In Stirling, he established the Religious Studies department and recruited John Drane and the late Glyn Richards to work alongside him in this enterprise.

Following his involvement in the establishment of the Age Concern Institute of Gerontology at King's College London, he was invited by the incoming Blair government in 1997 to chair a Royal Commission on Long-Term Care of Older People.

Influenced by his intellectual mentor, Donald M. MacKinnon, Sutherland's approach has brought the clarity and rigour of the Anglo-American tradition of analytic philosophy into conversation with literary and philosophical thinkers on the European continent.

In Atheism and the Rejection of God: Contemporary Philosophy and "The Brothers Karamazov" (1977) and Faith and Ambiguity (1984), he explored continental thinkers including Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Camus and Weil.

He further promoted his field of study in two influential edited volumes, The Philosophical Frontiers of Christian Theology: Essays Presented to D. M. MacKinnon (with Brian Hebblethwaite), (1982) and Religion, Reason and the Self (with T A Roberts), (1989).

[9] A bronze bust of Lord Sutherland, by Vincent Butler, stands at the head of the stair to the Playfair Library in Old College, University of Edinburgh.