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My father, the Rev Nick Earle, who has died aged 87, was a gifted mathematician and passionate theologian whose mind was endlessly exercised by both mathemathics and profound questions of human nature and destiny.
Born in Salford to John Earle, a lawyer, and Vivian, Nick was educated at Winchester college and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained first-class degrees in mathematics and theology. After training for ordination, he served as a curate in Bristol, New York and Whitechapel, east London. At Union Theological Seminary in New York he demonstrated a lifelong openness to new intellectual trends by studying Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Then, at St Botolph's Aldgate, where he was lecturer in theology, he wrote Stories for Children's Services (1958) and What's Wrong With the Church? (1961), the latter "a dispassionate survey of the cracks in the fabric".
Nick's writing thereafter reflected his move into teaching. While head of computer studies at Dulwich college, south-east London, where he also taught maths and divinity, he wrote Culture and Creed (1967), a study of human beliefs aimed at sixth-formers and undergraduates. He also developed, with his students' help, a computer programme that correctly predicted the winner of the Grand National. During his 14-year tenure as headmaster of Bromsgrove school, in Worcestershire, where he introduced new sports facilities, boarding houses and girls, Nick wrote Logic (1973), for maths undergraduates.
In retirement he taught philosophy at James Allen's girls' school, in south-east London, and wrote Does God Make Sense? (1998) for A-level students of philosophy. Finally, at the age of 80, he wrote Now and Then, Christian Commonplace (2007), a series of reflections on philosophy and Christianity. Nick continued his work as a priest, preacher and pastor, and was known as an eloquent speaker, a skill he put to use at Speakers' Corner and on Radio 4's Thought for the Day.
He resigned holy orders in the early 1990s in protest at the "flying bishops" for parishes that refused to accept women priests. But he did not resign from the church and was a regular member of St Faith's, north Dulwich, until he died.
Even with dementia at the end of his life, Nick could quote large chunks of Lewis Carroll and Gilbert and Sullivan, and discuss with vigour his beloved Dickens and St Augustine.
He is survived by his wife, Ann, his children, Titus, Charlotte and me, and three grandchildren.
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