Aden Cotterill

Williams Papworth Research Fellow (Centre for the History of Philosophy)
BSci (Psychology) & BA (Philosophy) ANU, MA (Theology), MTh (Research)

Email: aden.cotterill@nd.edu.au

  • Biography

    Aden Cotterill is the Williams Papworth Research Fellow at the Centre for the History of Philosophy and a Lecturer in Theology at St Mark's National Theological Centre. He is completing a PhD in Christian Theology at the University of Cambridge, funded by a World Universities Ramsay Postgraduate Scholarship. He received a MA (Theology) and MTh (Research) from St Mark's, and undergraduate degrees in psychology and philosophy from the Australian National University.

    His thesis addresses questions of pluralism, doubt, and the church, in conversation with philosopher Charles Taylor and Czech theologian and priest Tomáš Halík. His work at the Centre for the History of Philosophy will focus on a project entitled Zeal: An Intellectual History.

  • Teaching areas

    • Systematic Theology
    • Contemporary Philosophy
    • Philosophical Theology

  • Research expertise and supervision

    • Systematic Theology
    • Theological Ethics
    • Philosophy of Religion
    • Charles Taylor
    • Tomáš Halík

  • Journal articles and proceedings

    • “Tomáš Halík: A Theology for the Post-Secular,” Theological Studies, February 2024.
    • “The Dialectics of Place and Pastoral Practice,” Ecclesiology, June 2023.
    • “Triadic Differences and Theological Coherence: Oliver O’Donovan's Reflections on Friendship as a Locus for Comparing Resurrection and Moral Order and Ethics as Theology,” Studies in Christian Ethics, March 22 2023.
    • “The voice of one crying out in the post-Soviet wilderness: Tomáš Halík on Putin's Russia and the invasion of Ukraine,” St Mark’s Review, 2022.
    • “The Christology of Jon Sobrino,” St Mark’s Review, 2020.

  • Conference papers

    The Nova Effect, Fragilization, and Neighbour-Love in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, Makarios: Love of Neighbor and Human Flourishing Conference, Rome, 2025 Pluralism and Fragilization: A Theological Diptych of Charles Taylor and Tomáš Halík, League of European Research Universities Conference on Theology, Heidelberg, 2024; Pluralistic Robust Realism: xamining Plurality in Charles Taylor to Construct a New Interreligious Paradigm, Eur

  • In the media

    • When Prayer is Bittersweet (Praying on Mother’s Day), The Gospel Coalition Australia, 2022
    • “When it comes to conspiracy theories, is Christianity part of the problem or part of the solution?,” ABC Religion & Ethics, 2020.

  • Professional affiliations

    • Charles Sturt University Adjunct Research Fellow
    • Member of Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum
    • Honorary PhD Scholar at the Woolf Institute