Frederick Robert Tennant

Frederick Robert Tennant (1 September 1866 – 9 September 1957), best known as F. R. Tennant was a British theologian, philosopher of religion and author.

Frederick Robert Tennant
Born1 September 1866
Burslem, Staffordshire, England
Died9 September 1957
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationTheologian

Career

Tennant studied mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry at Caius College, Cambridge (1885–89) prior to becoming a theologian. After hearing the 1889 Huxley lectures, Tennant's interest in religion grew in the 1890s ultimately leading him to prepare for ordination in the Church of England.[1] While he was ordained he taught science at Newcastle-under-Lyme High School (1891–94), and became a lecturer in Theology and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1913.[2]

As an Anglican theologian, Tennant assimilated much of Huxley's lectures culminating in the 1901–1902 Hulsean Lecture entitled Origin and Propagation of Sin where he integrated evolutionary ideas into a Christian synthesis.[3]

One of Tennant's goals in his writings was an integrative synthesis of the doctrines of the fall and original sin with Huxley’s claims of conflict between Darwinian thought and Christianity.[4]

Evolution and purpose

Tennant believed that the existence of a god was needed to explain the purposive quality of evolution. Tennant was the first theist widely known to put forward such an argument. In volume 2 of his book Philosophical Theology he says:

"The multitude of interwoven adaptations by which the world is constituted a theatre of life, intelligence, and morality, cannot reasonably be regarded as an outcome of mechanism, or of blind formative power, or aught but purposive intelligence."[5]

He was an advocate of theistic evolution. Tennant made an argument from design from the "quality of the evolution process".[6]

Publications
  • The Nature of Belief The Centenary Press (1918)
  • Philosophical Theology, Vol. 1: The Soul & Its Faculties Cambridge University Press (1968) (originally 1928)
  • Philosophical Theology, Volume 2 The University Press, 1968 (originally 1930)
  • The origin and propagation of sin;: being the Hulsean Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge in 1901–1902 Cornell University Library (1 May 2009) (originally 1908)
  • With Alan Tennant The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin (2012) RareBooksClub.com ISBN 978-1152479906
  • The Concept of Sin (2012) General Books LLC ISBN 978-1151101518

References
  1. Mary Frances Thelen (1968) biography in Tennant F.R. (1903) The Sources of Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin (Schoken: New York); Delton L. Scudder (1940) Tennant’s Philosophical Theology (Yale University Press: New Haven; Humphrey Milford: London; Oxford University Press: Oxford). Also, see the website: http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/t/tennant_f_r.shtml
  2. "Frederick Robert Tennant". trinitycollegechapel.com.
  3. Frederick R. Tennant. 1906. The Origin and Propagation of Sin: Being the Hulsean lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge in 1901-2. 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge).
  4. Brannan, D.K. (2007) Darwinism and Original Sin: Frederick R. Tennant’s Integration of Darwinian Worldviews into Christian Thought in the Nineteenth Century. Journal for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Science 1:187–217; Brannan, D.K. (2011) Darwinism and Original Sin: Frederick R. Tennant’s analysis of the Church Fathers’ understanding of Original Sin and an exegesis of St. Paul. Journal for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Science 8:139–171.
  5. "Design Arguments for the Existence of God". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  6. Kalin, Ibrahim. (2014). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-19-935843-4 "Guided" or "theistic evolution is an attempt by the theistic camp to digest Darwinian revolution and integrate it in a "design" worldview. Its first proponent was Frederick Robert Tennant, who argued for design to be seen in the "quality of the evolution process" and not in terms of the functional complexity of organisms."
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