Wentzel van Huyssteen

Author of interdisciplinary publications and Editor-in-Chief of the
Encyclopedia for Science and Religion
James I. McCord Professor of Theology and Science
at Princeton Theological Seminary

Jacobus Wentzel Vrede van Huyssteen was born on 29 April 1942 in Burgersdorp, Eastern Cape, and matriculated from Bellville High School, Cape Town, in 1960. He studied at Stellenbosch University (BA, cum laude, BA Hons in Philosophy, cum laude, BA in Theology, MA in Philosophy, cum laude). He earned a doctorate in Theology from the Free University of Amsterdam in 1970 and was ordained a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church the following year. After further study at Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität in Munich, he lectured on Philosophy and Theology at the Huguenot College in Wellington, South Africa, and served for two years as the minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Noorder-Paarl, South Africa. He was named professor and chair of religious studies at the University of Port Elizabeth in 1972, a post he held until he joined the Princeton Theological Seminary in January 1992 as the first occupant of the James I. McCord chair.
His area of special interest is religious and scientific epistemology. In May 2004, he delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh on the dialogue between theology and paleoanthropology and in December 2004 the Olaus Petri Lectures, on Human Origins and Religious Awareness, at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He has explored questions of human uniqueness by focusing on the meaning of cave paintings as the oldest surviving expressions of human symbolic activity.
Van Huyssteen has lectured at academic institutions throughout Europe, as well as in South Africa, Korea, Russia, Canada, and the United States.

Memberships:
Founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion, a life member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, England, and a life member of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, USA, steering committee of the Theology and Science Section of the American Academy of Religion, International Board of Advisors of the Templeton Foundation

Awards and Honours:
Andrew Murray Prize for Theological Literature
American Academy of Religion
Senior Research Award
Bill Venter Award for Academic Excellence, Citizen of the Year Award from Port Elizabeth City Council
Three John Templeton Foundation Awards:
for the published version of his inaugural lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary, The Quest for a New Apologetics and for two new courses he initiated at Princeton Theological Seminary , VTheology and the New Physics and Theology and the Challenge of Darwinism.
Andrew Murray-Desmond Tutu Prize 2007 for Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology. This book was also included in the 2007 Templeton Books of Distinction. The Festschrift, The Evolution of Rationality: Interdisciplinary Essays in Honor of J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen (ed. F. LeRon Shults; William B. Eerdmans, 2007) Dedicated to Wentzel van Huyssteenin in celebration of his 65th birthday.
Honorary Doctorate in Theology, Stellenbosch University, 2009

Publications:In addition to serving on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, The Journal for Theology and Science, the Nederduits Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif. Van Huyssteen is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Templeton Foundation Press and the author of some fifty articles published in academic journals.
Books:
Theology and the Justification of Faith: Constructing Theories in Systematic Theology, Wm. Eerdmans 1989
Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology, 1997
Rethinking Theology and Science (Editor with Niels Henrik Gregersen), 1998
Duet or Duel? Theology and Science in a Postmodern World, 1998
The Shaping of Rationality: Towards Interdisciplinarity in Theology and Science, Wm. Eerdmans, 1999
Ashgate Series on Science and Religion, (Co-editor with Roger Trigg)
Encyclopedia of Science and Religion (Chief-editor), Macmillan, 2003
Alone in the World? Science and Theology on Human Uniqueness, Wm. Eerdmans, 2006
The Evolution of Rationality, 2006
In Search of Self (Editor with Erik P. Wiebe)

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