30 Facts About Ian Ramsey

Ian Thomas Ramsey was a British Anglican bishop and academic.

Ian Ramsey was Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Oxford, and Bishop of Durham from 1966 until his death in 1972.

Ian Ramsey wrote extensively on the problem of religious language, Christian ethics, the relationship between science and religion, and Christian apologetics.

Ian Ramsey was the sole child born to Arthur and Mary Ramsey, and was raised by them in the Christian faith.

Ian Ramsey won a scholarship in 1934 that enabled him to embark on further study at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a triple first-class MA degree in mathematics, moral sciences and theology in 1939.

In 1943, upon completing his theological degree and ordination Ian Ramsey then took on the role of Chaplain at Christ's College, Cambridge.

Ian Ramsey was elected as a Fellow and Director of Studies in theology and moral science in 1944.

Ian Ramsey held the latter role alongside his main posts until 1966 when he was elected the Bishop of Durham.

Ian Ramsey's first doctorate was an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Oxford, awarded in 1966.

Alongside of his role as a chaplain, Ian Ramsey became widely known at Cambridge in the 1940s for his lectures in philosophical theology.

Ian Ramsey served as a Fellow of Oriel College at Oxford and as chairman of the faculty of theology.

Ian Ramsey wrote a study of Butler's life and apologetic arguments that was published in 1969.

Ian Ramsey 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.

Ian Ramsey served on various Church of England commissions inquiring into ethical questions about birth control, suicide, and on the subject of divine healing.

Ian Ramsey wrote reports dealing with those topics for the church's Board for Social Responsibility.

Ian Ramsey chaired the Commission on Religious Education in Schools which reported for the centenary of the Education Act of 1870.

Ian Ramsey became chairman of the BBC's Central Religious Advisory Committee in 1970.

Ian Ramsey approached a number of philosophical problems concerning twentieth century theology.

Ian Ramsey was concerned in his writings to argue that traditional theological language was empirically meaningful.

Ian Ramsey was equipped to make this argument because his thinking closely paralleled that of Wittgenstein.

For example, Ian Ramsey distinguished between the "thatness" and the "whatness" of an event.

Rather than treating language about God as explanatory, Ian Ramsey characterizes talk about God as "an attempt to be articulate about the divine mystery".

Ian Ramsey calls the other kind of language "religious language", the language of theology.

One of Ian Ramsey's examples is the disclosure model "First Cause".

But, for Ian Ramsey, the disclosure model "First Cause" does not mean that God is a causal agent.

Rather, if one traces the empirical whatness of a "causal chain", the permanent mystery that such causation exists might dawn on a person, or in an image Ian Ramsey used, "the penny drops".

Ian Ramsey reconciled such conflicting disclosure models by tracing them back to the what of the disclosure situations.

Ian Ramsey's arguments were developed on a model of religious language grounded in personal experience and personal disclosure.

Ian Ramsey used this point to argue that humans come to encounter God by way of personal disclosure, thus offering an argument from analogy.

Ian Ramsey was particularly effective in communicating with experts from a wide range of disciplines, inspiring them to work together on the problems raised for theology and ethics by developments in science, technology and medicine.