J. Wentzel van Huyssteen (29 April 1942 - 18 February 2022) was a professor at

Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a private school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1812 under the auspices of Archibald Alexander, the General Assembly of ...

from 1992-2014. His official position was the James I. McCord Professor of Theology and Science. Born in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, he was ordained as part of the

Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa Three churches from the Dutch Reformed Church tradition in South Africa are often mentioned together as "three sister churches". They are the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK), Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NHK), and Reformed Ch ...

. He received his MA in philosophy from the

Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant ...

in South Africa, and his PhD in philosophical theology from the

Free University of Amsterdam The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

. His areas of expertise are

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and science as well as religion and scientific

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

. He was on the editorial board for the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, the Nederduits Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif, and the Journal of Theology and Science, and was coeditor of the Science and Religion Series (Ashgate Press). In 2004 he was selected to deliver the esteemed Gifford Lectures, in which he presented his work titled “Alone in the World? Science and Theology on Human Uniqueness.” van Huysteen has also worked on cooperation with archaeologists, and has published an article on the development of self in

Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from appr ...

.J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, The Historical self: Memory and Religion at Çatalhöyük. In:

Ian Hodder Ian Richard Hodder (born 23 November 1948, in Bristol) is a British archaeologist and pioneer of postprocessualist theory in archaeology that first took root among his students and in his own work between 1980–1990. At this time he had such ...

(ed.) Religion at work in a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2014, 109-133

Major publications

* Ashgate Science and Religion Series: Anna Case-Winters, Reconstructing a Christian Theology of Nature: Down to Earth, coedited with Roger Trigg. Series Editors (Adlershot: Ashgate Press, 2007) * Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology ( Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006) * The Encyclopedia of Science and Religion (Two volumes). Editor-in-chief (Macmillan Publishers, 2003) * The Shaping of Rationality: Toward Interdisciplinarity in Theology and Science (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999) * Duet or Duel? Theology and Science in a Postmodern World (SCM/Trinity Press, 1998) * Also, Christopher Lilley and Daniel J. Pedersen (Eds.), ''Human Origins and the Image of God: Essays in honor of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen'' (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huyssteen, Wentzel van Living people South African theologians 1942 births Princeton Theological Seminary faculty