Professor Christopher Insole FBA
- Fellow type
- UK Fellow
- Year elected
- 2026
- Subjects
- Religion
- Sections
- Theology and Religious Studies
- Website
- Durham University
Summary
Christopher Insole (b. 1973) is Professor of Philosophical Theology at Durham University.
Insole's scholarship centres on the philosophy and theology of Immanuel Kant, and more broadly on the relationship between theology, metaphysics, and political philosophy, alongside questions of realism, anti-realism, and religious epistemology. His two major studies of Kant's philosophy of religion were published by Oxford University Press.
Since 2016 his work has moved into a more contemporary and constructive register, engaging with natural theology, exploring the possibility of reconceiving it as a form of negative theology, an approach developed most fully in his 2024 monograph 'Negative Natural Theology: Go and the Limits of Reason'. His current work is focussed on the therapeutic dimension of philosophy and theology, drawing upon the practices and insights of psychotherapy. He is currently training as a psychotherapeutic counsellor.
He was the Lead Investigator for the five-year 'Redeeming Autonomy: Agency, Vulnerability, and Relationality' programme, hosted by the Australian Catholic University, where he was a Professorial Fellow (2017-2023), with co-investigators from Yale, Boston College, and KU Leuven. The project brought together philosophers, theologians, lawyers, and policymakers to examine the concept of rational self-government in areas such as end-of-life legislation, disability, and immigration. He also led a subgrant (‘Negative Natural Theology’) as part of the Templeton Religion Trust funded project ‘Widening Horizons in Philosophical Theology’ (2021-2023).
His most recent book for a general readership, 'If God is the Answer, What is the Question?' (Oneworld, 2026), draws together decades of his teaching and research to invite readers past entrenched ‘for or against’ positions on belief and unbelief, and towards the deeper questions and motivations that underlie disagreements about God.