Earnest Enquirers After Truth

First published in 1970, Bernard E. Jones’s selection of Gifford lectures includes excerpts from the writings of over ninety scholars who occupied a Gifford Chair between 1888 and 1968. Lord Gifford had asked his lecturers to be ‘honest to God’, insisting that they should be ‘earnest enquirers after truth’ and had always envisaged the lectures being published. Dr Jones’s anthology is arranged under headings suggested by phrases from Lord Gifford’s will. The selection, which includes names such as William James, A.N. Whitehead, Temple, Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, Niebuhr and Tillich, was made in such a way that the reader would be able to really grasp what natural theology is about. Bernard Ewart Jones served as a Methodist minister, before being appointed to the Lewins Chair of Philosophy at his old college, Hartley Victoria, Manchester. He was awarded a doctorate by the University of Leeds in 1966 for his thesis on ‘The Concept of Natural Theology in Gifford Lectures’.