Education
Wiles was educated at the Tonbridge School in Kent, and worked at Bletchley Park during World World War World War II He then studied at Christ"s College, Cambridge, and Ridley Hall.
Wiles was educated at the Tonbridge School in Kent, and worked at Bletchley Park during World World War World War II He then studied at Christ"s College, Cambridge, and Ridley Hall.
He was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford for 21 years, from 1970 to 1991. After ordination he spent two years as curate at Street George"s, Stockport, but then returned to Ridley Hall as chaplain. From 1955 to 1959 he was a lecturer in New Testament Studies at Ibadan, Nigeria.
He again returned to Cambridge as dean of Clare College and university lecturer in early Christian doctrine.
In his work God"s Action in the World, he discusses the notion of a world that is consistent with Christian theology and the laws of nature. In doing so Wiles rejects the possibility that God directly intervenes in the world and therefore rejects the existence of miracles.
Wiles accepts God as the sole creator of the world, yet believes he does not intervene in the world for a number of reasons. He believed we should not see God as playing an "active role" but instead hold the belief that God created the world as he wanted in its entirety:
"the world as a whole a single act of God."
Therefore, God would not undermine the natural laws that he created by intervening in the world.
Wiles also argued that an omnibenevolent God would not perform such trivial miracles as those which are normally observed:
"..even so it would seem strange that no miraculous intervention prevented Auschwitz or Hiroshima, while the purposes apparently forwarded by some of the miracles acclaimed in traditional Christian faith seem trivial by comparison."
Wiles concluded that either God acts arbitrarily (and is therefore not worthy of worship) or that he does not intervene at all.
Prayer, for instance, still has purpose but should not be understood as causing God to take action. Instead it should be a way of enabling a group or individual to connect with God"s will:
Likewise, the miracles of the Bible need not be rejected. "The Making of Christian Doctrine" was a critical look at whether early doctrinal affirmations could remain valid when the framework of their intellectual background had shifted.
Additionally, he served as editor of volumes 34–38 of the Studia Patristica, the official publication of the Oxford International Conference on Patristic Studies.