Education
Ph.D., Princeton University
Rel. M., Claremont School of Theology
B.A., Yale University
Professor Michalson specializes in religious thought in the West from the Enlightenment to the present. He previously served as the College’s president, following fifteen years on the faculty at Oberlin College. Among his publications are four books on such thinkers as Immanuel Kant, G.E. Lessing, and Søren Kierkegaard. He was the American consulting editor of the recently published Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought.
Recent Courses
Kant’s Religious Thought
First Year Seminar: Modern Christian Theology
First Year Seminar: Varieties of Religious Existentialism
Human Freedom in Modern Christian Thought
Selected Publications
Books
(ed.), Kant’s Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014
Kant and the Problem of God. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
Fallen Freedom: Kant on Radical Evil and Moral Regeneration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Lessing’s “Ugly Ditch”: A Study of Theology and History. University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985.
The Historical Dimensions of a Rationale Faith: the Role of History in Kant’s Religious Thought. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1977.
Edited Book
American Consulting Editor, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993.
Selected Articles
“In Defense of Not Defending Kant’s Religion,” Faith and Philosophy 2, April, 2012
“Kant, the Bible, and the Recovery from Radical Evil,” in Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik (eds.), KANT’S ANATOMY OF EVIL Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010
“Re-reading the Post-Kantian Tradition with Milbank,” JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS 32 (June, 2004)
“Immanuel Kant,” THE ROUTLEDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PROTESTANTISM (New York: Routledge, 2004).
“God and Kant’s Ethical Commonwealth,” THE THOMIST 65 (2001).
“Lessing,” THE ABINGDON DICTIONARY OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999).
“The Problem of Salvation in Kant’s RELIGION WITHIN THE LIMITS OF REASON ALONE,” INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 37 (1997).
“Cartesianism,” THE BLACKWELL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993).
“Faith and History,” THE BLACKWELL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993).
“Kierkegaard’s Debt to Lessing: Reply to Whisenant,” MODERN THEOLOGY 6 (1990).
“Moral Regeneration and Divine Aid in Kant,” RELIGIOUS STUDIES 25 (1989).
“The Response to Lindbeck,” MODERN THEOLOGY 4 (1988).
“The Inscrutability of Moral Evil in Kant,” THE THOMIST 51 (1987).
“The Non-Moral Element in Kant’s Moral Proof of the Existence of God,” SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY 39 (1986).
“Faith and History: The Shape of the Problem,” MODERN THEOLOGY 1 (1985).
“Theology, Historical Knowledge, and the Contingency-Necessity Distinction,”INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 14 (1983).
“Pannenberg on the Resurrection and Historical Method,” SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY 33 (1980).
“Lessing, Kierkegaard, and the ‘Ugly Ditch’: A Re-examination,” JOURNAL OF RELIGION 59 (1979).
“The Role of History in Kant’s Religious Thought,” ANGLICAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW 59 (1977).
“The Impossibility of Religious Progress in Kant,” in PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION AND THEOLOGY: 1976, ed. P. Slater (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976).
“Bultmann’s Metaphysical Dualism,” RELIGION IN LIFE 44 (1975).