The Life and Work of John Richardson Illingworth, M.A., D.D: As Portrayed by His Letters and Illustrated by Photographs (Classic Reprint)

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Illingworth, whose books were translated into Chinese and Japanese, was perhaps the most widely influential British representative of a nineteenth-century current of thought which sought to establish a synthesis of characteristic themes of modern idealistic philosophy and Christian theism by focusing on the concept of the person. This tradition of more or less idealistic personalism in philosophy and theology, whose British branch was represented also by A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, J. Seth, H. Rashdall, C.C. J. Webb, W. R. Sorley and others, was first developed through the impulse of F. H. Jacobi's criticism of the pantheistic, atheistic and nihilistic consequences of Enlightenment rationalism, and subsequently through the main systems of post-Kantian idealism developed in Germany in the first years of the nineteenth century by Schelling, by some mainly ‘right-wing’ Hegelians, by the so-called ‘speculative theists’ and others. Although this current seems to have already, at least indirectly, inspired S. T. Coleridge's criticism of pantheism, on which Illingworth also drew, it was mainly in R. H. Lotze's form that it reached Britain, and provided intellectual guidance and inspiration for those who saw in British absolute idealism as well as in naturalism new threats to the status of the individual person, to the truths of religion and morality, and to freedom. Illingworth, J.R. (1898). Divine Immanence: An Essay on the Spiritual Significance of Matter. London: Macmillan and Co. Hoskins, Richard (1999). "Social and Transcendent: The Trinitarian Theology of John Richardson Illingworth Re‐Examined". International Journal of Systematic Theology. 1 (2): 185–202. doi: 10.1111/1463-1652.00013. ISSN 1468-2400. Avis, Paul (1989). "The Atonement". In Wainwright, Geoffrey (ed.). Keeping the Faith: Essays to Mark the Centenary of Lux Mundi. London. p.137. {{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link) Cited in Young 1992, p.7.

As in the broader current of personal idealism, a realistic element was introduced by the understanding of ultimate reality as individual persons in reciprocal relations, and also by a stronger emphasis on the independent reality of external nature, yet in its retention of the concept of the Absolute, and in its epistemology, its ethics, and its aesthetics, Illingworth's philosophy is clearly idealistic in a broader sense. The religious significance of matter and nature as revealing the presence of divine Spirit, as well as of the indwelling of God in man, were especially emphasized in Illingworth's early works, but in these he already rejected pure immanence and pantheism: ‘Spirit which is merely immanent in matter, without also transcending it, cannot be spirit at all; it is only another aspect of matter, having neither self-identity nor freedom.’ Pantheism ‘is merely materialism grown sentimental’ ( Divine Immanence, p. 69). In Divine Transcendence he turned against R. J. Campbell's radical immanentism and sentimentalism in The New Theology (1907). Noting the increasingly pantheistic use of the term ‘divine immanence’, which threatened moral freedom and blurred the distinction between good and evil, Illingworth regretted his earlier use, in Lux Mundi, of the expression ‘higher pantheism’, and, following Coleridge and the older criticism of pantheism, argued that without the notion of transcendence, ‘we can no longer distinguish between God and the universe except as different aspects of one and the same thing … they are only different ways of describing the same reality, which may equally well be called nature or God’ ( Divine Transcendence, pp. 68–9). Elaborating on such criticism, Illingworth argued, in a way that anticipates the later theological reaction against liberal idealism, that God is ‘our infinite and absolute Other. He is all that we are not’ ( Divine Transcendence, p. 16), and that the whole significance of ‘God's indwelling presence or immanence within us … depends upon the fact that God is our eternal Other, and not our self’ ( Divine Transcendence, p. 17). Illingworth was critical of mysticism for its obliteration of the distinction between God and man. ‘Man at the centre of his being is not God, but is capable of receiving God ( capax deitatis), while, as the result of that reception, his own individuality, his own “peculiar difference” is not pantheistically obliterated, but divinely intensified’ ( Divine Transcendence, p. 18) But he still insisted that both transcendence and immanence were necessary, as correlative conceptions guarding against undue confusion and separation respectively. Scales voiced the speaking ("cawing") role of Magpie, the eponymous thief in a 2003 recording of Gioachino Rossini's opera La gazza ladra ( The Thieving Magpie). The International Who's Who of Women 2002, 3rd edition, ed. Elizabeth Sleeman, Europa Publications, 2000 In 1900, Illingworth was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity (DD) degree by the University of Edinburgh. [16] [17] Career [ edit ] St Mary's Church, Longworth Illingworth, J.R. (1902). Reason & Revelation: An Essay in Christian Apology. London: Macmillan and Co.Great Canal Journeys: how a bittersweet boating show captured viewers' hearts". The Guardian. 21 October 2019. Scales's husband first noticed that she was having minor difficulties when she was performing in a play in 2001. She was eventually diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2014. The diagnosis did not prevent her from taking part in Great Canal Journeys, in which she and her husband spoke openly about her illness. [30] Her declining health led the couple to leave the series in 2019. [31] Interviewed for the BBC in 2023, soon after celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary, West said, with reference to Scales's dementia: "Somehow we have coped with it and Pru doesn't really think about it." [30] Honours [ edit ] Illingworth, J.R. (1894). Personality, Human and Divine: Being the Bampton Lectures for the Year 1894. London: Macmillan and Co. Illingworth's thought underwent little development. Most of the major themes in his philosophy are introduced in his first major work, the Bampton Lectures on Personality Human and Divine (1894), and his subsequent books, Divine Immanence (1898), Reason and Revelation (1901), Christian Character (1904), The Doctrine of the Trinity (1907), Divine Transcendence (1911) and The Gospel Miracles (1915), restate, expand or refine the basic arguments with only minor modifications and shifts of emphasis. The most important of the latter are the greater stress on divine transcendence and, with the experience of the First World War, on the reality of sin and evil.

Heritage, Stuart (7 November 2016). " 'It's like glimpsing an old couple holding hands': why I adore Great Canal Journeys". The Guardian . Retrieved 4 December 2016. From 1872 to 1883, Illingworth was a Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College, Oxford, and a Tutor of Keble College, Oxford. [18] He was ordained in the Church of England as a deacon in 1875 and as a priest in 1876. [19] From 1883 until his death, he was Rector of St Mary's Church, Longworth in the Diocese of Oxford. [18] He was also a Select Preacher of the University of Oxford from 1882 to 1891 and of the University of Cambridge from 1884 to 1895. [18] In 1894, he gave the Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford; the series was titled "Personality, Human and Divine". [20] He was made an honorary canon of Christ Church, Oxford, on 6 February 1905. [21] Personal life [ edit ] Illingworth, J.R. (1894). Personality, Human and Divine: Being the Bampton Lectures for the Year 1894. London: Macmillan and Co . Retrieved 12 October 2018.

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Illingworth, Agnes Louisa, ed. (1917). The Life and Work of John Richardson Illingworth. London: John Murray . Retrieved 12 October 2018. Scales was born in Sutton Abinger, Surrey, the daughter of Catherine ( née Scales), an actress, and John Richardson Illingworth, a cotton salesman. [4] [5] Scales had a younger brother, Timothy "Timmo" Illingworth (1934–2017). [6] Ransom, Teresa (2005). Prunella: The Authorised Biography of Prunella Scales. London, UK: John Murray. p.237. ISBN 9780719556975. From 1997 to 2002 Scales was president of CPRE, at that time known as the Council for the Protection of Rural England. [29] Vascular dementia [ edit ]