Alister McGrath is presently working on a project to explore if and how the concept of natural theology can be renewed, especially in critical yet positive dialogue with the natural sciences. The intellectual foundations of this approach were laid in the first and second volumes of A Scientific Theology, which argue for the reconfiguration of natural theology as an enterprise undertaken from within the Christian tradition, rather than as an autonomous discipline which seeks to prove the existence of God on the basis of non-theistic assumptions. He is presently working on developing this approach in dialogue with the cognitive sciences, and will publish a major study setting out this new approach in 2008. This work is entitled The Open Secret: Renewing the Vision for Natural Theology. It will be published by Blackwell Publishers early in 2008.

In June 2008, McGrath is convening a major international and interdisciplinary conference on natural theology at Oxford University. Further details of this conference may be found here.

In 2009, McGrath will deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen, traditionally dedicated to the exploration of natural theology, understood in very general terms. Details of the dates and titles of the lectures will be published when these have been agreed. Previous Gifford Lecturers inlude Hannah Arendt, Karl Barth, Niels Bohr, John Dewey, Werner Heisenberg, William James, Max Mueller, Iris Murdoch, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Albert Schweitzer and Alfred North Whitehead. These lectures will be published in March 2009 under the title A Fine-Tuned Universe? Natural Theology and Anthropic Phenomena.

In 2009-10, McGrath will deliver the Hulsean Lectures at the University of Cambridge, on the topic of "natural theology and Darwinism". These lectures will coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Further details in due course.

See also the additional pages under the heading "Natural Theology" on this website

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