Den teologiske andre

En normkritisk läsning av svensk religionsvetenskap och universitetsteologi

Abstract

Religious Studies has a history of distancing itself from theology with the claim of being descriptive and theologically neutral. University theology, with reference here to Mårten Björk's recent article, on its part dis­tances itself against confessional theology. A norm-critical reading of these two claims makes clear that they are not substantiated. With Ingemar Hedenius as a starting point, it becomes clear that he assumes a particular view of "faith" as not entailing any extra type of knowledge, while this would be contested by theologians such as Augustine and Duns Scotus. What an awareness of the theological debates about faith and reason shows is that theological claims of the relationship between nature and supernature precedes the choice of method in Religious Studies and confessionally informed theology of ministry is used to defend a "two-room" solution between confessional and university theology.