Home / People / Dr. Perry Hildreth Dr. Perry Hildreth Professor of Philosophy Education PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological SeminaryMDiv, Southwestern Baptist Theological SeminaryBA, Gardner-Webb University Classes Taught Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Logic, Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology Biography T. Perry Hildreth is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy at Gardner-Webb. Dr. Hildreth returned to his alma mater in 2006 after serving for 11 years at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. While at Palm Beach Atlantic University, Dr. Hildreth taught philosophy, religion and humanities, served in a variety of administrative capacities, and made many lifelong friends of faculty colleagues and students. At Gardner-Webb, Dr. Hildreth teaches many general education courses in religion as well Introduction to Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion and other philosophy courses in the undergraduate program in Religious Studies and Philosophy. Dr. Hildreth received his Ph.D. in 1995 from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He wrote his dissertation in the area of Religious Epistemology. While preparing to write his dissertation, Dr. Hildreth also studied Epistemology and Moral Philosophy at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Hildreth also holds degrees from Southwestern Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas (1988), and Gardner-Webb University (1984). Dr. Hildreth is a Christian layperson who has a strong interest in the philosophical foundations of Christian higher education and the intellectual life of the Church. He is an advocate of Liberal Arts learning as essential to a free society and to a free church and believes that Liberal Arts education can best achieve its ends within a Christian context. Dr. Hildreth is also interested in the religious dimensions to the question of epistemology and the erosive effects of technological innovation on contemporary communities and the Church. As a Christian professor, Dr. Hildreth is committed to challenging students to a deepening understanding of the fundamental questions of human existence, appropriating the wisdom of the past in answering these questions, the unique answers to these questions given by Christian faith, and the responsibility of the individual to God, Church and community. Among Dr. Hildreth’s favorite classic philosophical writing are Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, and Augustine’s Confessions.
