 Welcome to this new course. This is the first part of a two-part course with the rather grand title of history and eschatology. This course derives from and builds on my book of that title, History and Eschatology, which was the longer published version of my Gifford lectures, which were given in the University of Aberdeen in the spring of 2018. The subject of the Gifford lectures is natural theology, which brings into focus the question of whether it's possible to come to a true knowledge of God through the study of the natural world. Within this field, the question of Jesus is regularly bracketed out as being special revelation, which would skew the results of a supposedly neutral observation. This course aims to bring this debate to a manageable level. We will explore the various assumptions that we've all inherited about the way the world is, the way God and the world might relate to one another, why we think the way we easily do. And once we've done that, we will go further and see what happens when we bring Jesus back into the picture of the natural world, where he really belongs. Along the way, we will touch on various themes, including the philosophies and worldviews that have influenced us, not least the idea of progress. We will focus especially on the importance of history for Christians. Jesus was, after all, a flesh and blood human being dwelling in the world of space and time. It's a non-negotiable part of wise Christian living that we understand him in this way, so that we can see what Jesus' first followers meant when they saw him as the climax of history itself. I'm very much looking forward to studying and learning with you.