The D Society

The D Society is the main research seminar in the faculty for Philosophy of Religion and Ethics. It is chaired this term by Dr Giles Waller gew25@cam.ac.uk

Papers are invited from a wide range of philosophers, philosophers of religion and ethicists, both internal to Cambridge and from outside. A short response paper from a graduate student or faculty member usually opens the discussion.

Founded in 1921 by Professor James Bethune-Baker, the D Society was originally a subscription society intended to supplement the (then) predominantly biblical emphases of the faculty to include doctrinal and philosophical discussion. Under Professor Donald MacKinnon's chairmanship it became the main locus in the university for the interaction between senior members of the Philosophy and Divinity Faculties; and under Professor Nicholas Lash it was transformed into a regular senior seminar in the faculty. 

The seminar is open to all interested members of the University, and to visitors who may wish to attend. Graduate students in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics are encouraged to come from the beginning of their programme and to make the seminars, and the enjoyable tea that follows, a place of regular interaction.

Members of the D Society are also encouraged to attend the regular public lectures in Philosophy of Religion, including the Stanton Lectures.

Image used on this page: Title: Donald Mackenzie Mackinnon. Creator: Unknown. Source: https://tinyurl.com/26jp9ut9. Licence: Public Domain.

The Graduate Seminar in Philosophy of Religion

LENT Term 2025 (further details pending)

D SOCIETY 

Please contact faculty-office@divinity.cam.ac.uk with any questions about the seminars

Dr James Lorenz, York St John University 

'The Garden and the Gardener: Film, Creativity, and the Gift of Creation'

In his essay ‘From God the Artist to Man the Creator’, Jean-Louis Chrétien considers the possibility that human creativity can participate in divine creativity. As created, creative beings, Chrétien suggests that our art and other creative enterprise may become a site for participation in God’s act of creation. This paper takes its lead from Chrétien, reading his essay closely before considering the poetics of film, and the possibility that cinematic art is a significant locus for such a theology of participation. In order to explore this further, the paper engages the film theory of Laura U. Marks and the film philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, suggesting that the form of cinematic representation facilitates the theological potentials of the medium. I then offer an analysis of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1966 film Andrei Rublev, which develops the preceding discussion both through the film’s thematic content and its formal composition. Throughout the paper, I deploy the twin motifs of the garden and the gardener (Genesis 2:15) in order to conceptualise the vocation of the human artist within the doctrine of creation. Finally, this opens up the sacramental idiom, and the possibility that the work of the artist consecrates the gift of creation.

Respondent: Haotian (Walden) Wu, University of Cambridge

Lunch in the Selwyn Room from 12.00 p.m.  All Welcome.

12.30-2pm Lightfoot room, Faculty of Divinity 

Tea afterwards.

All welcome.