The history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the
history of such institutions themselves. For instance: •
Taxila was an early centre of
Vedic learning, possible from the 6th-century BC or earlier; • the
Platonic Academy founded in Athens in the 4th-century BC seems to have included theological themes in its subject matter; • the Chinese
Taixue delivered
Confucian teaching from the 2nd century BC; • the
School of Nisibis was a centre of Christian learning from the 4th century AD; •
Nalanda in India was a site of Buddhist higher learning from at least the 5th or 6th century AD; as was
Al-Azhar University in Cairo. The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the
Latin Church by
papal bull as
studia generalia and perhaps from
cathedral schools. It is possible, however, that the development of cathedral schools into universities was quite rare, with the
University of Paris being an exception. Later they were also founded by kings (
University of Naples Federico II,
Charles University in Prague,
Jagiellonian University in Kraków) or by municipal administrations (
University of Cologne,
University of Erfurt). In the
early medieval period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools, usually when these schools were deemed to have become primarily sites of higher education. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries. Christian theological learning was, therefore, a component in these institutions, as was the study of church or
canon law: universities played an important role in training people for ecclesiastical offices, in helping the church pursue the clarification and defence of its teaching, and in supporting the legal rights of the church over against secular rulers. At such universities, theological study was initially closely tied to the life of faith and of the church: it fed, and was fed by, practices of
preaching,
prayer and celebration of the
Mass. Many of the first European universities, such as the
University of Paris (established c. 1150), the
University of Oxford (c. 1096), and the
University of Bologna (1088), were founded primarily to educate clergy and focused initially on theological studies, with faculties in philosophy, law, and medicine developing later. Theology was traditionally regarded as the "queen of the sciences", with philosophy often described as its "handmaiden" due to its guiding role in the search for ultimate truth. During the High Middle Ages, theology was the ultimate subject at universities, being named "The Queen of the Sciences". It served as the capstone to the
Trivium and
Quadrivium that young men were expected to study. This meant that the other subjects (including
philosophy) existed primarily to help with theological thought. In this context, medieval theology in the Christian West could subsume fields of study which would later become more self-sufficient, such as
metaphysics (Aristotle's "
first philosophy", or
ontology (the science of being). Christian theology's preeminent place in the university started to come under challenge during the European
Enlightenment, especially in Germany. Other subjects gained in independence and prestige, and questions were raised about the place of a discipline that seemed to involve a commitment to the authority of particular religious traditions in institutions that were increasingly understood to be devoted to independent reason. Since the early 19th century, various different approaches have emerged in the West to theology as an academic discipline. Much of the debate concerning theology's place in the university or within a general higher education curriculum centres on whether theology's methods are appropriately theoretical and (broadly speaking) scientific or, on the other hand, whether theology requires a pre-commitment of faith by its practitioners, and whether such a commitment conflicts with academic freedom.
Ministerial training In some contexts, theology has been held to belong in institutions of higher education primarily as a form of professional training for Christian ministry. This was the basis on which
Friedrich Schleiermacher, a liberal theologian, argued for the inclusion of theology in the new
University of Berlin in 1810. In the United States, several prominent colleges and universities were started in order to train Christian ministers.
Harvard,
Georgetown,
Boston University,
Yale,
Duke University, and
Princeton all had the theological training of clergy as a primary purpose at their foundation. Seminaries and bible colleges have continued this alliance between the academic study of theology and training for Christian ministry. There are, for instance, numerous prominent examples in the United States, including
Phoenix Seminary,
Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, The
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley,
Criswell College in Dallas, The
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois,
Dallas Theological Seminary, North Texas Collegiate Institute in Farmers Branch, Texas, and the
Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri. The only
Judeo-Christian seminary for theology is the 'Idaho Messianic Bible Seminary' which is part of the Jewish University of Colorado in
Denver.
As an academic discipline in its own right In some contexts, scholars pursue theology as an academic discipline without formal affiliation to any particular church (though members of staff may well have affiliations to churches), and without focussing on ministerial training. This applies, for instance, to the Department of Theological Studies at
Concordia University in
Canada, and to many university departments in the
United Kingdom, including the Faculty of Divinity at the
University of Cambridge, the Department of Theology and Religion at the
University of Exeter, and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the
University of Leeds. Traditional academic prizes, such as the
University of Aberdeen's
Lumsden and Sachs Fellowship, tend to acknowledge performance in theology (or
divinity as it is known at Aberdeen) and in religious studies.
Religious studies In some contemporary contexts, a distinction is made between theology, which is seen as involving some level of commitment to the claims of the religious tradition being studied, and
religious studies, which by contrast is normally seen as requiring that the question of the truth or falsehood of the religious traditions studied be kept outside its field. Religious studies involves the study of historical or contemporary practices or of those traditions' ideas using intellectual tools and frameworks that are not themselves specifically tied to any religious tradition and that are normally understood to be neutral or secular. In contexts where 'religious studies' in this sense is the focus, the primary forms of study are likely to include: •
Anthropology of religion •
Comparative religion •
History of religions •
Philosophy of religion •
Psychology of religion •
Sociology of religion Sometimes, theology and religious studies are seen as being in tension, and at other times, they are held to coexist without serious tension. Occasionally it is denied that there is as clear a boundary between them. == Criticism ==