Theology

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Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective.[1] It has been commonly defined as reasoned discourse concerning the existence of one or more gods, or more generally about religion or spirituality. It can be contrasted with religious studies, which is the study of religion from a secular perspective. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument (philosophical, ethnographic, historical) to help understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote any of myriad religious topics. It might be undertaken to help the theologian:

  • understand more truly his or her own religious tradition,[2]
  • understand more truly another religious tradition,[3]
  • make comparisons between religious traditions,[4]
  • defend or justify a religious tradition,
  • facilitate reform of a particular tradition,[5]
  • assist in the propagation of a religious tradition,[6] or
  • draw on the resources of a tradition to address some present situation or need,[7] or for a variety of other reasons.

The word 'theology' has classical Greek origins. The term was first used by Plato in The Republic (book ii, chap 18), and is compounded from two Greek words theos (god) and logos (rational utterance). It was gradually given new senses when it was taken up in both Greek and Latin forms by Christian authors. It is the subsequent history of the term in Christian contexts, particularly in the Latin West, that lies behind most contemporary usage, but the term can now be used to speak of reasoned discourse within and about a variety of different religious traditions.[8] Various aspects both of the process by which the discipline of ‘theology’ emerged in Christianity and the process by which the term was extended to other religions are highly controversial.

Contents

[edit] History of the term

See the main article on the History of theology, particularly for the history of Jewish, Christian and Islamic theology.

The word theology comes from late middle English (originally applying only to Christianity) from French théologie, from Latin theologia, from Greek: θεολογία, theologia, from θεός, theos or God + λόγος or logos, "words", "sayings," or "discourse" ( + suffix ια, ia, "state of", "property of", "place of"). The Greek word is literally translated as "to talk about God" from Θεός (Theos) which is God and logy which derives from logos, though this raises the question of the meaning of the word "God".[9] The meaning of the word "theologia"/"theology" shifted, however, as it was used (first in Greek and then in Latin) in European Christian thought in the Patristic period, the Middle Ages and Enlightenment, before being taken up more widely.

Averroes, like many important Muslims who wrote about God, was a writer on Islamic theology or "Kalam". His school of Averroism had a significant influence on Christian theology.
  • The term θεολογια theologia is used in Classical Greek literature, with the meaning "discourse on the gods or cosmology".[10]
  • Aristotle divided theoretical philosophy into mathematike, physike and theologike, with the latter corresponding roughly to metaphysics, which for Aristotle included discussion of the nature of the divine.[11]
  • Drawing on Greek sources, the Latin writer Varro influentially distinguished three forms of such discourse: 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).[12]
  • Christian writers, working within the Hellenistic mould, began to use the term to describe their studies. It appears once in some biblical manuscripts, in the heading to the book of Revelation: apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy, "the revelation of John the theologos". There, however, the word refers not to John the "theologian" in the modern English sense of the word but - using a slightly different sense of the root logos meaning not "rational discourse" but "word" or "message" - one who speaks the words of God, logoi toy theoy.[13]
  • Other Christian writers used this term with several different ranges of meaning.
    • Some Latin authors, such as Tertullian and Augustine followed Varro's threefold usage, described above.[14]
    • In patristic Greek sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout and inspired knowledge of, and teaching about, the essential nature of God.[15]
    • In some medieval Greek and Latin sources, theologia (in the sense of "an account or record of the ways of God") could refer simply to the Bible.[16]
    • 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 which 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).[17]
  • It is the last of these senses (theology as the rational study of the teachings of a religion or of several religions) that lies behind most modern uses (though the second - theology as a discussion specifically of a religion's or several religions' teachings about God - is also found in some academic and ecclesiastical contexts; see the article on Theology Proper).
  • 'Theology' can also now be used in a derived sense to mean 'a system of theoretical principles; an (impractical or rigid) ideology'.[18]

[edit] Religions other than Christianity

In academic theological circles, there is some debate as to whether theology is an activity peculiar to the Christian religion, such that the word 'theology' should be reserved for Christian theology, and other words used to name analogous discourses within other religious traditions.[19] It is seen by some to be a term only appropriate to the study of religions that worship a deity (a theos), and to presuppose belief in the ability to speak and reason about this deity (in logia) - and so to be less appropriate in religious contexts which are organized differently (religions without a deity, or which deny that such subjects can be studied logically). (Hierology has been proposed as an alternative, more generic term.)[citation needed]

[edit] Analogous discourses

  • Some academic inquiries within Buddhism, dedicated to the rational investigation of a Buddhist understanding of the world, prefer the designation Buddhist philosophy to the term Buddhist theology, since Buddhism lacks the same conception of a theos. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of 'theology' is appropriate, can only do so, he says, because 'I take theology not to be restricted to discourse on God…. I take "theology" not to be restricted to its etymological meaning. In that latter sense, Buddhism is of course atheological, rejecting as it does the notion of God.'[20]
  • Islamic theological discussion which parallels Christian theological discussion is named "Kalam"; the Islamic analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be the investigation and elaboration of Islamic law, or "Fiqh". 'Kalam ... does not hold the leading place in Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for "theology" in the Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several di