The Relation between Theology and Religious Studies. In: ET-Studies (2017) (original) (raw)

On 24 February 2017, the ESCT held its Regional Symposium, this time on the " Relation between Theology and Religious Studies ". Hosted by the Portu-guese Catholic University in its Braga Regional Centre, the meeting gathered some 40 scholars from all over Europe and some local students. The event focused, on the one hand, on fundamental and epistemological aspects of Theology, Religious Studies and the relation between these two different but closely related academic areas, and, on the other hand, on a presentation of the European landscape of how this relation is currently developing in different geographical and linguistic areas. In the first session, Steffen Dix, a member of the " Centro de Investigação em Teologia e Estudos de Religião " (CITER:) of the Portuguese Catholic University, opened the Symposium with a " Summary of the Different Traditions of the Study of Religion ". It was an introductory presentation on the emergence of the scientific study of religion as an autonomous academic discipline. Its most remote roots can be found both in the Enlightenment and in the discovery of the " new world ". The first, followed by Romanticism and Protestant Liberal Theology, adopted a more philosophical approach to religion, while the second stimulated curiosity about new cultures and, therefore, about the different religions practised in them. In Kant we can see this shift from a theological to a philosophical hermeneutics of religion. In Herder, one of Kant's students, religion is seen at the base of human reason and, consequently, as a high expression of human nature. In Schleiermacher traces of this secularization of studies in religion can also be recognized, mainly by identifying religion with 'feeling' and with a " sense and taste for the Infinite ". The discovery of new cultures meant also the discovery of new religious expressions and of new religious texts. This fact promoted, for example, the development of a Science of Comparative Religion by Friedrich Max Müller, which for him should not be seen as a way of undermining Theology. The Study of Religion adopted, essentially, two perspectives: first, a phenomenological approach; and second, a philological approach