Peter D. Harrison (born 1955) is a Professorial Research Fellow at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...

, Australia, and Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy at the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

Career

Peter Harrison holds a DLitt from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, a PhD from the

, and master's degrees from

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

and

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

. He grew up in rural and regional Queensland, and attended Bundaberg State High School. His academic career began at

Bond University Bond University is Australia's first private university, private not-for-profit university and is located in Robina, Queensland, Robina on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Since its opening on 15 May 1989, Bond University has primarily been a teachi ...

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

. During his time at Oxford, he was a fellow of Harris Manchester College 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, a position from which he retired in 2023. He has also held visiting fellowships or Professorships at Yale University, the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

, Princeton, the Centre of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, the University of Otago, and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. He is a 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 Australi ...

, a corresponding member of the

International Academy of the History of Science The International Academy of the History of Science () is a membership organization for historians of science. The Academy was founded on 17 August 1928 at the Congress of Historical Science by Aldo Mieli, Abel Rey, George Sarton, Henry E. Sig ...

, 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 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 sometimes been biennial ...

at the University of Oxford in February 2019. In 2023, he became Professor Emeritus of the University of Queensland and in that same year was appointed to a Professorial Research Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.

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 various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...

. 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 known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

and the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

. 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 ...

'' was a quote misattributed to

Tertullian Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific Early Christianity, early Christian author from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Africa (Roman province), Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive co ...

in the

early modern period The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

as a part of anti-religious and

anti-Catholic Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics and opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and its adherents. Scholars have identified four categories of anti-Catholicism: constitutional-national, theological, popular and socio-cul ...

polemics.Harrison, Peter. "'I Believe Because It Is Absurd': The Enlightenment Invention of Tertullian's Credo". Church History 86.2 (2017): 339-364. His Bampton Lectures, published as
'Some New World'
(2024) offer a new genealogy of secular modernity. Part of the argument is that the idea of a natural/supernatural dichotomy is a distinctive and unique feature of Western secular thought. This historically contingent distinction, he proposes, might be a key premise of contemporary naturalism but is not, on most traditional understandings, requisite for religious commitment itself.

Selected publications

''Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age''
Cambridge University Press, 2024. ISBN 9781009477215
''After Science and Religion: Fresh Perspectives from Theology and Philosophy
with

John Milbank Alasdair John Milbank (born 23 October 1952) is an English Anglo-Catholic 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 Theolo ...

, 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 university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...

, 2015. . The Gifford Lectures. Rea
an excerpt
*
Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science
'. with Ronald Numbers and Michael Shank

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

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 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
Profile
at the University of Notre Dame, Australia {{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 Academic staff of the University of Queensland Academic staff of Bond University Historians of science Statutory Professors of the University of Oxford 1955 births