darwinian revolution and integrate it in a "design" worldview. Its first proponent was Frederick Robert Tennant, who argued for design to be seen in the "quality of the evolution process" and not in terms of the functional complexity of organisms."

Publications

* ''The Nature of Belief'' The Centenary Press (1938) * ''Philosophical Theology, Vol. 1: The Soul & Its Faculties'' Cambridge University Press (1968) (originally 1928) * ''Philosophical Theology'', Volume 2 The University Press, 1968 (originally 1930) * ''The origin and propagation of sin;: being the Hulsean Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge in 1901–1902'' Cornell University Library (1 May 2009) (originally 1908) * With Alan Tennant ''The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin'' (2012) RareBooksClub.com * ''The Concept of Sin'' (2012) General Books LLC

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tennant, Frederick Robert 1866 births 1957 deaths Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge British theologians British philosophers of religion Theistic evolutionists