Maurice Wiles

Maurice Frank Wiles, FBA (17 October 1923 – 3 June 2005) was an Anglican priest and academic. He was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford from 1970 to 1991.

Life and academic career Wiles was educated at the Tonbridge School in Kent. He was awarded a scholarship at Christ's College, Cambridge, but his studies were interrupted by the war. He and his brother, Christopher John Wiles (1919–2014), were sent early in February 1942 to learn Japanese and cryptography at the secret Bedford Japanese School run by Captain Oswald Tuck RN. Both of them did well on the course and were posted to Bletchley Park. After a year in the Japanese Military Attaché section, Maurice became joint chief translator in the Japanese Forces section, while Christopher became chief translator in the Japanese military attaché section. After the war he returned to Christ's College and then continued his studies at Ridley Hall.

After ordination in 1950 he spent two years as curate at St George's, Stockport, but then returned to Ridley Hall as chaplain. From 1955 to 1959 he was a lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He again returned to Cambridge as dean of Clare College and university lecturer in early Christian doctrine. Before moving to Oxford as Regius Professor of Divinity he spent three years from 1967 to 1970 as professor of Christian doctrine at King's College London.

Therefore, God would not undermine the natural laws that he created by intervening in the world. Wiles also argued that an omnibenevolent God would not perform such trivial miracles as those which are normally observed: A short critical study of his thought was published in 1987 by the Dutch theologian Gerard Rothuizen (1925–88).

The Journal of Theological Studies In 1986, Wiles succeeded Henry Chadwick as editor of The Journal of Theological Studies. He edited the journal along with the biblical scholar Morna Hooker. Wiles's editorship concluded with the centenary issue of the journal, published in October 1999, to which he contributed an article charting the journal's origins and history.

Family His father was Sir Harold Herbert Wiles, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and National Service. Maurice Wiles was husband to Patricia Wiles. He was the father of the mathematician Sir Andrew Wiles, who is also a Regius Professor at the University of Oxford, of Mathematics.

Books by Maurice Wiles The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church (1960) The Christian Fathers (1966) The Making of Christian Doctrine: A Study in the Principles of Early Doctrinal Development (1967) The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St Paul's Epistles in the Early Church (1967) Providence (editor) (1969) The Remaking of Christian Doctrine (1974) Documents in Early Christian Thought (with Mark Santer) (1975) Working Papers in Doctrine (1976) (collected papers) What is Theology? (1976) The Myth of God Incarnate (1977) (contributor) Explorations in Theology 4 (1979) (collected papers) Faith and the Mystery of God (1982) God's Action in the World (1986) Christian Theology and Inter-religious Dialogue (1992) A Shared Search: Doing Theology in Conversation with One's Friends (1994) (collected papers) Archetypal Heresy: Arianism through the Centuries (1996) Reason to Believe (1999) Studia Patristica: Papers presented at the Thirteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford in 1999 [= Studia Patristica vols. 34–8] (edited, with E. J. Yarnold and P. M. Parvis) Scholarship and Faith: a Tale of Two Grandfathers (2003)