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Paul Stuart Fiddes, DD (born 30 April 1947) is a British Baptist theologian. He is Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Oxford and was formerly Principal of Regent's Park College and Chairman of the Theology Faculty. He has been described as 'the leading British Baptist theologian of his generation', 'one of the leading contemporary Baptist theologians', 'one of the leading scholars of theology and literature writing today', and 'one of the world's leading theologians'. His book The Creative Suffering of God is 'considered to be one of the major contributions to theology in the last decades of the 20th century'.

Fiddes has written nine books, around eighty articles, and more than twenty-five book chapters (in addition to five articles in reference books), he has edited six books, and he has jointly authored four books and jointly edited two. His work is published by some of the world's leading publishers, including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, University of Wales Press, Mercer University Press, Sheffield Academic Press, Blackwell, Ashgate, Springer, Liturgical Press, Paternoster, Eerdmans, SPCK, SCM, DLT, and Marshall Pickering.

One of Fiddes's most important works, Past Event and Present Salvation: the Christian Idea of Atonement (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1989), was recently studied in Eamonn Mulcahy, The Cause of Our Salvation: Soteriological Causality according to some Modern British Theologians, 1988-98 (Tesi Gregoriana Serie Teologia 140, Roma: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2007), alongside Colin Gunton, The Actuality of Atonement: a Study of Metaphor, Rationality and the Christian Tradition (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), Vernon White, Atonement and Incarnation: an essay in Universalism and Particularity (Cambridge University Press, 1991), and John McIntyre, The Shape of Soteriology: Studies in the Doctrine of the Death of Christ (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1992).

Fiddes was educated at Drayton Manor Grammar School. In 1965 he went up to St Peter's College, Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He quickly changed his course and ended up with a Triple First in English Language and Literature and Theology. The relationship between these disciplines has formed a major part of his subsequent scholarship. He then embarked on a doctoral thesis entitled The hiddenness of wisdom in the Old Testament and later Judaism, which he completed in 1976, before spending a year at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen undertaking post-doctoral studies with Jürgen Moltmann and Eberhard Jüngel.

Meanwhile, Fiddes had studied at Regent's Park College (the Baptist Permanent Private Hall at Oxford) for ordination as a minister in the Baptist Union of Great Britain. In 1977 he returned to Regent's Park as Fellow and Tutor in Christian Doctrine and from 1979-85 he was additionally Lecturer in Theology at St Peter's. He has been a member of the Oxford Theology Faculty Board since 1989, serving as Chairman 1996-98. He was appointed Principal of Regent's Park in 1989 and Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Oxford in 2002. In 2007 he resigned the Principalship of Regent's Park and was appointed Principal Emeritus, Professorial Research Fellow, and Director of Research.

In 2004 Fiddes was elected an Honorary Fellow of St Peter's, on which occasion he was described as being 'recognised internationally as one of the leading scholars in the fields of theology and literature'.

Later in that year, he was awarded the degree of [[Doctor of Divinity]], the highest that the [[University of Oxford|University]] confers. In 2002 he was chosen to preach the University ''Sermon on the Grace of Humility'', and in 2005 he was appointed to deliver the [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] [[Bampton Lectures]], choosing as his topic ''Seeing the world and knowing God: ancient wisdom and modern doctrine''. In 2004 he became an Honorary Doctor of Divinity of the [[University of Bucharest]]. He is also a Trustee Fellow of [[Georgetown College (Kentucky)|Georgetown College]].

Fiddes is a member of the editorial board of Ecclesiology: The Journal for Ministry, Mission and Unity, a consultant editor for Studies in Baptist History and Thought, published by Paternoster Press, and a series editor of New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies (Ashgate). He is General Editor of the Regent's Study Guides series, published jointly by the college and the American publisher Smyth & Helwys.

Fiddes has served as a member of ecumenical study commissions for the British Council of Churches and its successor Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Chairman of the Doctrine and Worship Committee of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Convenor of the Division for Theology and Education of the European Baptist Federation, Vice Chair of the Baptist Doctrine and Inter-Church Cooperation Study Commission of the Baptist World Alliance. A committed ecumenist, Fiddes was Co-Chair of the Anglican Communion-Baptist World Alliance International Conversations from 2000 until 2005 and is, together with the Most Reverend Dr Arthur J. Serratelli, Co-Moderator of the second series of Roman Catholic-Baptist World Alliance International Conversations (Second Series 2006-10). He has been quoted in The Tablet saying, "There was a general agreement that Baptists need to think about Mary and honour her more"; "Baptists give supremacy to Scripture. But we've found the same thing affirmed by the Catholics around the table. There are huge amounts of Scripture in Catholic liturgy, maybe more than in Baptist services. In the UK we feel close to Catholics - partly because we're both dissenters." Finally, Fiddes is also an Ecumenical Representative to the General Synod of the Church of England.

Current Regent's Master of Theology student Andy Goodliff, BA MA London, reports that Fiddes has at least four scholarly projects on which he is working: first, the preparation of his Bampton Lectures for publication; secondly, a commentary on Paul's letter to the Romans (for Blackwell Bible Commentaries); thirdly, a book on Shakespeare and theology; fourthly, a book on systematic theology with literary aspects. In 2009 [not, as erroneously stated elsewhere on the internet, 2008] he delivered the Holley-Hull Lectures at Samford University on the subject Telling the Christian Story in Our World Today (for a full report see Sean Flynt, 'Self and God: Elusive Subjects in Modern Literature: Fiddes', Samford University Seasons (Winter 2009), p. 20). In 2009 he delivered the Nordenhaug Lectures at the International Baptist Theological Seminary of the European Baptist Federation in Prague on the subject "Post Modernity and Wisdom". These lectures will be prepared for future publication. (Previous Nordenhaug Lecturers include Miroslav Volf, Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, I. Howard Marshall, Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of Aberdeen, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, Jürgen Moltmann, Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Tübingen.) In 2010 (7—9 July) Fiddes was Main Speaker at the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools/Australian and New Zealand Society for Theological Studies, on 'The Future of God', at Trinity College . At the same time he also spoke, as a keynote speaker, at the Melbourne College of Divinity Centenary Conference (5—7 July). Fiddes will be a keynote speaker at 'The Power of the Word: Poetry, Theology and Life', a conference held jointly between Heythrop College and the Institute of English Studies. Fiddes is also going to be a keynote speaker at the 2010 Biennial Conference of the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture, St Catherine's College, Oxford (23—26 September 2010) on the topic 'Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice'.

Fiddes is married and has two sons, one of whom, Benjamin, died tragically in 1998. His book The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) is dedicated thus: 'Dedicated to my son Benjamin 1978-1998' (p. v).

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