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Hannes O. Alfven
Swedish cosmologist who, like Fred Hoyle, opposes the Big Bang theory partially because (in his view) it lends support to the idea of divine creation. Alfven's plasma cosmology theory holds that the universe started with uniform hydrogen plasma and eternally recycles energy. It is now generally accepted that this theory has little evidence supporting it and in fact conflicts with existing observations. Books include Worlds-Antiworlds: Antimatter in Cosmology.

E.J. Ambrose
Emeritus Professor of Cell Biology at the University of London and author of The Mirror of Creation.

Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/5-1274), called the Angelic Doctor, was the foremost Christian philosopher in history. Thomism, the school of thought built around his work, has attracted disciples from both different religions and no religion. Born to noble parents, he became a monk in the Dominican Order in 1243. He studied under Albert Magnus and taught at the University of Paris. Before he died at the age of fifty, he authored numerous works of philosophy and theology that came to some 8 million words. The Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles are his two most celebrated books. more on St. Thomas Aquinas

Werner Arber
Winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine for "the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics." Professor of Microbiology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Aristotle
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) studied under Plato in Athens. He was a tutor to Alexander the Great and started his own philosophical school in Athens. He is the author of influential works on logic, epistemology, ethics and metaphysics. He rejected materialist and spiritualist monism and believed in a divinity distinct from the world. As he saw it, God was Perfect Mind (nous), immaterial, eternal and good.

Alain Aspect
French quantum physicist whose 1982 experiments verified non-locality in quantum physics.

Augustine
St. Augustine (354-430) was the bishop of Hippo in North Africa. A doctor of the Church and prolific writer, he was one of the greatest Christian theologians. His classic works include City of God and Confessions. He wrote on the Genesis account of creation and is well-known for his defense of human freewill and the immateriality of the soul.

Avicenna
Avicenna (980-1037), Abdaallah Ibn Sina, known as "The Supreme Master," was the greatest of the Islamic thinkers. Born in Bukhara, Persia, he became physician and adviser to sultans and princes. His Canon of Medicine, written at the age of 21, was the best-known medical text in Europe and Asia for several centuries. He authored over a hundred works in medicine and philosophy that have inspired innumerable commentaries. His most important books in philosophy were The Healing (al-Shifa) and Demonstrations and Affirmations. He died in Hamadan in northern Persia. more on Ibn Sina or Avicenna

Alfred Ayer
Oxford philosopher. He introduced Logical Positivism to the English-speaking world with his Language, Truth and Logic in 1936. Ayer, who died in 1989, was an empiricist in the line of David Hume and is well known also for his The Problem of Knowledge. In later life, he admitted that Logical Positivism was misguided in its main theses.