Nicholas Lash


Nicholas Langrishe Alleyne Lash was an English Roman Catholic theologian. After serving in the British Army, he studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood at St Mary's College, Oscott. After working for five years as a curate in Slough, he was elected a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge in 1969. From 1971 to 1975 he served as Dean of St Edmund's. In 1975 he left the priesthood and became a lecturer in the Divinity Faculty of the University of Cambridge. From 1978 to 1999 he held the post of Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, succeeding Donald MacKinnon, and being succeeded by Denys Turner.

Theologian

Nicholas Lash is the author of numerous theological books, and was a regular contributor to The Tablet. A Roman Catholic, and considered a liberal, Lash has voiced strong but measured criticism of practices among leading figures in his tradition, arguing for open debate on a variety of topics, including the ordination of women.
He is reportedly one of the few Roman Catholic theologians who have read, slowly, the whole of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics and the whole of Karl Rahner's Theological Investigations. One of Lash's strongest intellectual influences seems to have been the recovery of Aquinas's theology, using forms of philosophical argument influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, which became influential in the 1970s, associated with Cornelius Ernst and Fergus Kerr. Arguably his most significant piece of writing is also one of his shortest, his reflections on the Apostles' Creed, which includes discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Family

Lash was born to Joan Mary Moore, a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, and Brigadier Henry Alleyne Lash, an officer in the British Indian Army. He had an elder brother, Father Ephrem Lash, who was an Eastern Orthodox archimandrite and prominent translator of patristic and liturgical texts, and two sisters: the writer Jini Fiennes - who had seven children, including actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, filmmakers Sophie and Martha Fiennes, conservationist Jacob Fiennes, and musician Magnus Fiennes - and Susannah Lash, an artist and novelist.
Lash was educated at Worth Preparatory School and Downside School.
Nicholas Lash and his wife, Janet, had a son, Dominic.

Works

His books include