Theology Not Religious Studies Neo-Calvinism’s Defence of the Queen of Sciences’ Apparent Subjectivity

Abstract

Modern universities often dismiss theology as unscientific because it begins from faith and revelation rather than neutral, publicly verifiable facts. This essay examines how the Neo-Calvinists Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck answered the same charge during late nineteenth-century Dutch debates spurred by the 1876 Higher Education Act, which pushed state universities toward “religious studies” instead of theology. The Neo-Calvinists defend theology’s academic status with three arguments: (1) all science is metaphysically biased, (2) theology’s objective revelation is available to all, and (3) the alternative religious studies is incoherence.