Charles E. Raven

Charles Earle Raven (4 July 1885 – 8 July 1964) was an English theologian, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and Master of Christ's College, Cambridge.His works have been influential in the history of science publishing on the positive effects that theology has had upon modern science.

Raven was born in Paddington, London. Raven was educated at Uppingham School. He obtained an open classical scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, after graduation he was lecturer in divinity, fellow and dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 1932, he was elected Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, a position he held until 1950. He was Master of Christ's College, Cambridge (1939-1950).

During the First World War he served as a chaplain to the forces and what he witnessed led him to take a pacifist position, a subject which again he wrote on extensively for the rest of his life. As a pacifist, he was an active supporter of the Peace Pledge Union and the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

He married Margaret Ermyntrude Buchanan Wollaston in 1910, they had four children. Raven was the father of John Raven, the classical scholar and botanist, and grandfather of Andrew Raven and Sarah Raven. He won the James Tait Black Award in 1947 for his book English Naturalists from Neckam to Ray.

He was a clergyman in the Church of England and attained the rank of canon. He was the Gifford Lecturer for 1950–1952 in Natural Religion and Christian Theology, Edinburgh University.

Some of writings have been described as an early example of ecotheology.

Raven was an advocate of non-Darwinian evolutionary theories such as Lamarckism. He also supported the theistic evolution of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Historian Peter J. Bowler has written that Raven's book The Creator Spirit, "outlined the case for a nonmaterialistic biology as the foundation for a renewed natural theology."