Andrey Desnitsky: “In the current conditions, such a compromise solution is the best”

Biblical scholar, leading researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Andrei Desnitsky, commented for the SOVA Center on the decision to include theology in the list of scientific disciplines.

This decision was a kind of compromise result of a rather long struggle. The Russian Orthodox Church has long wanted to equate intra-church degrees in theology with scientific degrees in order to give some weight and significance to their own theological education. At the same time, it was planned that theology would be confessional, that is, divided into Orthodox, Islamic, Jewish and Buddhist (obviously, other religions would have to do without certified theologians). But this approach raised objections among many scientists, especially natural scientists, who feared that dissertations on the creation of the world in seven days would now be defended and that they would have the same status as works on the natural academic sciences.

In principle, if dissertations are defended and degrees are awarded in such a worldview discipline as philosophy, there is nothing strange in giving theology the same rights. This is the situation in many Western universities, but there it is the result of centuries of development, during which university theology was emancipated from religious institutions and became an independent platform for talking about God and man. I think our society sorely lacks such a platform, and it is quite compatible with science. For example, not long ago I happened to see a very interesting monograph dedicated to the religious views of the ancient Egyptians. It covered the section of history, but in essence it was quite theological, and in the understanding that has developed in the Western academic environment.

Perhaps, in our current conditions, such a compromise solution is the best.