Providence, RI -- Dr. David B. Hart, an internationally renowned Eastern Orthodox theologian, has been named Providence College's third Randall Professor. He is the first secular scholar to be named to the chair, following in the footsteps of distinguished theologians and authors Rev. Fergus Kerr, O.P. and Rev. Aidan Nichols, O.P.

Serving as the Randall Professor for the 2006-07 academic year, Hart primarily will teach seminars in the College's Liberal Arts Honors program and present public lectures in the fall and spring semesters during his appointment. He is teaching a seminar on Dostoevsky & Nietzsche in fall 2006 and will teach a seminar on nihilism in spring 2007.

Hart's first lecture, "Theology and Naturalism: A Response to Daniel Dennett's Evolutionary Critique of Religious Belief," will be held on Thursday, October 5, 2006 at 4 p.m. in the Ryan Family Concert Hall of the Smith Center for the Arts on campus.

Teaching theology at some of the country's most prestigious higher-education institutions, Hart has served at Loyola College in Baltimore, the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton University, the Duke Divinity School, the University of St. Thomas, and the University of Virginia.

Hart is the author of The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Eerdmans Press, 2003) and The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Eerdmans Press, 2005).  In addition, Hart has written dozens of articles, essays, and chapters for theological and related periodicals, including the theological journals Pro Ecclesia, Modern Theology, and First Things, and for The Wall Street Journal. He has served as the associate editor of Pro Ecclesia and is proficient in 10 languages, including English, Spanish, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

Graduating magna cum laude from the University of Maryland in 1986, Hart received a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary study (religion, classics, art, literature, and philosophy) and earned a master of philosophy degree in patristics, philosophical theology, systematics, and dogmatics from the Cambridge Divinity School at the University of Cambridge in 1989. He attained a Ph.D. in philosophical theology--with an emphasis on theology, ethics, and culture--from the University of Virginia in 1997.

The College's first endowed chair, the Rev. Robert Randall Distinguished Professorship in Christian Culture was established in 2002. It is named for Rev. Robert J. Randall '06Hon., a priest, educator, and scholar, who retired as associate professor of English in 2004 after nearly 30 years of teaching at Providence College.

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