Rashdall, Hastings

(1858–1924)

   Philosopher and Theologian.

   Rashdall was educated at the University of Oxford, where he subsequently taught. He was a Canon of Hereford from 1909 to 1917 and he became Dean of Carlisle in 1917. Among his books was the important Theory of Good and Evil in which he tried to steer a middle course between idealist and utilitarian theories of ethics. He is also remembered for his Idea of the Atonement in which, like abelard, he explained Jesus’s death as an example of faithful obedience rather than as a means of penal substitution. Determinedly rational, he was Vice-President of the Modern Churchman’s Union and he was highly critical of any form of mystical theology.

   P.E. Matheson, Hastings Rashdall (1928).