Peacocke, Arthur

Arthur Peacocke

Bio

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Reverend Canon Dr. Arthur Peacocke, MBE S.O.Sc. (1924-2006) taught and did research on biological macromolecules (especially DNA) for over 25 years in the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford, where he was a Fellow of St Peter’s College.

In 1971 he took Anglican orders and in 1972 became Dean of Clare College, Cambridge, where he worked on the interaction between theology and science.  He gave the distinguished Bampton and Gifford Lectures and was Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre (IRC), Oxford, for the study of religion in relation to the sciences.  He was Warden-Emeritus of the Society of Ordained Scientists (SOSc.) and a Honorable Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. In 2001 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion for his contributions to the study of the relation of the sciences to religion and for his initiating the IRC, SOSc and UK and European societies in that field.

His books include: Theology for a Scientific Age; Being and Becoming  – Natural, Divine and Human (SCM Press, London, 2nd enlarged edit. 1993); From DNA to DEAN: reflections and explorations of a priest-scientist (Canterbury  Press,1996); God and Science: a quest for Christian credibility (SCM Press, London, 1996);Paths from Science towards God: the End of All Our Exploring (Oneworld, Oxford, 2001).