Biography
Dr Pui-Him Ip is Tutorial Programme Director and Research Associate at The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. He is Programme Director for Tutorial Courses in Science and Religion at the Faraday Institute, which are run in partnership with universities around the world, including Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Baptist University and Baylor University in the USA.
Pui studied for a MSci in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London before completing an MA in Philosophy and Christian Theology at Heythrop College, University of London and a PhD in Early Christian Theology at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. Rowan Williams. From 2018-2019, Pui was Departmental Lecturer in Patristics at the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, and Tutor in Theology at Christ Church, Oxford. Since joining the Faraday in 2019, he has been an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity and a Research Associate at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge.
Pui’s research lies at the intersection between Patristics (Christianity in Late Antiquity) and Modern Christian Thought, inspired by the project of ressourcement theology initiated by 20th century figures such as Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Jean Daniélou. His first book analysed the early Christian doctrine of divine simplicity in order to address contemporary debates about the nature of God. Much of his current work focuses on the thought and intellectual legacy of the Alexandrian exegete and philosopher Origen (c.185-c.253). He is currently working on a monograph examining in detail the tradition of reading the Book of Ecclesiastes as natural philosophy (physics) – an approach that originated with Origen’s Commentary on the Song of Songs. This research seeks to uncover why early Christians working in this tradition considered knowledge of nature (physics) as integral for shaping humans to become more virtuous and spiritual beings.
Pui is originally from Hong Kong but he has lived in the United Kingdom since 2002.
Selected Publications
Monograph
Origen of Alexandria and the Emergence of Divine Simplicity before Nicaea (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022).
Refereed articles
- ‘“Arianism” Ante-Litteram in Origen’s Peri Archōn 4.4.1’, Journal of Theological Studies. Online view: https://academic.oup.com/jts/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jts/flaa147/6343193. Forthcoming in print 2021.
- ‘Divine Simplicity in Athenagoras of Athens’ Legatio pro Christianis’, Studia Patristica 100 (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 61-70.
- ‘Reimagining Divine Simplicity in Trinitarian Theology’, International Journal of Systematic Theology, 18:3 (July 2016), 274-89. (Winner of the 2015 Colin Gunton Memorial Essay Prize.)
Book chapters
- ‘Physics as Spiritual Exercise.’ in After Science and Religion, edited by Peter Harrison and John Milbank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2022).
- ‘“Origen against Origen?” Origen’s paradoxical Legacy in Athanasius’ anti-Arian exegesis of Prov. 8.22 in Contra Arianos 2’ in Perspectives on Origen and the History of his Reception, edited by Alfons Fürst, Adamantiana 21 (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2021), 117-32.
- ‘On the Patristic faithfulness of Christos Yannaras’ Prosopo-centric Ontology: A Methodological Exploration’ in Christos Yannaras: Philosophy, Theology, Culture, edited by Andreas Andreopoulos and Demetrios Harper (London: Routledge, 2019), 41-55.
- ‘Identifying the Apophatic Impulse in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy: The Lecture on Ethics as an Interpretative Key’ in Ludwig Wittgenstein between Analytic Philosophy and Apophaticism, edited by Sotiris Mitralexis (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 81-106.
Review article
‘Back to the Fathers: The Nature of Historical Understanding in 20th Century Patristic Ressourcement’, Reviews in Religion and Theology 23:1 (January 2016), 4-13.
Special journal issue
‘Re-thinking Origen’ (sole editor), Modern Theology. April, 2022.
