To date there have been over fifty series of Gifford Lectures delivered in the University of St Andrews. As well providing the occasion for some of the finest thinkers of their times to set out their ideas on questions of philosophy, theology, ethics, culture and science, and on the connections between these, the lectures have provided an occasion for staff and students from different disciples to gather and meet together with members of the general public.
The first series of Gifford Lectures to be delivered in the University of St Andrews was given in 1888-89 by Andrew Lang under the title The Making of Religion.
Lang was a Scot, born in Selkirk in 1844 where his father was Town clerk. He was educated at Selkirk grammar school, Edinburgh Academy and Balliol College, Oxford, where he subsequently became a fellow of Merton College.
He was well known in his own day for the breadth of his interests and the range of his talents. His literary output was considerable, as a journalist, poet, critic, historian, translator, and editor. Among his principal concerns, and those for which he now best known, were the fields of folklore, myth and the anthropology of religion.
His Gifford Lectures are largely concerned with the origins and development of religious ideas including those of soul and God. He also observes a deep connection between religion and ethics, writing that ‘Even in its rudest forms Religion was a moral force, the powers that man reveres were on the side of social order and moral law; and that the fear of the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of society.’
| 2019 | Mark Johnston | The Hard God: Ontotheology as an Antidote for Idolatry. |
| 2017 | Michael Rea | Though the Darkness hide Thee |
| 2015 | Linda Zagzebski | Exemplarist Virtue Theory |
| 2012 | Denis Alexander | Genes, Determinism and God |
| 2010 | Roger Scruton | The Face of God |
| 2007 | Sir Martin Rees | Cosmic Perspectives |
| 2002 | Peter van Inwagen | The Problem of Evil |
| 2000-01 | Stanley Hauerwas | The Grain of the Universe |
| 1998-99 | Robert Adams | God and Being |
| 1998-99 | Marilyn Adams | The Coherence of Christology |
| 1996-97 | Michael Dummett | Thought and Reality |
| 1994-95 | Nicholas Wolterstorff | Thomas Reid and the story of Epistemology |
| 1992-93 | Roger Penrose | Physical Reality |
| 1992-93 | Arthur Peacocke | Nature, God and Humanity |
| 1990-91 | Hilary Putnam | Renewing Philosophy |
| 1988-89 | Walter Burkert | Tracks of Biology |
| 1986-87 | Antony Flew | The Logic of Mortality |
| 1984-85 | Adolf Grunbaum | Psychoanalysis and Science |
| 1983-84 | John Macquarrie | In Search of Deity |
| 1982-83 | Donald Charlton | New Images of the Natural |
| 1980-81 | Gregory Vlastos | Socrates: Ironist / Philosopher |
| 1977-78 | David Stafford-Clark | Myth, Magic and Denial |
| 1975-77 | Reijer Hooykaas | Fact, Faith and Fiction in Science |
| 1973-73 | Alfred J. Ayer | The Central Questions of Philosophy |
| 1969-71 | William Thorpe | Animal Nature and Human Nature |
| 1967-69 | Robert Zaehner | Concordant Discord |
| 1964-66 | John Findlay | The Discipline and Transcendence of the Cave |
| 1962-64 | Henry Chadwick | Authority in the Early Church |
| 1960-62 | Steven Runciman | The Great Church in Captivity |
| 1958-60 | George Von Wright | Norm, Action and the Varieties of Goodness |
| 1956-58 | Vigo Demant | The Penumbra of Ethics |
| 1955-56 | Werner Heisenberg | Physics and Philosophy |
| 1953-55 | Charles Campbell | On Selfhood and Godhood |
| 1951-53 | Brand Blanshard | Reason, Belief and Goodness |
| 1949-50 | Herbert J. Paton | The Modern Predicament |
| 1948-49 | Alexander MacBeath | Experiments in Living |
| 1946-48 | Emil Brunner | Christianity and Civilisation |
| 1939-40 | Richard Kroner | The Primacy of Faith |
| 1938 | Joseph Bidez | Plato and the Orient |
| 1937-38 | William G. de Burgh | From Morality to Religion |
| 1936-37 | Werner Jaeger | Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers |
| 1935-36 | Herbert Henson | Christian Morality |
| 1930-32 | Robert R. Marret | Faith, Hope & Charity in Primitive Religion |
| 1929-30 | Charles Gore | The Philosophy of the Good Life |
| 1926-28 | Alfred Taylor | The Faith of a Moralist |
| 1924-25 | Lewis Farnell | The Attributes of God |
| 1921-22 | Conway L. Morgan | Emergent Evolution |
| 1919-20 | Lewis Farnell | Greek Hero Cults |
| 1917-19 | William Inge | The Philosophy of Plotinus |
| 1914-16 | John Thompson | The System of Animate Nature |
| 1911-13 | James Frazier | The Belief in Immortality |
| 1907-09 | James Ward | The Realm of Ends |
| 1902-04 | Richard Haldane | The Pathway to Reality |
| 1899-01 | Rodolfo Lanciani | New Tales of Old Rome |
| 1894-96 | Lewis Campbell | Religion in Greek Literature |
| 1890-02 | Edward Caird | The Evolution of Religion |
| 1889-90 | Andrew Lang | The Making of Religion |