The problems covered in the paper are inspired by the significant anniversary of one of the oldest higher educational institutions in Russia — Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University, which can be used as an example to trace the dramatic relationship between theology and science in the pre-revolutionary period of our history. Kazan Imperial University was an unusual educational institution in every sense of the word. In addition to purely educational and scientific, other functions were assigned to it. It still has a special mission today. This is a very difficult topic, and each historical epoch has offered its own answers to the interrelation of different worldviews. Relatively recently, theology and science were perceived as opposite, mutually exclusive cognitive systems. The authors look at the problem somewhat differently. Perhaps for the first time in Russian jurisprudence, teleology and theology are considered as sense-making factors in the development of law. And not by themselves, but in some connection. We are fully aware of the responsibility for such a statement of the issue. Nevertheless, the intellectual history of mankind provides certain grounds for such an unusual point of view for our science.