The Laudato Si’ Research Institute was honoured to host Professor Tim Ingold, who delivered a public lecture “Creation Beyond Creativity” on 9 March, 2023 at the Pichette Auditorium at Pembroke College. The highly anticipated lecture was also streamed to a large online audience.

The lecture, offered as part of a research visit by Professor Ingold at the LSRI, explored the debates around creation and creativity that have divided theologians and philosophers from the classical through to the medieval period. Recounting how the rise of modern science resulted in the strong association between creation and the recombinant power of intelligent design, Professor Ingold explained how this association in turn underpinned the burgeoning field of creativity research in psychology, leading to an exclusive focus on the novelty of ideas and products, which left no room for the creativeness of life itself. Highlighting the distinction between novelty and newness, Professor Ingold made the case to bring back the idea of creation not as the proliferation of ends but as the promise of perpetual beginning.

Professor Ingold also led an informal work discussion at Campion Hall the following day with Faculty of Theology and Religion postdocs and doctoral students to explore some of the themes further.