His uncle was the famous theologian Thomas F. Torrance, former Professor of Systematic Theology at New College, Edinburgh, who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1976.
His father, J.B. Torrance was professor at Aberdeen and wrote the influential Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace.
His cousin is Iain Torrance, former president of Princeton Theological Seminary, Pro-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen and Dean of the Chapel Royal in Scotland, and another former Moderator of the General Assembly.
He researches actively in the fields of Christology, the social implications of the doctrine of reconciliation, theological epistemology and theories of time.
He is widely published and respected in his field and now closely associated with the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of St Andrews.