Ivor J. Davidson

Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology

Professor Davidson joined the University of St Andrews as Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology in 2009. Previously he was Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Otago, New Zealand, where he had taught since 1997 and was appointed to a Personal Chair in 2004. He had lectured at St Andrews prior to his move to Otago. He is currently Head of School and Dean of Divinity, and Principal of St Mary’s College.

Education

• MA (First Class Honours, Logan Prize winner, Ramsay Gold Medallist), Classics, University of Glasgow
• PhD, Patristics, University of Glasgow
• MTh (Distinction), Systematic Theology, University of Edinburgh

Research

His research in historical theology is focused particularly in patristics, in which he has published widely. His publications include a major critical edition of the first ‘systematic’ work of Christian ethics, Ambrose’s De Officiis: Edited with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary, 2 volumes, Oxford University Press, 2002 (xxv + 982 pp); and two books on early Christian history, The Birth of the Church (Baker, 2004/Monarch, 2005) (400 pp), and A Public Faith (Baker/Monarch, 2005) (463 pp). He is writing A Short History of Arianism for Cambridge University Press, and editing The Cambridge Handbook of Early Christian Theology. His later interests include Calvin, Reformed theology (including its Scottish traditions), and, among modern theologians, Barth, Balthasar, Jüngel, Moltmann and Pannenberg. Professor Davidson is also working on a new edition of Richard of St Victor’s De Trinitate.

Professor Davidson is interested in all areas of Christian doctrine, particularly Christology, Trinity, soteriology and pneumatology. He has two monographs forthcoming on Christology, one on the sinlessness/obedience of Christ, the other on an- and en-hypostatic Christology; an edited volume on salvation and the doctrine of God is in press, and Professor Davidson is contracted to write a new introduction to systematic theology.

Among other editorial and advisory roles, Professor Davidson is an editor for T. & T. Clark’s Studies in Systematic Theology monograph series. He serves on the executive committee of the Society for the Study of Theology. He has lectured and held visiting fellowships at many institutions internationally, and is a Member of the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton. He has been an undergraduate and postgraduate examiner for universities and colleges in the UK, North America and Australasia, and has served on various assessment and audit panels, including the national PBRF research assessment exercise in New Zealand in 2006.

Professor Davidson has supervised widely in both systematics and patristics, and welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD students in any of his core areas of interest, particularly themes ancient or modern in Christology, Trinitarian theology or soteriology.

Select Recent Publications

‘Pondering the Sinlessness of Jesus Christ: Moral Christologies and the Witness of Scripture’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 10 (2008), 372-398

‘Boethius’ in Ian S. Markham (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Theologians, 2 vols (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), vol. 1, 49-68

‘Divine Light: Some Reflections after Barth’ in Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday (eds.), Trinitarian Theology after Barth (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010), 46-67

God of Salvation: Soteriology in Theological Perspective, edited with Murray A. Rae (Aldershot: Ashgate, in press 2010)

‘God of Salvation’ and ‘Salvation’s Destiny: Heirs of God’ in God of Salvation: Soteriology in Theological Perspective