Originally broadcast at 1:00 p.m. ET Wednesday August 18, 2021.

Nancey Murphy is Senior Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. She received her B.A. from Creighton University (philosophy and psychology); a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley (philosophy of science); and Th.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (philosophical theology).

Professor Murphy’s research interests focus on the role of modern and postmodern Anglo-American philosophy in shaping Christian theology; on relations between theology, philosophy, and science; and on philosophy of mind and neuroscience. Her first book, Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (Cornell, 1990) won the 1982 American Academy of Religion award for excellence. She is author of nine other books including Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism (Trinity Press, 1994); On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics (with G.F.R Ellis; Fortress, 1996); Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge, 2006); Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?: Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will (with W. S. Brown; Oxford, 2007); and A Philosophy of the Christian Religion for the Twenty-first Century (SPCK, 2018). She has co-edited thirteen volumes, including Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradition (with B.J. Kallenberg and M.T. Nation); Emergence and Evolution: Systems, Organisms, Persons (with); and Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will (with G.F.R. Ellis and T. O’Connor).

Dr. Murphy has been member and chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences; has served on the advisory board of the International Society for Science and Religion, as an advisor to the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s program on dialogue between science, ethics, and religion, and on a long-term planning committee for a series of conferences on science and divine action, sponsored by the Vatican Observatory. In 1998 she received Creighton University’s Alumni Achievement Award, and in 2006, GTU’s Alumna of the year. In 2007 she was included in the Los Angeles Magazine’s 100 most influential people. She is an ordained to the teaching ministry in the Church of the Brethren.

Nancey Murphy is a highly sought speaker, having given over 200 lectures, from Iceland to Cape Town; from China and Australia to Moscow and Iran.

This program is made possible by the Eileen and Warren Martin Lectureship for Emerging Studies in Bible and Theology.

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