The Diogenes Allen (born 1932) is Professor Emeritus and former Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton Theological Seminary.[1] He is ordained by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and currently serves as Priest Associate at All Saints' Episcopal Church, Princeton, New Jersey. He holds courtesy membership as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) as well.
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Allen was the child of immigrant Greeks and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. His family was Greek Orthodox, but as there was no Greek Orthodox church nearby, the family joined fellow Greeks who attended an Episcopal church. A new Episcopal bishop, however, forbade them from doing so, meaning that the family attended only Orthodox services whenever a visiting Greek priest conducted them. During this time the young Allen was invited by a friend to visit a Presbyterian church and eventually he became a Presbyterian.
Allen graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1954, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and awarded the Sullivan Award for academic excellence and humanitarian work. He then began graduate study at Princeton University, but, after being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he matriculated to the Oxford University. There he studied philosophy and met his wife Jane, a fellow student and a sprinter.
After returning to America, Allen earned a Bachelor of Divinity at Yale Divinity School. He was ordained in what is now the Presbyterian Church (USA) and called to a pastorate in Windham, New Hampshire. Shortly thereafter he enrolled at Yale University Graduate School to study for a Ph.D. in philosophy, which was awarded in 1965.
Allen began his teaching career in 1964 at York University, Toronto. In 1967, Princeton Theological Seminary offered him the position of Associate Professor of Philosophy, which, though he was advised not to accept, he took. In 1974, he was appointed to a full Professorship there and in 1981 was named Stuart Professor of Philosophy. By the time of his retirement in 2002, he had served the faculty for thirty-five years and had become an authority on Gottfried Leibniz and an influential interpreter of Simone Weil and Søren Kierkegaard.
Allen's numerous awards include a Rockefeller Fellowship; a Canada Council Fellowship; research fellowships given by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada and the Center for Theological Inquiry; a Pew Evangelical Scholarship; and two John Templeton Foundation Awards for Best Courses in Science and Religion.
He is also the recipient of an Outstanding American Educator Award in 1974; a past member of the executive board of the Society of Christian Philosophers; a co-founder and member of the executive board of the American Weil Society; and a member of the board of directors of the Ecumenical Institute of Canada.