David William Brown FRSE FBA (born 1 July 1948) is an Anglican priest and British scholar of philosophy, theology, religion, and the arts.

At Durham Cathedral he served as Canon Librarian and chaired several artistic projects involving stained glass, altar frontals, and painting.

[8] His period at Oxford was primarily concerned with philosophical theology, and during his tenure as Fellow and Chaplain he worked closely with his Oriel colleagues Basil Mitchell and Richard Swinburne, two successive Nolloth Professors of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion.

[10] Brown did not explicitly defend a kenotic model of the Incarnation in this volume, but his sympathetic treatment of kenosis here was much later developed into a full study and defense in Divine Humanity (2010/2011).

According to Brown, the "fundamental thesis" underlying all five volumes is that "both natural and revealed theology are in crisis, and that the only way out is to give proper attention to the cultural embeddedness of both.

The primarily analytic and empirical approach of The Divine Trinity was not totally abandoned, but has now been thoroughly integrated into a much deeper and richer context, one that more faithfully represents the genuine complexity of the Christian tradition and which is thus more fruitful in interpreting, assessing, and defending it.

"[17] A Scottish Episcopalian initially ordained in the Church of England, Brown belongs to the Anglo-Catholic tradition that developed out of the 19th century Oxford Movement, and has written studies of Anglican figures such as Joseph Butler,[18] John Henry Newman,[19] Edward Bouverie Pusey,[20] Austin Farrer,[21] and Michael Ramsey.

[22] Brown's perspective has been described as a "Critical Catholicism": "instead of seeking to go beyond (or around) 'secular' reason, it accepts native British empirical standards in both philosophy and history, does not object to metaphysics and natural theology in principle, sees special revelation as building upon general revelation, and rather than isolating Christian faith in a protected world of its own seeks to integrate it fully with what is known in other fields of human inquiry.