Presenter Biographies

Sarah Coakley is the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Her initial training was at Cambridge and at Harvard, and she previously held posts at Lancaster University, Oxford University and Harvard Divinity School (where she was the Mallinckrodt Professor of Divinity, 1995-2007).  She has also been a visiting Professorial Fellow at the Dept of Religion at Princeton (2003-4).  At Cambridge her teaching is focused in the area of philosophical theology, but she would describe herself as a systematic theologian and philosopher of religion with wide interdisciplinary interests.  Her recent publications include:  Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender (2002); (ed.) Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa (2003); (co-ed.) Pain and Its Transformations: The Interface of Biology and Culture (2007); and (co-ed.) Praying for England: Priestly Presence in Contemporary Culture (2008).  She is at work on a systematic theology, the first volume of which is forthcoming as God, Sexuality and the Self:  An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (2009). Also in preparation is a volume resulting from her collaboration with the Harvard evolutionary biologist Martin A. Nowak:  co-ed., Evolution, Games and God:  The Principle of Cooperation (2009).  Sarah Coakley is an Anglican priest of the Diocese of Ely, and has served as an Associate priest in parishes in both the USA and the UK.

Reinhard Hütter teaches systematic and philosophical theology. In his most recent work he has turned to theological anthropology - the human being created in the image of God - and to the closely related topics of nature and grace, divine and human freedom, faith and reason, theology and metaphysics. He has developed a special interest in the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The author of three scholarly books and numerous articles, reviews, and translations, he has also co-edited four books. His most recent books include Bound to Be Free: Evangelical Catholic Engagements in Ecclesiology, Ethics and Ecumenism and Reason and the Reasons of Faith (ed. with Paul J. Griffiths). He is also the editor of Pro Ecclesia: a Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, co-editor of the academic series Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy, and serves on the editorial boards of Nova et Vetera: The English Edition of the International Theological Journal and of Theology Today.

He was awarded the Henry Luce III Fellowship, was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Religion of the University of Chicago, a research fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton, served as visiting professor at the University of Jena, Germany, was elected for membership in the American Theological Society, and has been made a Corresponding Academician of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He is a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

Peter Ochs is Edgar Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia, co-director of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning  and  of the Children of Abraham Institute. He has authored, co-authored or co-edited a number of books including Another Reformation: Postliberal Christianity and the Jews; The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited; Peirce,  Pragmatism, and the Logic of Scripture; Reviewing The Covenant: Eugene Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Theology; Christianity in Jewish Terms; Reasoning after Revelation: Dialogues in Postmodern Jewish Philosophy; The Return to Scripture in Judaism and Christianity; Understanding the Rabbinical Mind, and Reviewing the Covenant. With Stanley  Hauerwas, he co-edits the book series Radical Traditions: (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) Theology in a Post-critical Key. Professor Ochs serves on the editorial boards of Modern Theology, The Journal of Culture and Religion, and Crosscurrents.

Josh Reeves is a PhD candidate in Boston University’s interdisciplinary Science, Philosophy and Religion Program. In addition to studying general issues within science and religion, his work has focused on questions concerning human nature.  His dissertation will explore how a philosophy of scientific practice might contribute to and reframe methodological debates within the field of science and religion. Before enrolling at Boston University, he completed a M.Phil. degree in Psychology of Religion at Cambridge University.

James K.A. Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Working at the intersection of philosophical theology and continental philosophy, he is the author of several books, including The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic (InterVarsity Press, 2000), Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation (Routledge, 2002), Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post Secular Theology (Baker Academic/Paternoster, 2004), Jacques Derrida: Live Theory (Continuum, 2005), and Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Baker Academic, 2006). He is editor of the “Church and Postmodern Culture” Series for Baker Academic and also serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and Faith and Philosophy.

Nicholas Wolterstorff received his A.B. from Calvin College in 1953, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1956.  After teaching philosophy for two years at Yale, he returned to the philosophy department at his alma mater in 1959.  He returned to Yale in 1989, where he was a member of the Divinity School, of the Philosophy Department, and of the Religious Studies Department.  He has taught, during leaves of absence, at Haverford College, the University of Michigan, Princeton University, the University of Texas, Notre Dame University, and the Free University of Amsterdam.  He retired from teaching at the end of 2001, and is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University.    Currently he is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, at the University of Virginia.
He has been President of the American Philosophical Association, and of the Society of Christian Philosophers; he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Among the lectures he has given are the Wilde Lectures at Oxford University, the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews University, and the Stone Lectures at Princeton Seminary.   Among the books he has published are On Universals, Works and Worlds of Art, Art in Action, Until Justice and Peace Embrace, Reason within the Bounds of Religion, Divine Discourse, John Locke and the Ethics of Belief, Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology, Educating for Shalom, and Lament for a Son.  Justice: Rights and Wrongs is to be published by Princeton University Press in early 2008.