Frederick Simmons' research and teaching concern Christian ethics and the natural sciences' implications for Christian thought.
Biography
Frederick Simmons received a B.A. in philosophy from Carleton College, an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in religious ethics from Yale University. He has taught at Princeton Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School, Amherst College, La Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, and La Universidad Politécnica Salesiana; he has also held research appointments at Boston University School of Theology and The Center of Theological Inquiry.
Research
Dr. Simmons' research has concentrated on Christian social and political ethics, Christian environmental ethics, Christianity and the natural sciences, and Christian analyses of love and eudaimonism. His principal current projects consider the religious and societal significance of astrobiology, ecology’s implications for Christian value theory, the meanings of environmental pessimism for Christian hope, and how Christian moral resources may contribute to climate ethics.
Publications
Books
Love and Christian Ethics: Engagements with Tradition, Theory, and Society. Edited by Frederick Simmons with Brian Sorrells. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 400.
Articles and chapters
“Augustinianism and the Book of Nature: Protestant Perils and Promise.” In God and the Book of Nature: Experiments in Theology of Science. Edited by Mark Harris. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2024), 78-96.
“Climate Change, Christian Ethics, and Christian Theology: Ecumenical Imperatives.” In Legal Thought and Eastern Orthodox Christianity: The Addresses of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Edited by Norman Doe and Aetios Nikiforos (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2024), 118-128.
“Environmental Ethics and Christian Realism: Reckoning With and Hope Beyond an Era of Witting Ecological Ruin.” In The Future of Christian Realism: International Political Decay and the Crisis of Democracy. Edited by Dallas Gingles, Joshua Mauldin, and Rebekah Miles (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2023), 135-160.
“Life in this World and For the Life of the World: Natural Science and the Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church.” Theology Today 78.4 (January 2022): 385-395.
“Love.” In The Oxford Handbook of Reinhold Niebuhr. Edited by Robin Lovin and Joshua Mauldin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 263-280.
“What Christian Environmental Ethics Can Learn from Stewardship’s Critics and Competitors.” Studies in Christian Ethics 33.4 (November 2020): 529-548.
“Christianity and Eudaimonia, Luck and Eudaimonism.” Journal of Religious Ethics 47.1 (March 2019): 43-67.
“How Theological Is Political Theology? The Case of Twentieth Century American Protestantism.” Political Theology 19.8 (September 2018): 681-688.
“Introduction: A Conjunctive Approach to Christian Love.” In Love and Christian Ethics: Engagements with Tradition, Theory, and Society. Edited by Frederick Simmons with Brian Sorrells (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016), 1-15.
“Eudaimonism and Christian Love.” In Love and Christian Ethics: Engagements with Tradition, Theory, and Society. Edited by Frederick Simmons with Brian Sorrells (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016), 190-209.
“The Nature and Limits of a Contemporary Evolutionary Cosmology’s Ethical Significance.” In Living Cosmology: Christian Responses to Journey of the Universe. Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016), 162-170.
“Reconsidering Contemporary Christian Departures from Augustine’s Conception of Salvation History and Human Agency.” In On the Apocalyptic and Human Agency: Conversations with Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther. Edited by Kirsi Stjerna and Deanna Thompson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 103-116.
“Sin and Evil.” In The Spirit of Sustainability: Religion, Ethics, and Philosophy. Volume 1 of The Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability. Edited by Willis Jenkins (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2010), 367-368.
