
Nigel Biggar, CBE
University of Oxford
Convening Panel
Affiliations
Lord Biggar of Castle Douglas and Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford
Founder and former Director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, & Public Life at the University of Oxford
Biography
Professor Biggar holds a B.A. (Hons) in Modern History from the University of Oxford; a Master of Christian Studies from Regent College, Vancouver, Canada; and an M.A. in Religious Studies, and a Ph.D. in Christian Theology, from the University of Chicago. His research interests include colonialism, historic reparations, free speech, the vocation of universities, rights, international law, the nation-state, war, forgiveness and reconciliation, and the contribution of Christianity to the health of liberal societies; He has published the following books: Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023, 2024), What's Wrong with Rights? (2020), Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (2014), Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian Ethics (Eerdmans, 2010); (co-ed.) Religious Voices in Public Places (Oxford University Press, 2009); Aiming to Kill: the Ethics of Suicide and Euthanasia (DLT, 2004); (ed.) Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict (Georgetown UP, 2001, 2003); (co-ed.) The Revival of Natural Law: Philosophical, Theological, and Ethical Responses to the Finnis-Grisez School (Ashgate, 2000); Good Life: Reflections on What We Value Today (SPCK, 1997); The Hastening that Waits: Karl Barth’s Ethics (OUP, 1993, 1995); and Cities of Gods: Faith, Politics & Pluralism in Judaism, and Christianity & Islam (Greenwood, 1986).
Research Focus
Colonialism, reparations, free speech, the civic duty of universities to promote intellectual virtue
GFI Writings
Nigel Biggar, CBE
University of Oxford
Created Order
My Theology Brief on ‘Order’ has, it seems, been fertile in generating numerous lines of thought in the minds of colleagues working in a wide range of academic disciplines. I observe, reassured, that none of them take strong exception to what I wrote, even though I was trespassing on disciplinary te…
Nigel Biggar, CBE
University of Oxford
Order
This essay first observes the pejorative connotation of ‘order’ in contemporary Western culture, before proceeding to explain the Christian concept of created order and how it at once legitimates human orders and provides the ground on which to criticise them. The following topics are addressed: in …
Nigel Biggar, CBE
University of Oxford
Created Order
In a Christian vision of reality, human beings are born into an environment that God has already created. We exercise moral and creative freedom in a context that is given to us. From Monotheism to a Created Order. # “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deuteronomy 6.4). A…