Spring Term 2022 The Philosophy of Ray Billington

February 2022 - May 2022

Professor Ray Billington (1930-2012) was an inspirational philosophy teacher and advocate for living philosophy (the philosophy of experience).

The Guardian described Ray as ‘A maverick philosopher who fell in and out of love with God’. He was a Methodist minister for 19 years. He was expelled from church ministry after publication of The Christian Outsider (1971) in which he argued that a personal God did not exist, Jesus was not his son, and there is no after-life.  His other books include: Living Philosophy: An Introduction to moral thought (1988); East of Existentialism: The Tao of the West (1990); Understanding Eastern Philosophy (1997); and Religion Without God (2001).

After a period espousing materialism and existentialism, he went on to challenge the assumption that religion and atheism are incompatible. Drawing on his life-time’s study of Eastern philosophies, he explored the religious dimensions of the encounter with nature, other people, and the arts. He developed an understanding of religion which identifies the transcendental in our daily experience.

In a series of twelve sessions, we reflect on Ray Billington’s philosophy and its contemporary relevance.