On denying the right God

Denys Turner (Yale University, Australian Catholic University)

On Thursday 11 August the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at ACU will host a presentation by Denys Turner (Yale / ACU) titled "On denying the right God."

"Atheisms come in kinds, as do theisms. A popular form of atheism in the English-speaking worlds is represented by Richard Dawkins' claim that evolutionary explanation of the origin of the present stock of living species clears the world of God. Some Christians appear to agree that it is either God or evolution. However, Turner will argue that there are better traditions of thinking about God than either Dawkins' atheist denial or the 'creationist' theist affirmation, and it takes a Thomas Aquinas to see why."

Denys Turner is an ACU Professorial Fellow. He was previously Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale University in 2005; before that, he was Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of numerous monographs on the topics of Marxism, medieval Christian thought, and mystical theology. Turner’s work is the subject of a collection, Desire, Faith, and the Darkness of God (Notre Dame, 2015), edited by David Newheiser and Eric Bugyis.

The event will be held on Thursday 11 August from 6pm-7:30pm in the Christ Lecture Theatre at ACU's Melbourne Campus, 115 Victoria Pde Fitzroy. (There will be refreshments from 5:30pm.) Contact [email protected] with any questions.