Maurice Wiles facts for kids

Maurice Frank Wiles (born October 17, 1923 – died June 3, 2005) was an Anglican priest and a smart university professor. He was a very important professor at the University of Oxford for 21 years, from 1970 to 1991. His job title was Regius Professor of Divinity.

Life and Learning Journey

Maurice Wiles went to Tonbridge School when he was young. He won a special scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge, but his studies were stopped by World War II.

During the war, Maurice and his brother, Christopher, learned Japanese and how to break secret codes. They went to a secret school for this. Both brothers did very well. They were sent to Bletchley Park, a famous place where codes were broken during the war. Maurice became a main translator for Japanese military messages.

After the war, he went back to university. He then studied to become a priest at Ridley Hall.

In 1950, he became a priest. He worked for two years at a church in Stockport. Then he went back to Ridley Hall as a chaplain, which is like a spiritual advisor. From 1955 to 1959, he taught about the New Testament at a university in Nigeria.

He returned to Cambridge again. There, he was a leader at Clare College and taught about early Christian beliefs. Before moving to Oxford, he taught at King's College London for three years.

Maurice Wiles also helped lead a big meeting about early Christian studies in Oxford for many years. He became a Fellow of King's College London in 1972. In 1981, he became a Fellow of the British Academy, which is a big honor for smart people.

Thinking About Miracles

In his book God's Action in the World, Maurice Wiles talked about how God works in the world. He thought about how God's actions fit with Christian theology and the laws of nature.

Wiles believed that God created the world perfectly. He thought that God does not directly step in and change things, so he didn't believe in traditional miracles.

He saw God as the creator of everything. But he believed God made the world to work on its own. He thought God created the world exactly as He wanted it to be:

the world as a whole [is] a single act of God.

This means God wouldn't break the natural laws He made by interfering.

Wiles also argued that if God was all-good, He wouldn't perform small miracles. He wondered why God wouldn't stop terrible events like Auschwitz or Hiroshima, but some traditional miracles seemed less important.

even so it would seem strange that no miraculous intervention prevented Auschwitz or Hiroshima, while the purposes apparently forwarded by some of the miracles acclaimed in traditional Christian faith seem trivial by comparison.

He concluded that either God acts randomly (which wouldn't be worthy of worship) or He doesn't intervene at all.

However, Wiles said that not believing in miracles doesn't mean you can't be a Christian. For example, Prayer is still important. He thought prayer isn't about making God do something. Instead, it helps people connect with God's plan:

[prayer] is the capacity to attain, however incompletely, some awareness of that intention.

Also, the miracles in the Bible can still be important. Wiles believed they teach us about God and faith in Christianity, even if they are understood symbolically.

Early Christian Beliefs and Modern Ideas

Maurice Wiles was an expert in patristics, which is the study of early Christian writers and their ideas. He was also interested in how Christian beliefs developed over time. He looked at questions of what was considered "right" (orthodoxy) and "wrong" (heresy) in Christian teaching.

His book The Making of Christian Doctrine looked at whether old Christian beliefs were still true today. He wondered if they still made sense when the way people thought had changed. He also wrote about Arius, an early Christian who had different ideas about Jesus. Wiles continued to believe that Christian faith could be reasonable. He thought it didn't need to be tied to old ideas that couldn't be proven. He trusted in God's truthfulness.

The Journal of Theological Studies

In 1986, Maurice Wiles became the editor of a scholarly magazine called The Journal of Theological Studies. He worked with another scholar, Morna Hooker. Wiles stopped being editor in 1999. He wrote an article for the magazine's 100th anniversary issue.

Family Life

Maurice Wiles's father was Sir Harold Herbert Wiles. He held an important job in the government. Maurice Wiles was married to Patricia Wiles. He was also the father of the famous mathematician Sir Andrew Wiles. Sir Andrew Wiles is also a professor at the University of Oxford, teaching Mathematics.

Sources

• Peter Vardy (August 2, 1999). The Puzzle of God
• Maurice Wiles (1986). God's Action in the World