Revd Dr Alex Irving is a Tutor and Senior Lecturer in Historical and Systematic Theology at St Mellitus College. Before joining SMC, Alex served a curacy in the Diocese of Norwich, during which time he was also a visiting lecturer at the London School of Theology, at which he also served as a member of the board of governors. Alex is married to Sophia and they have two young children, Rachael and Teddy. He is currently working within the doctrine of God, specifically with respect to the eternal generation of the Son and also with respect to Thomas F. Torrance.

Books

• The Receptivity of the Eternal Son: Diving Generation and the Incarnation (Forthcoming. London: T&T Clark, 2027)

• Act and Being: The Dynamism of God in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance (Forthcoming. London: T&T Clark, 2027)

• (ed.),The Doctrine of the Incarnation Opened: An Abridgement of the Christological Sermons of Edward Irving. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2021.

• We Believe: Exploring the Nicene Faith. Nottingham: Apollos, 2022.

• God, Freedom and the Body of Christ: Toward a Theology of the Church (Wipf and Stock/Cascade, forthcoming, 2020).

• T.F. Torrance’s Reconstruction of Natural Theology: Christ and Cognition (Lexington, 2019).

Selected Journal Articles

• ‘ἐκένωσεν as Self-Abasing Receptivity: Philippians 2.6-8 and Re-orientating “Ontological Receptivity”’. Under review, Journal of Theological Interpretation.

• ‘Critical Systems Theory, Systemic Psychotherapy and the Social Graces: Attending to Developments in Safeguarding Within the Church of England’. International Journal for Public Theology, 19.4 (2026) 

• ‘Torrance’s Reconstructed Natural Theology and the Reconciliation of the Mind in the Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ’, Evangelical Quarterly, 96.2 (2025), 133-151 

•A Critical Assessment of Bruce L. McCormack's Christological Proposal', Scottish Journal of Theology 77.2 (2024), 149-162

• ‘One Word, Many Wordings: The Inspiration of Scripture in its Christological and Pneumatological Dimension of Depth’, Expository Times, 2019.

• ‘“Grant me Grace”: Alternative Visions for Vernacular Theology and Lay Devotion in Richard Caister and Nicholas Love’, Evangelical Quarterly, 90.2 (2019), 142-163.

• ‘The Eucharist and the Church in the Thought of Henri de Lubac and Rowan Williams: Sacramental Ecclesiology and the Place of the Church in the World’, Anglican Theological Review. 100.2 (2018), 267-290.

• ‘The Motherhood of the Church in Henri de Lubac and John Calvin’, International Journal for the Study of the Church, 18.2 (2018), 1-19.

• ‘The Nature and Purpose of Reason in Christian Theology: The 1952 Exchange between Thomas F. Torrance and Brand Blanshard’, Theology in Scotland, 25.1 (2018), 19-34.

• ‘The Hypostatic Union as Normative over the Relation of God’s Self-Revelation and Human Cognition in the Thought of T.F. Torrance’, Irish Theological Quarterly , 83.2 (2018), 1-19.

• ‘Fr. Georges Florovksy and T.F. Torrance on the Doctrine of Creation’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 61.3 (2017) 301-322.

• ‘Does the Epistemological Relevance of the Spirit Constitute the End for Natural Theology? A Response to Paul Molnar in Dialogue with T.F. Torrance’, Trinity Journal, 38 (2017), 225-245.

• The Person of Jesus Christ as the Normative Basis for the Doctrine of Creation: Re-Envisioning T.F. Torrance’s Christocentric Doctrine of Creation’, Evangelical Quarterly 88.4 (2017), 349-366.

Entries in Reference Volumes

• ‘T.F. Torrance’ in Dictionary of Christian Apologetics and Their Critics, ed. R. Stewart and D. Geivett (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming, 2020).

Selected Book Reviews

• ‘Review of Time and Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures, by Ephraim Radner’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 21.2 (2019), 225-228.

• ‘Review of Rationality as Virtue: Towards a Philosophical Theology by Lydia Schumacher’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 19.2 (2017), 220-223.

• ‘Review of Thomas F. Torrance and the Church Fathers: A Reformed, Evangelical and Ecumenical Reconstruction of the Patristic Tradition, by Jason Robert Radcliffe’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 61.2 (2017), 239-246.

Chapters in Edited Collections

• ‘Christology in New Testament Research’, in C. Tilling and D. Sumner (eds.), The T&T Clark Handbook of Christology. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2025.

• ‘Reorientating “Ontological Receptivity”: Grounding the Son’s Receptivity to the Human Jesus on Passive Generation’, in M. Grebe et al (eds.), Nicene Trinitarianism: Historical Analysis, Theological , London: T&T Clark, 2025.

• 'Nature and Grace in the Context of Christological Objectivism' in T. Noble and J. Sexton (eds.), Who is Jesus Christ for Us Today? Evangelical Christology Seventeen Centuries after Nicaea, London: Routledge, forthcoming, 2026

• DPhil, The University of Oxford (2017) MTh, The London School of Theology (2014)

• Dogmatic Theology
• Church
• Christology
• Creeds
• Creation