David William Brown (born 1 July 1948) is an Anglican priest and British scholar of philosophy, theology, religion, and the arts. He taught at the universities of Oxford, Durham, and St. Andrews before retiring in 2015. He is well-known for his "non-punitive theory of purgatory, his defense of specific versions of social Trinitarianism and kenotic Christology, his distinctive theory of divine revelation as mediated fallibly through both tradition and imagination, and his proposals regarding a pervasive sacramentality discerned in nature and human culture alike." From the editor’s introduction to David Brown, God in a Single Vision: Integrating Philosophy and Theology, ed. Christopher R. Brewer and Robert MacSwain (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), vii–x, citation from viii–ix.
Education and academic / ecclesial career Brown was born in Galashiels, Scotland and educated at Edinburgh University (MA, Classics, 1970), Oxford University (BA, later promoted to MA, Philosophy and Theology, 1972), and Cambridge University (PhD, Philosophy, 1975: thesis, 'Naturalism in Ethics').Drawn from Brown’s entry in Who’s Who 2016 (Bloomsbury); John Macquarrie, "A Sketch of David Brown," Anglican Theological Review 84 (2002): 767–70; Brown’s entry on the British Academy website; Brown’s entry on the Templeton Foundation’s "Humble Approach Initiative" website; and the editor’s introduction to David Brown, God in a Single Vision: Integrating Philosophy and Theology, ed. Christopher R. Brewer and Robert MacSwain (London: Routledge, 2016), vii–x. He trained for ordained ministry in the Church of England at Westcott House, Cambridge (1975–76). At Oriel College, Oxford, his primary philosophical mentors were Jonathan Barnes and Basil Mitchell, and at Clare College, Cambridge, his doctoral supervisors were Elizabeth Anscombe and Bernard Williams.
After his studies at Cambridge Brown returned to Oriel College, Oxford, in 1976 as Fellow and Chaplain until 1990. From 1977 he was College Tutor in Philosophy and Theology, and from 1984 he was also University Lecturer in Ethics and Philosophical Theology. In 1986 he became a member of the Church of England's Doctrine Commission and contributed to two reports: We Believe in the Holy Spirit (1989) and The Mystery of Salvation (1995).See the front matter to Contemporary Doctrine Classics (London: Church House Publishing, 2005). During the latter half of his time on the Commission he also served as its Deputy Chair.
In 1990 Brown was appointed as the Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at Durham University and Residentiary Canon of Durham Cathedral, succeeding Daniel W. Hardy and then in 2007 being succeeded by Mark McIntosh. In 2002, while still at Durham, he was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy, and served as a member of the Council from 2008 to 2011. At Durham Cathedral he served as Canon Librarian and chaired several artistic projects involving stained glass, altar frontals, and painting.For a major comprehensive study coordinated by Brown, see David Brown, ed. Durham Cathedral: History, Fabric and Culture (New Haven: Yale, 2015). In 2007 Brown was appointed to a personal chair as Wardlaw Professor of Theology, Aesthetics, and Culture, at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews. He was simultaneously appointed as a Professorial Fellow of the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (ITIA), and was acting Director of ITIA in 2014–15.
In 2012 Brown was awarded a D.Litt. from Edinburgh University—not an honorary degree but a higher doctorate earned on the basis of submitted published work—and in the same year was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He retired from St. Andrews in 2015 and is currently a Wardlaw Professor Emeritus of the University.Online: https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/david-william-brown(0f026ecf-a32f-44be-ac1c-19538985fd9a).html He served as President of the Society for the Study of Theology (SST) in 2015–16.Online: http://www.theologysociety.org.uk/pastcommittee.asp On 25 August 2024 he was installed as Canon Theologian at St. Paul's Cathedral, Dundee in Dundee, Scotland.Online: https://stsalvadors.com/current/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Brechin-Bulletin-22nd-August-2024.pdf
He was created Companion of the Roll of Honour of the Memorial of Merit of King Charles the Martyr in 2019.
Intellectual profile Brown's scholarship has focused on four areas: the relation between philosophy and theology, sacramental theology, theology and the arts, and Anglican studies.See, for example, the section on Brown in Benjamin J. King, Robert MacSwain, and Jason A. Fout, "Contemporary Anglican Systematic Theology: Three Examples in David Brown, Sarah Coakley, and David F. Ford," Anglican Theological Review 94 (2012): 319–34, specifically 325–29.
His period at Oxford was primarily concerned with philosophical theology, and during his tenure as Fellow and Chaplain he worked closely with his Oriel colleagues Basil Mitchell and Richard Swinburne, two successive Nolloth Professors of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion.See David Brown, "‘Necessary’ and ‘Fitting’ Reasons in Christian Theology," in The Rationality of Religious Belief: Essays in Honour of Basil Mitchell, ed. W. J. Abraham and S. W. Holtzer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 211–30; and "Did Revelation Cease?," in Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne, ed. Alan Padgett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 121–41. He was identified at this point with analytic philosophy of religion, but also with a rigorously historical-critical approach to Scripture. While at Oriel he published The Divine Trinity (1985), a critique of contemporary deism and unitarianism and a defense of continuing divine action, progressive revelation, the full personhood of the Holy Spirit, and a social model of the Trinity. For a recent assessment see Fergus Kerr, "Trinitarian Theology in the Light of Analytic Philosophy," in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery OP and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 339–47, discussion on 340–42. Brown did not explicitly defend a kenotic model of the Incarnation in this volume, but his sympathetic treatment of kenosis here was much later developed into a full study and defense in Divine Humanity (2010/2011). For a summary and critique, see Kathryn Tanner, "David Brown’s Divine Humanity," Scottish Journal of Theology 68 (2015): 106–13. In 1985 he published an influential article titled "No Heaven Without Purgatory". Originally published in Religious Studies 21 (1985): 447–56; now reprinted in David Brown, God in a Single Vision: Integrating Philosophy and Theology, ed. Christopher R. Brewer and Robert MacSwain (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 171–80. This article has been widely cited in subsequent discussions of personal eschatology in Christian theology and philosophy of religion. Also during his time at Oxford Brown explored the influence of French and German philosophy on Christian doctrine, the conclusions of which were published in Continental Philosophy and Modern Theology (1987).
After moving to Durham, and partly through the influence of his new colleague Ann Loades, Brown's research and teaching broadened to include sacramental theology and the relationship between theology and the arts. See their co-edited volumes, The Sense of the Sacramental: Movement and Measure in Art and Music, Place and Time (London: SPCK, 1995) and Christ: The Sacramental Word: Incarnation, Sacrament and Poetry (London: SPCK, 1996). For a more recent statement, see Brown’s chapter "A Sacramental World: Why it Matters," in The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, ed. Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 603–15. These interests gradually coalesced into five major volumes with Oxford University Press. The first two—Tradition and Imagination (1999) and Discipleship and Imagination (2000)—defended a positive understanding of developing tradition in Christianity and other religions as a vehicle of progressive divine revelation and a necessary creative response of human imagination. The following three—God and Enchantment of Place (2004), God and Grace of Body (2007), and God and Mystery in Words (2008)—defended an expansive account of sacramentality and religious experience mediated through natural and built environments, painting, bodies, food and drink, music, literature, and drama. According to Brown, the "fundamental thesis" underlying all five volumes is that "both natural and revealed theology are in crisis, and that the only way out is to give proper attention to the cultural embeddedness of both." David Brown, God and Mystery in Words: Experience through Metaphor and Drama (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 269. He also sought to reclaim and revitalize the category of "natural religion" in contrast to traditional "natural theology". See David Brown, God and Enchantment of Place: Reclaiming Human Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 8–9. And yet, at the same time, he presented the Incarnation of God in the human person Jesus as the lens through which all of these issues are ultimately best understood. See, for example, David Brown, Tradition and Imagination: Revelation and Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1.
In a volume of essays engaging specifically with these books, co-editor Robert MacSwain wrote that the five volumes inaugurated by Tradition and Imagination "present many detailed arguments across a vast canvas through a sophisticated blend of philosophy, theology, biblical studies, classical studies, church history, comparative religion, comparative literature, and a wide range of other disciplines and cultural studies, particularly those related to the fine and performing arts, up to and including pop culture in its various manifestations and media. The primarily analytic and empirical approach of The Divine Trinity was not totally abandoned, but has now been thoroughly integrated into a much deeper and richer context, one that more faithfully represents the genuine complexity of the Christian tradition and which is thus more fruitful in interpreting, assessing, and defending it." Robert MacSwain, "Introduction: Theology, Aesthetics, and Culture," in Theology, Aesthetics, and Culture: Responses to the Work of David Brown, ed. Robert MacSwain and Taylor Worley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1–10, citation from 5.
A Scottish Episcopalian initially ordained in the Church of England, Brown belongs to the Anglo-Catholic tradition that developed out of the 19th century Oxford Movement, and has written studies of Anglican figures such as Joseph Butler, David Brown, "Butler and Deism," in Joseph Butler’s Moral and Religious Thought, ed. Christopher Cunliffe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 7–28; and "Butler, Joseph (1692–1752)" in The SPCK Handbook of Anglican Theologians, ed. Alister McGrath (London: SPCK, 1998), 99–102. John Henry Newman, David Brown, introduction to Newman: A Man for Our Time, ed. David Brown (London: SPCK, 1990), 1–18. Edward Bouverie Pusey, David Brown, "Pusey as Consistent and Wise: Some Comparisons with Newman," Anglican and Episcopal History 71 (2002): 328–49. Austin Farrer, David Brown, "God and Symbolic Action," in Divine Action: Studies Inspired by the Philosophical Theology of Austin Farrer, ed. Brian Hebblethwaite and Edward Henderson (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990), 103–22; and "The Role of Images in Theological Reflection," in The Human Person in God’s World: Studies to Commemorate the Austin Farrer Centenary, ed. Douglas Hedley and Brian Hebblethwaite (London: SCM Press, 2006), 85–105. and Michael Ramsey. David Brown, "God in the Landscape: Michael Ramsey’s Theological Vision," Anglican Theological Review 83 (2001): 775–92.