Recently retired as Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, Keith Ward is one of Britain’s foremost writers on Christian belief and doctrine in the light of modern scientific discoveries and in the context of other faith traditions. He has explored the tensions between the classical tradition of natural theology, with its atemporal and self-sufficient God, and the Biblical idea of a creative and responsive God, critically examined recent secular theories of human nature that have led to what he perceives as a subtly misconceived attack on the idea of the soul, compared the place of revelation and concept of creation in the major world religions, and sketched a revised Christian vision that looks to a convergent global spirituality. Dr. Ward is currently serving as Gresham Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London. A graduate of the University of Wales, where he took a first-class honors degree in 1962, he holds a B. Litt. from Oxford and an M.A. and doctorate in divinity from both Oxford and Cambridge universities. He has been a lecturer at the University of Glasgow, St. Andrews University, and King’s College, London. Elected a fellow and named dean and director of studies in philosophy and in theology at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1976, he was appointed F. D. Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology at the University of London in 1986 and subsequently professor of the history and philosophy of religion, a position he held for five years before returning to Oxford in 1991. He has been a visiting professor at Drake University and at the Claremont Graduate School and lectured in India and New Zealand, as well as throughout the United Kingdom. Ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1972, he was canon of Christ Church, Oxford, for twelve years and currently serves as a member of the council of the Institute of Philosophy, the board of governors of the Oxford Centre for Vaishnava and Hindu Studies, and the board of advisors of the John Templeton Foundation. Dr. Ward is a fellow of the British Academy. Formerly co-editor of Religious Studies, he is the author of numerous articles and twenty-five books on theology and philosophy, including a four-volume comparative theology. The final volume, Religion and Community, was published in 2000. Among his most recent books are God: A Guide for the Perplexed (2002), a comprehensive account of how human beings have explored and developed their various beliefs in life’s spiritual dimension, What the Bible Really Teaches: A Challenge for Fundamentalists (2004), a contribution to the debate on the authority of scripture, and Pascal’s Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding, a defense of the compatibility of a theistic view of ultimate reality with science’s account of the nature of the universe, which was published by Oneworld earlier this summer.