Andrew Davison (theologian)

Andrew Paul Davison (born 24 June 1974) is a Christian theologian, Starbridge Professor of Theology and Natural Sciences in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK, and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, where is he has also been Dean of Chapel since 2003. On 13 June 2024, Davison was appointed as Canon and Regius Professor of Divinity at Christ Church, Oxford.

Davison was educated at Cottingham High School in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Merton College, Oxford (where he studied an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a DPhil in biochemistry) and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (where he studied an undergraduate degree and PhD in theology). He trained for ordination at Westcott House.

Following ordination, Davison served his curacy in Southeast London, in the parish of St Dunstan, Bellingham. His first teaching appointment was at St Stephen’s House, Oxford, as tutor in doctrine. He was concurrently junior chaplain of Merton College. He moved to Cambridge in 2010 to be Tutor in Christian Doctrine at Westcott House. In 2014, he was appointed as the second Starbridge Lecturer in Theology and Natural Sciences in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge (subsequently senior lecturer, then associate professor and, from 2023, Starbridge Professor of Theology and Natural Sciences). Alongside his lectureship, he became a Fellow of Corpus Christi College.

He is a Canon Emeritus Philosopher at St Albans Cathedral, having been Honorary Canon Philosopher (2015–21), and a founding member of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe. He has twice been a member of the Anglican Church-Roman Catholic dialogue for England and Wales, and participated in the Church of England's commission on marriage and sexuality. For the academic years 2022–2024, he is the Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Science and Theology at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey.

Davison is a systematic and philosophical theologian, and a notable Anglican Thomist, who also writes on pastoral and liturgical topics. His Cambridge PhD, under the supervision of Professor Catherine Pickstock, was on understandings of finitude in the work of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. He is a prolific book author and editor, whose titles include Imaginative Apologetics: Theology, Philosophy and the Catholic Tradition, Participation in God: A Study in Christian Doctrine and Metaphysics, For the Parish: A Critique of Fresh Expressions, and Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine: Exploring the Implications of Life in the Universe (2024). His work on the theological implications of finding life or even intelligence beyond Earth have been the subject of attention in the media.