The roots of the Faculty of Theology extend back to before the founding of the university. Until the nineteenth century, it was not only the most important but also the largest faculty. Invoking this tradition nevertheless failed to help it avert a gradual loss of significance. Soon it found itself in a struggle to survive at all, nearly leading by the early twentieth century to its dissolution.

When the Council of Basel was called into being in 1432, it was accompanied by the establishment of a university in the city. The focus was on theological education, which was formally continued with the founding of the Faculty of Theology in 1460. It is therefore not surprising that theology saw the largest influx of students at the university’s opening. The faculty maintained its strong position even during the tumultuous times of the Reformation, when not just theology, but the very existence of the entire university was at stake.

Basel theology during the Reformation
The continued existence of the university – and thus of theology within the institution – was championed especially by the Basel theology professor and reformer Johannes Oekolampad (1482–1531). His services to the city’s institution of higher learning earned him the recognition of his academic peers and an honorable mention in the matriculation book for the Faculty of Theology: “The distinguished man Johannes Oekolampad represented the Faculty of Theology almost for three years while the university slumbered, as it were, for some time, sparing no effort to help reorganize the academy and restore its former glory.”

That theology deserved the highest rank among the faculties remained undisputed at the post-Reformation university – officially noted, even, in the university statutes of 1539: “since theology is the highest and foremost profession in the university, indeed since it is also the true means through which we are offered the salvation of our souls ... ”

In the aftermath of the Reformation, the faculty enjoyed relatively more ample resources than other faculties, though it remained modest in size. The statues of 1540 stipulated that the faculty would consist of all doctors of theology practicing in Basel. For critical tasks such as examinations, the faculty additionally called upon the four leading pastors of the city – from the cathedral, St. Peter’s, St. Leonhard’s, and St. Theodor’s.

Separation from the church and the transition to the “rational theology” of the Enlightenment
The seventeenth century witnessed an increasing divide between the city’s clergy and academic theology. The reliance on city pastors diminished until 1647, when the introduction of a third professorship in dogmatics and controversies (“loci communes et controversiae”) expanded the faculty’s teaching capabilities. The gradual dissolution of the tight bond between the church and theology at the university was further highlighted in 1737 when the role of the antistes, the leader of the city’s Reformed Church, was separated from a university position in the faculty.

This separation led to a more pronounced inclusion of Enlightenment ideas in the academic sphere. A key role was played in the eighteenth century by “rational theology,” closely linked to Samuel Werenfels (1657–1740), a theology professor who also served as rector. Werenfels attempted to counter the rationalist critique of the Enlightenment by doctrinally simplifying traditional confessional Christianity and anchoring it in universal moral truths. 

His aim was to align Christian traditions with the principles of reason. Moving away from old Reformed beliefs was unavoidable – at times with results that went far beyond the initial intentions, with perfectibility, rather than predestination, at the forefront of doctrine. In keeping with the Enlightenment’s belief in progress, there was a return to the ancient teaching that human beings possessed an inherently good core, which every person should develop over their lifetime. Moral questions about which way of life to choose became more prominent, with the academic focus shifting from dogmatics to ethics.

The reconciliation of faith and rational belief was part of the wider European context of the eighteenth century and its rationalism. The major dogmatic themes not only gave way to demonstrating the rationality of the main Christian dogmas but also to more detailed studies following historical-philological methods. Prominent representatives of the new “rational orthodoxy” in Basel were Werenfels’s students Johann Ludwig Frey (1682–1759), appointed full professor for the Old Testament in 1737, and Johannes Grynaeus (1705–1744), full professor for loci communes and controversiae theologicae since 1738 and for the New Testament since 1740.

Today, the Frey-Grynaeische Institute in Basel, a foundation with an extensive scholarly library headed by a theologian as lecturer, commemorates the two professors and friends. The foundation, which owns works from the very beginnings of book printing, was established by Frey in 1747 in memory of his prematurely deceased friend.

Theology and positivist scientific culture
The nineteenth century also saw innovations within theology itself. The influence of the Enlightenment’s philosophical rationalism gradually gave way to the positivist thinking of the natural and historical sciences; and this shift favored a liberal Protestant theology that placed high value not only on reason but also on empirical evidence.

These European developments were nevertheless adopted quite late in Basel. Even when the University Act of 1866 provided for not three but five academic chairs in philosophy, none of the initial four professors holding positions represented a reformist direction. This outcome motivated the Association for Church Reform to submit a petition in 1867 to Basel’s Lesser Council, critically addressing the faculty’s one-sided focus. The primary demand was for a more rigorously scientific approach, similar to what had already taken root in Bern and Zurich. The debate leveraged not only international standards but also local conditions: one key argument was the evidence that Basel’s antiquated doctrinal tradition was now clearly opposed to the form of faith prevalent among large segments of the population, marked by openness to natural scientific knowledge. Basel authorities responded positively to this appeal; there was concern that the university would become increasingly isolated and lose its students if this new orientation were not represented in the city. In appointing a fifth professor, however, the government resisted pressure from the association in appointing Franz Overbeck from Jena, in 1870, who had hitherto been known primarily for his historical-critical research. Within a year, Overbeck was promoted from extraordinary professor to full professor for New Testament exegesis and early church history.

The reformers soon saw their fears confirmed, as Overbeck made no efforts to meet their expectations. Instead, in his 1873 publication Ueber die Christlichkeit unserer heutigen Theologie (On the Christianity of our present theology), he sharply criticized liberal Protestantism and fundamentally questioned the possibility of reconciling Christianity with modernity. This put him at odds with his role as an academic teacher and educator of prospective pastors, which is particularly evident in his Selbstbekenntnissen (Self-confessions): “I did not teach what I believed, that is, what I wished to teach, but what I considered appropriate, that is, what I deemed my so-called duty.”

A loss of significance and threat of closure
Criticism of theology came not only from within the discipline, however, but also from external detractors. The rise of empiricism on one hand and the development of secular natural law on the other deprived theology of its previously unquestioned academic preeminence. Public interest in theological controversies significantly waned compared to the fervor seen in the previous century, and neither the emerging field of political science nor mathematical-scientific thought could be fully integrated or subordinated by theology in Basel, pushing the field increasingly into a defensive position.

Despite the considerable role the faculty had played in preserving the university over the years, this history did not guarantee perpetual support from the city. When student numbers markedly declined in the last third of the nineteenth century, the faculty – its still considerable resources notwithstanding – quickly came to be viewed as outdated and archaic. By 1899, theology had finally become the smallest faculty. Although it experienced growth in the subsequent decades, it did so at a pace that was significantly slower and less steady than any other faculty.

The threat of closure first emerged in 1914, just before the onset of the First World War. The “Assault on the Theological Faculty,” as it was called at the time, was initiated by the city’s Board of Education itself. The council called on the Department of Education of the Canton of Basel-City to evaluate whether chairs dedicated to a particular theological direction should be eliminated and the subject of theology replaced with religious studies. The theologians initially managed to deflect this move, and the matter was temporarily put on hold with the war’s outbreak.

Nonetheless, the initiative was revisited after the end of the war. Since 1925, the existence of the faculty was questioned by both the Grand Council and a broader public audience. 

Political unrest once again put the debates on hold, as the rise of the Third Reich and its campaign against the church not only led to widespread solidarity with the Faculty of Theology but also strengthened it internally. A final motion to dissolve the faculty was rejected in the Grand Council in 1936 by seventy to forty-four votes. Karl Barth, who began his academic teaching in Basel at the end of October 1935, notably contributed to the internal resistance against Nazism and the consolidation of the church and faculty.

The impact of Karl Barth
Karl Barth (1886–1968) was appointed to a position in Basel as a prominent critic of liberal Protestantism, marking the second such appointment after Franz Overbeck. Barth chiefly focused during the thirty-three years from his appointment until his death on two main activities. On one hand, his ten hours of weekly teaching duties demanded increasingly more preparation as he aged. On the other hand, the ““virtually oceanic production” of his Kirchliche Dogmatik (Church Dogmatics) increasingly made the publication a “jealous competitor for all other endeavors.”

Barth’s contributions to printed publications, aside from his unfinished twelve-volume Dogmatics, remain impressive; the sheer volume of his legacy is overwhelming. It is not only what he wrote and how much, but the way in which he did so, from word choice to sentence structure, that has secured him a special place among twentieth-century scholars. For his distinctive and prominently individual style, Barth was awarded the Sigmund Freud Prize for Scientific Prose in 1968, the year of his death.

The reach of Barth’s influence matched the thematic breadth of his work. He mentored significant students at the university, such Helmut Gollwitzer, who later taught at the Free University of Berlin, and actively participated in community life with Sunday sermons in Basel churches and his former parish in Safenwil, Aargau. Above all, he left behind writings that continue to garner attention well beyond theological circles.

Challenges to tradition
After Karl Barth’s tenure, the Faculty of Theology in Basel enjoyed high esteem. Yet the need to prove itself resurfaced in the following decades, and resting on a grand tradition proved insufficient. Confronted with an increasingly complex cultural and religious environment along with an associated decline in student numbers, the faculty was compelled to forge new paths. One such path was the transformation of the chair for New Testament and early church history into a chair for religious studies, signifying an expansion of the curriculum to include a nontheological subject and closer cooperation with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.