Thomas Aquinas
1225 - 1274 (49 years)
Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. An immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, he is also known within the latter as the , the , and the . The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy. Among other things, he was a prominent proponent of natural theology and the father of a school of thought known as Thomism. He argued that God is the source of both the light of natural reason and the light of faith. His influence on W...
Go to ProfileMartin Luther
1483 - 1546 (63 years)
Martin Luther was a German priest, theologian, author and hymnwriter. A former Augustinian friar, he is best known as the seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation and as the namesake of Lutheranism.
Go to ProfileJohn Calvin
1509 - 1564 (55 years)
John Calvin was a French theologian, pastor, and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, including its doctrines of predestination and of God's absolute sovereignty in the salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation. Calvinist doctrines were influenced by and elaborated upon the Augustinian and other Christian traditions. Various Congregational, Reformed and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread thro...
Go to ProfileMaimonides
1138 - 1204 (66 years)
Moses ben Maimon , commonly known as Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam , was a medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as the personal physician of Saladin. Born in Córdoba, Almoravid Empire on Passover eve, 1138 , he worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt. He died in Egypt on 12 December 1204, whence his body was taken to the lower Galilee and buried in Tiberias.
Go to ProfileKarl Barth
1886 - 1968 (82 years)
Karl Barth was a Swiss Calvinist theologian. Barth is well-known in theology for his landmark commentary The Epistle to the Romans , his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship of the Barmen Declaration, and especially his unfinished multi-volume theological summa the Church Dogmatics . Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of Time on 20 April 1962.
Go to ProfileSøren Kierkegaard
1813 - 1855 (42 years)
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony, and parables. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment. He was against lite...
Go to ProfileJoseph Smith
1805 - 1844 (39 years)
Joseph Smith Jr. was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religion that continues to the present with millions of global adherents.
Go to ProfileBilly Graham
1918 - 2018 (100 years)
William Franklin Graham Jr. was an American evangelist, a prominent evangelical Christian figure, and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. One of his biographers has placed him "among the most influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century.
Go to ProfileFriedrich Schleiermacher
1768 - 1834 (66 years)
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. Because of his profound effect on subsequent Christian thought, he is often called the "Father of Modern Liberal Theology" and is considered an early leader in liberal Christianity. The neo-orthodoxy movement of the twentieth century, ...
Go to ProfileB. R. Ambedkar
1891 - 1956 (65 years)
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was an Indian jurist, economist and leader of the untouchables , who headed the committee that drafted the Constitution of India from the consensus achieved in the Constituent Assembly debates. He served as Minister of Law and Justice in the first cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru from 1947 to 1951. Ambedkar later renounced Hinduism and inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement.
Go to ProfileRashi
1040 - 1105 (65 years)
Shlomo Yitzchaki , today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi and author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud and commentary on the Hebrew Bible . Acclaimed for his ability to present the basic meaning of the text in a concise and lucid fashion, Rashi appeals to both learned scholars and beginner students, and his works remain a centerpiece of contemporary Jewish study. His commentary on the Talmud, which covers nearly all of the Babylonian Talmud , has been included in every edition of the Talmud since its first printing by Daniel Bomberg in the 1520s. His...
Go to ProfileBaruch Spinoza
1632 - 1677 (45 years)
Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin. One of the foremost exponents of 17th-century Rationalism and one of the early and seminal thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered "one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period." Inspired by the groundbreaking ideas of René Descartes, Spinoza became a leading philosophical figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza's given name, which means "Blessed", varies among different languages.
Go to ProfileRudolf Bultmann
1884 - 1976 (92 years)
Rudolf Karl Bultmann was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early-20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic of liberal theology, Bultmann instead argued for an existentialist interpretation of the New Testament. His hermeneutical approach to the New Testament led him to be a proponent of dialectical theology.
Go to ProfilePaul Tillich
1886 - 1965 (79 years)
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher and Lutheran Protestant theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Tillich taught at a number of universities in Germany before immigrating to the United States in 1933, where he taught at Union Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School, and the University of Chicago.
Go to ProfileAlister McGrath
1953 - Present (69 years)
Alister E. McGrath was born on January 23, 1953 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. After studying at Methodist College Belfast, McGrath earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1975. He pursued graduate research in science while also studying theology, and earned a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics in 1977. He was later ordained as an Anglican priest and awarded a B.D. from Oxford in 1983 and a doctorate in divinity in 2001. He also later earned a third doctorate from Oxford, a D.Litt., in 2013 for his work on science and religion. McGrath is a renowned apologist, intellectual historian, scientist, and theologian.
Go to ProfileBlaise Pascal
1623 - 1662 (39 years)
Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer, and Catholic theologian. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest mathematical work was on conic sections; he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16. He later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines , establishing him as one of ...
Go to ProfileIsaac Newton
1642 - 1727 (85 years)
Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists of all time and among the most influential scientists. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica , first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus.
Go to ProfileCornelius Van Til
1895 - 1987 (92 years)
Cornelius Van Til was a Dutch-American reformed philosopher and theologian, who is credited as being the originator of modern presuppositional apologetics. Biography Van Til was the sixth son of Ite van Til, a dairy farmer, and his wife Klasina van der Veen. At the age of ten, he moved with his family to Highland, Indiana. He was the first of his family to receive a higher education. In 1914 he attended Calvin Preparatory School, graduated from Calvin College, and attended one year at Calvin Theological Seminary, where he studied under Louis Berkhof, but he transferred to Princeton Theologi...
Go to ProfileC. S. Lewis
1898 - 1963 (65 years)
Clive Staples Lewis was a British writer and lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University and Cambridge University . He is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.
Go to ProfileDuns Scotus
1265 - 1308 (43 years)
John Duns Scotus , commonly called Duns Scotus , was a Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher, and theologian. He is one of the four most important philosopher-theologians of Western Europe in the High Middle Ages, together with Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and William of Ockham. Scotus has had considerable influence on both Catholic and secular thought. The doctrines for which he is best known are the "univocity of being", that existence is the most abstract concept we have, applicable to everything that exists; the formal distinction, a way of disti...
Go to ProfileWilliam Blake
1757 - 1827 (70 years)
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. What he called his “prophetic works” were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
Go to ProfileRumi
1207 - 1273 (66 years)
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī , more popularly known simply as Rumi , was a 13th-century Persian poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Tajiks, Turks, Greeks, Pashtuns, other Central Asian Muslims, and the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been...
Go to ProfileJohn Henry Newman
1801 - 1890 (89 years)
John Henry Newman C.O. was an English theologian, scholar and poet, first an Anglican priest and later a Catholic priest and cardinal, who was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s, and was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019.
Go to ProfileAnselm of Canterbury
1033 - 1109 (76 years)
Anselm of Canterbury , also called after his birthplace and after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. After his death, he was canonized as a saint; his feast day is 21 April.
Go to ProfileDietrich Bonhoeffer
1906 - 1945 (39 years)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic.
Go to ProfileMeister Eckhart
1260 - 1328 (68 years)
Eckhart von Hochheim , commonly known as Meister Eckhart or Eckehart, was a German Catholic theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire.
Go to ProfileThomas Merton
1915 - 1968 (53 years)
Thomas Merton was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar of comparative religion. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and given the name "Father Louis". He was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 to his death.
Go to ProfileRudolf Otto
1869 - 1937 (68 years)
Rudolf Otto was an eminent German Lutheran theologian, philosopher, and comparative religionist. He is regarded as one of the most influential scholars of religion in the early twentieth century and is best known for his concept of the numinous, a profound emotional experience he argued was at the heart of the world's religions. While his work started in the domain of liberal Christian theology, its main thrust was always apologetical, seeking to defend religion against naturalist critiques. Otto eventually came to conceive of his work as part of a science of religion, which was divided into ...
Go to ProfileBart D. Ehrman
1955 - Present (67 years)
Ehrman was born in 1955 in Lawrence, Kansas. He received a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in 1978. He then went on to study at Princeton Seminary, where he obtained a master of divinity in 1981 and a PhD in 1985. His doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. Ehrman is currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ehrman’s work has focused on textual criticism of the New Testament, the origins of early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He has written or edited thirty books, including textbooks for undergraduate students and five New York Times bestsellers.
Go to ProfileKarl Rahner
1904 - 1984 (80 years)
Karl Rahner, was a German Jesuit priest and theologian who, alongside Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Yves Congar, is considered to be one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century. He was the brother of Hugo Rahner, also a Jesuit scholar.
Go to ProfileEmanuel Swedenborg
1688 - 1772 (84 years)
Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell . Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. In 1741, at 53, he entered into a spiritual phase in which he began to experience dreams and visions, notably on Easter Weekend, on 6 April 1744. His experiences culminated in a "spiritual awakening" in which he received a revelation that Jesus Christ had appointed him to write The Heavenly Doctrine to reform Christianity. According to The Heavenly Doctrine, the...
Go to ProfileMircea Eliade
1907 - 1986 (79 years)
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at lea...
Go to ProfileErasmus
1466 - 1536 (70 years)
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus was a Dutch philosopher and Catholic theologian who is considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance. As a Catholic priest, he was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation.
Go to ProfileGustavo Gutiérrez
1928 - Present (94 years)
Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino is a Peruvian philosopher, Catholic theologian, and Dominican priest, regarded as one of the founders of Latin American liberation theology. He currently holds the John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, and has previously been a visiting professor at many major universities in North America and Europe.
Go to ProfileEllen G. White
1827 - 1915 (88 years)
Ellen Gould White was an American author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Along with other Adventist leaders such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, she was instrumental within a small group of early Adventists who formed what became known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church. White is considered a leading figure in American vegetarian history. The Smithsonian magazine named Ellen G. White among the "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time."
Go to ProfileHenri de Lubac
1896 - 1991 (95 years)
Henri-Marie Joseph Sonier de Lubac , better known as Henri de Lubac, was a French Jesuit priest and cardinal who is considered one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. His writings and doctrinal research played a key role in shaping the Second Vatican Council.
Go to ProfileGreg Bahnsen
1948 - 1995 (47 years)
Greg L. Bahnsen was an American Reformed philosopher, apologist, and debater. He was a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and a full-time Scholar in Residence for the Southern California Center for Christian Studies . He is also considered a contributor to the field of Christian apologetics, as he popularized the presuppositional method of Cornelius Van Til. He is the father of David L. Bahnsen, an American portfolio manager, author, and television commentator, as well as his first born, Jonathan Bahnsen, and youngest, Michael Bahnsen.
Go to ProfileJürgen Moltmann
1926 - Present (96 years)
Jürgen Moltmann was born in 1926 in Hamburg, Germany. In 1944, Moltmann was drafted into the German army to fight in World War II. He served for six months before surrendering to the British, after which he was confined to prisoner of war camps for three years in Belgium, England, and Scotland. After his release, he studied at the University of Gottïngen, earning a doctorate in 1952. Moltmann is emeritus professor of theology at Tübingen University, where he taught from 1967 to 1994. Moltmann is best known for his theology of hope, a unique form of liberation theology centered on the idea that God suffers with humanity and the hope found in the resurrection of Christ.
Go to ProfileMartin Luther King Jr.
1929 - 1968 (39 years)
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. An African American church leader and the son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. His role in leading the cause of civil rights in the South differed in style from the previous accomodationist stances represented by Booker T.
Go to ProfileR. C. Sproul
1939 - 2017 (78 years)
Robert Charles Sproul was an American Reformed theologian and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. He was the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries and could be heard daily on the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast in the United States and internationally. Under Sproul's direction, Ligonier Ministries produced the Ligonier Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which would eventually grow into the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, of which Sproul, alongside Norman Geisler, was one of the chief architects. Sproul has been described as "the greatest and most influ...
Go to ProfileJohann Baptist Metz
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Johann Baptist Metz was a German Catholic priest and theologian. He was Ordinary Professor of Fundamental Theology at the University of Münster, and a consultant to the synod of German dioceses. He is regarded as one of the most important German theologians after the Second Vatican Council, who influenced liberation theology and focused on compassion.
Go to ProfileJonathan Edwards
1703 - 1758 (55 years)
Jonathan Edwards was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher and Congregationalist theologian. Edwards is widely regarded as one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians. Edwards' theological work is broad in scope, but rooted in the pedobaptist Puritan heritage as exemplified in the Westminster and Savoy Confessions of Faith. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset. Edwards played a critical role in shaping the ...
Go to ProfileCharles Spurgeon
1834 - 1892 (58 years)
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was an English Particular Baptist preacher. Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations, among whom he is known as the "Prince of Preachers". He was a strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day.
Go to ProfileWilliam Lane Craig
1949 - Present (73 years)
William Lane Craig was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1949. He earned a B.A. from Wheaton College, and pursued graduate work at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the philosophy of religion. His earned his doctorate in 1977 at the University of Birmingham, England, with work on the cosmological argument for God’s existence under the supervision of John Hick. He pursued postdoctoral work under the direction of Wolfhart Pannenberg at the Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität München in Germany, where he earned a doctorate in theology in 1984. Craig is currently research professor of philosophy at t...
Go to ProfilePeter Lombard , was a scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of Four Books of Sentences which became the standard textbook of theology, for which he earned the accolade Magister Sententiarum.
Go to ProfileRowan Williams
1950 - Present (72 years)
Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England.
Go to ProfileNorman Geisler
1932 - 2019 (87 years)
Norman Leo Geisler was an American Christian systematic theologian and philosopher. He was the co-founder of two non-denominational evangelical seminaries . He held a Ph.D. in philosophy from Loyola University and made scholarly contributions to the subjects of classical Christian apologetics, systematic theology, the history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, Calvinism, Roman Catholicism, Biblical inerrancy, Bible difficulties, ethics, and more. He was the author, coauthor, or editor of over 90 books and hundreds of articles.
Go to ProfileHans Küng
1928 - 2021 (93 years)
Hans Küng was a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and author. From 1995 he was president of the Foundation for a Global Ethic . Küng was ordained a priest in 1954, joined the faculty of the University of Tübingen in 1960, and served as a theological adviser during the Second Vatican Council. In 1978, after he rejected the doctrine of papal infallibility, he was not allowed to continue teaching as a Catholic theologian, but he remained at Tübingen as a professor of ecumenical theology until he retired with the title professor emeritus in 1996. He remained a Catholic priest until his death. He supported the spiritual substance of religion, while questioning traditional dogmatic Christianity.
Go to ProfileAlan Watts
1915 - 1973 (58 years)
Alan Wilson Watts was an English philosopher, writer, and speaker known for interpreting and popularizing Indian and Chinese traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, England, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. He received a master's degree in theology from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and became an Episcopal priest in 1945. He left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.
Go to ProfileIsaac Luria
1534 - 1572 (38 years)
Isaac ben Solomon Luria Ashkenazi , commonly known in Jewish religious circles as "Ha'ARI" , "Ha'ARI Hakadosh" or "ARIZaL" , was a leading rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Syria, now Israel. He is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah, his teachings being referred to as Lurianic Kabbalah. While his direct literary contribution to the Kabbalistic school of Safed was extremely minute , his spiritual fame led to their veneration and the acceptance of his authority. The works of his disciples compiled his oral teachings into writing. Eve...
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