Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity and the history behind religion. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology; moreover, it asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation, which pertains to the acceptance of deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and to reveal themselves to humankind.
Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument (experiential, philosophical, ethnographic, historical, and others) to help understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote any myriad of religious topics. As in philosophy of ethics and case law, arguments often assume the existence of previously resolved questions, and develop by making analogies from them to draw new inferences in new situations.
The study of theology may help a theologian more deeply understand their own religious tradition,See, e.g., Migliore, Daniel L. 2004. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (2nd ed.) Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. another religious tradition,See, e.g., Kogan, Michael S. 1995. "Toward a Jewish Theology of Christianity." Journal of Ecumenical Studies 32(1):89–106. Archived from the online on 15 June 2006. or it may enable them to explore the nature of divinity without reference to any specific tradition. Theology may be used to propagate,See, e.g., Dormor, Duncan, et al., eds. 2003. Anglicanism, the Answer to Modernity. London: Continuum. reform,See, e.g., Spong, John Shelby. 2001. Why Christianity Must Change or Die. New York: Harper Collins. or justify a religious tradition; or it may be used to compare,See, e.g., Burrell, David. 1994. Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. challenge (e.g. biblical criticism), or oppose (e.g. irreligion) a religious tradition or worldview. Theology might also help a theologian address some present situation or need through a religious tradition,See, e.g., Gorringe, Timothy. 2004. Crime, (Changing Society and the Churches Series). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. or to explore possible ways of interpreting the world.See e.g., Anne Hunt Overzee's gloss upon the view of Ricœur (1913–2005) as to the role and work of 'theologian': "Paul Ricœur speaks of the theologian as a hermeneut, whose task is to interpret the multivalent, rich metaphors arising from the symbolic bases of tradition so that the symbols may 'speak' once again to our existential situation."
Overzee, Anne Hunt. 1992. The Body Divine: The Symbol of the Body in the Works of Teilhard de Chardin and Ramanuja , (Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . Retrieved 5 April 2010. p. 4.
Etymology
The term "theology" derives from the Greek theologia (θεολογία), a combination of theos (Θεός, 'god') and logia (λογία, 'utterances, sayings, oracles')—the latter word relating to Greek logos (λόγος, 'word, discourse, account, reasoning').The accusative plural of the neuter noun λόγιον; cf. Bauer, Walter, William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker. 1979. A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 476.
For examples of λόγια in the New Testament, cf. Acts 7:38; Romans 3:2; 1 Peter 4:11.Scouteris, Constantine B. 2016. Ἡ ἔννοια τῶν ὅρων 'Θεολογία', 'Θεολογεῖν', 'Θεολόγος', ἐν τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ τῶν Ἑλλήνων Πατέρων καί Ἐκκλησιαστικῶν συγγραφέων μέχρι καί τῶν Καππαδοκῶν [The Meaning of the Terms 'Theology', 'to Theologize' and 'Theologian' in the Teaching of the Greek Fathers up to and Including the Cappadocians] (in Greek). Athens. pp. 187. The term would pass on to Latin as , then French as , eventually becoming the English theology.
Through several variants (e.g., theologie, teologye), the English theology had evolved into its current form by 1362.Langland, Piers Plowman A ix 136 The sense that the word has in English depends in large part on the sense that the Latin and Greek equivalents had acquired in patristic and medieval Christian usage although the English term has now spread beyond Christian contexts.
Classical philosophy Greek () was used with the meaning 'discourse on God' around 380 BC by Plato in The Republic.
Plato develops his rational theology (natural theology) in Book 10 of the Laws. In the dialogue, he opposes atheism and argues that the heavenly bodies are moved by the divine souls of the gods and their intelligence (nous). He also maintains that these gods care for humans and aim for the good of the universe as a whole.
Aristotle divided theoretical philosophy into mathematike, physike, and theologike, with the latter corresponding roughly to metaphysics, which, for Aristotle, included discourse on the nature of the divine.Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Epsilon.
Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of such discourse:Augustine, City of God VI , ch. 5.
mythical, concerning the myths of the Greek gods; rational, philosophical analysis of the gods and of cosmology; and civil, concerning the rites and duties of public religious observance.
Later usage Some Latin Christian authors, such as Tertullian and Augustine, followed Varro's threefold usage.Tertullian, Ad Nationes II , ch. 1. However, Augustine also defined theologia as "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity".Augustine of Hippo. City of God Book VIII. i.. : "de divinitate rationem sive sermonem."
The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of academic study, dealing with the motionless, incorporeal reality; as opposed to physica, which deals with corporeal, moving realities. Boethius' definition influenced medieval Latin usage.Evans, G. R. 1980. Old Arts and New Theology: The Beginnings of Theology as an Academic Discipline. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 31–32.
In patristic Greek Christian sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout and/or inspired knowledge of and teaching about the essential nature of God.McGukin, John. 2001. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. p. 278:
Gregory of Nazianzus uses the word in this sense in his 4th-century Theological Orations . After his death, he was called "the Theologian" at the Council of Chalcedon and thereafter in Eastern Orthodoxy either because his Orations were seen as crucial examples of this kind of theology or in the sense that he was (like the author of the Book of Revelation) seen as one who was an inspired preacher of the words of God. (It is unlikely to mean, as claimed in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers introduction to his Theological Orations, that he was a defender of the divinity of Christ the Word.)
In scholastic Latin sources, the term came to denote the rational study of the doctrines of the Christian religion, or (more precisely) the academic discipline that investigated the coherence and implications of the language and claims of the Bible and of the theological tradition (the latter often as represented in Peter Lombard's Sentences, a book of extracts from the Church Fathers).
In the Renaissance, especially with Florentine Platonist apologists of Dante's poetics, the distinction between 'poetic theology' (theologia poetica) and 'revealed' or Biblical theology serves as stepping stone for a revival of philosophy as independent of theological authority.
It is in the last sense, theology as an academic discipline involving rational study of Christian teaching, that the term passed into English in the 14th century,"Theology." Oxford English Dictionary. note. although it could also be used in the narrower sense found in Boethius and the Greek patristic authors, to mean rational study of the essential nature of God, a discourse now sometimes called theology proper.See, e.g., Hodge, Charles. 1871. Systematic Theology 1, part 1.
From the 17th century onwards, the term theology began to be used to refer to the study of religious ideas and teachings that are not specifically Christian or correlated with Christianity (e.g., in the term natural theology, which denoted theology based on reasoning from natural facts independent of specifically Christian revelation)Oxford English Dictionary, sense 1 or that are specific to another religion (such as below).
Theology can also be used in a derived sense to mean "a system of theoretical principles; an (impractical or rigid) ideology"."Theology, 1(d)" and "Theological, A.3." Oxford English Dictionary. 1989.Times Literary Supplement 329/4. 5 June 1959: "The 'theological' approach to Soviet Marxism...proves in the long run unsatisfactory."
In religion The term theology has been deemed by some as only appropriate to the study of religions that worship a supposed deity (a theos), i.e. more widely than monotheism; and presuppose a belief in the ability to speak and reason about this deity (in logia). They suggest the term is less appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently (i.e., religions without a single deity, or that deny that such subjects can be studied logically). Hierology has been proposed, by such people as Eugène Goblet d'Alviella (1908), as an alternative, more generic term.Jones, Alan H. 1983. Independence and Exegesis: The Study of Early Christianity in the Work of Alfred Loisy (1857–1940), Charles Guignebert (1857 [i.e. 1867]–1939), and Maurice Goguel (1880–1955). Mohr Siebeck. p. 194.
Abrahamic religions
Judaism
In Jewish theology, the historical absence of political authority after the destruction of the Second Temple has meant that most theological reflection has happened within the context of the Jewish community and synagogue, including through rabbinical discussion of Jewish law and Midrash (rabbinic biblical commentaries). Jewish theology is also linked to ethics, as it is the case with theology in other religions, and therefore has implications for how one behaves.Libenson, Dan and Lex Rofeberg, hosts. 5 October 2018. "God and Gender – Rachel Adler ." Ep. 138 in Judaism Unbound (podcast).
Christianity
As defined by Thomas Aquinas, theology is constituted by a triple aspect: what is taught by God, teaches of God, and leads to God (). This indicates the three distinct areas of God as theophanic revelation, the systematic study of the nature of divine and, more generally, of religious belief, and the spiritual path. Christian theology as the study of Christian belief and practice concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and the New Testament as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theology might be undertaken to help the theologian better understand Christian tenets, to make comparisons between Christianity and other traditions, to defend Christianity against objections and criticism, to facilitate reforms in the Christian church, to assist in the propagation of Christianity, to draw on the resources of the Christian tradition to address some present situation or need, or for a variety of other reasons.
Islam
Islamic theological discussion that parallels Christian theological discussion is called Kalam; the Islamic analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be the investigation and elaboration of Sharia or Fiqh.Gardet, L. 1999. "Ilm al-kalam ." The Encyclopedia of Islam, edited by P. J. Bearman, et al. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV.
Some Universities in Germany established departments of islamic theology (e.g., the ).
Dharmic religions
Buddhism