Ian Ramsey - Career

Career

Alongside of his role as a chaplain, Ramsey became widely known at Cambridge in the 1940s for his lectures in philosophical theology. In 1951 he accepted the chair of Nolloth Professor in the Philosophy of Christian Religion at Oxford University. His inaugural lecture was delivered on 7 December 1951 and published as Miracles: An Exercise in Logical Map Work. He served as a Fellow of Oriel College at Oxford and as chairman of the faculty of theology. During his tenure at Oxford Ramsey was invited to deliver various guest lecture series including the Forwood Lectures at the University of Liverpool (1957), annual theological lecture at Queen's University, Belfast (1960), the Frederick Denison Maurice Lectures at King's College, London University (1961–62),Whidden Lecturer at McMaster University in Canada (1963), Riddell Memorial Lecture at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (1963), and the Zenos Lectures at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago (1966). Most of these lecture series were subsequently published as books: Freedom and Immortality, Religion and Science, On Being Sure in Religion, Models and Mystery, and Christian Discourse.

Ramsey was an authority on the Christian apologetics work of both Bishop Joseph Butler, and of John Locke. He wrote a study of Butler's life and apologetic arguments that was published in 1969. Ramsey also wrote a critical introduction to an abridged edition of Locke's The Reasonableness of Christianity that was released in 1958. Both Locke's and Butler's texts were critical apologetic works that addressed the religious skepticism held to by various Deist thinkers in the late seventeenth century and eighteenth century.

As well as his duties as a college administrator and lecturer, Ramsey was also very active as a churchman. He served as the examining chaplain to the bishops of Portsmouth, Sheffield and Norwich, and acted as the director of the Lambeth Diploma in Theology designed for non-clergy students interested in theology. He also served on various Church of England commissions inquiring into ethical questions about birth control, suicide, and on the subject of divine healing. He wrote reports dealing with those topics for the church's Board for Social Responsibility. On 15 December 1966 he was installed at the ninetieth Bishop of Durham. He became chairman of the BBC's Central Religious Advisory Committee (CRAC) in 1970. At Easter in 1972 he had a heart attack and died on 6 October 1972 after having a meeting in London with CRAC.