George Pattison


George Pattison is an English theologian and Anglican priest. Since 2013, he has been Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. He was previously Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.

Early life and education

He holds a Bachelor of Divinity and MA from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD from the University of Durham.

Academic career

Pattison was Dean of the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge, and then an associate professor at the University of Århus.
In 2004, Pattison succeeded John Webster as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. He was also a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford from 2004 to 2013.
Pattison currently holds 1640 Chair of Divinity at the University of Glasgow succeeding Werner Jeanrond who then became Master of St Benet's Hall at the University of Oxford in 2012. Pattison began his professorship at Glasgow in September 2013. In 2017, he gave the Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford; the series was titled "A Phenomenology of the Devout Life". These have now been published as first of a three part 'Philosophy of Christian Life' under the same title. Parts 2 and 3 are entitled A Rhetorics of the Word and A Metaphysics of Love.
Pattison's works range from historical, theological and philosophical engagement with the critical reception of German Idealism in such figures as Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger and Fyodor Dostoyevsky to theological studies of the aesthetics of film and the visual arts. His latest work has engaged with philosophical notions of ontology, entering into the discussion about whether it is meaningful or helpful to speak of God in terms of "being" subsequent to the re-evaluation of time and language in twentieth century existential phenomenology.

Selected works