In light of the ongoing environmental crisis and climate change, many have suggested that we now live in the age of the Anthropocene, an age in which the geology and ecosystem of the natural world are significantly shaped by human activities and technology. How should human beings interpret their place in this changing world? How should we as human beings understand our relation to ‘nature’? In this lecture, Professor John Milbank, a world-renowned theologian and philosopher, will consider how the idea of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) found in Judaism, Christianity and Islam can help us rethink our role and responsibilities as human beings in relation to the ecological crisis. If it is us human beings who have put the world into a crisis, it is only us who can save it.
Professor John Milbank is President of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy and Emeritus Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham. Considered one of the leading contemporary theologians, Professor Milbank first gained international recognition with Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (1990), which laid the theoretical foundations for the movement later became known as Radical Orthodoxy as well as the wider ‘post-secular’ turn in philosophy and social sciences. He was previously Frances Myers Ball Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Virginia and Reader in Philosophical Theology at the University of Cambridge. Professor Milbank was educated in history, theology and philosophy at Oxford, Cambridge and Birmingham, and has received a senior Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Cambridge in recognition of his distinguished published work.
Admission free. Registration required.
