Theology

Speaking of God

The word theologia joins two Greek words, theos (θεός), God, and logos, word or speech: literally, speaking about God. The word itself is not in the Bible, but what it names is what the whole Bible calls us to.

Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.

John 17:3

Augustine draws the conclusion: "if the knowledge of God is life eternal, the more advance we make in this knowledge, the more we make in life eternal" Augustine. Theology does not invent stories about God; it listens to what God has made known (see revelation) and sets it in order. So it goes as far as God has spoken and stops there: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us" (Deuteronomy 29:29). In the eleventh century Anselm called this work ‘faith seeking understanding’ Anselm, Proslogion: not an unbeliever weighing evidence in order to pass judgment on God, but a believer seeking to grasp more deeply what God has given.

That means theology is not only for pastors and professors. Peter tells every Christian to "be prepared to give a defense to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15). Anyone who thinks about God is already doing theology; the question is whether we do it truly. Paul warns that "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up" (1 Corinthians 8:1), and after the deep argument of Romans 9–11 he ends not with a formula but with praise: "O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Romans 11:33). Good theology ends in worship.

How the church has done it

Gregory of Nazianzus, who preached on the Trinity in fourth-century Constantinople, is remembered in the Eastern church as ‘the Theologian’. Theology became a university discipline in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and Thomas Aquinas described sacred doctrine as a science grounded on what God has revealed Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. The Westminster Shorter Catechism names the two great subjects Scripture teaches, which are also the two great subjects of theology:

The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 3

Today theology is usually divided into several branches: biblical theology, which follows the parts and story of Scripture; systematic theology, which gathers the whole Bible's teaching by topic; historical theology, which studies how the church has thought; and practical theology, which serves preaching, worship and pastoral care.

Where the traditions differ

Each tradition has its own emphasis. Catholic theology, following Aquinas, stresses the harmony of faith and reason and is done within the church's teaching office. The Orthodox never separate theology from prayer and worship; an old monastic saying, handed down from the fourth century, calls the theologian one who prays truly. The churches of the Reformation take Scripture as the final norm of all theology, using tradition, reason and experience under it. In the nineteenth century Friedrich Schleiermacher treated doctrine as the description of the pious consciousness Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, opening the way for modern liberal theology; evangelical theology holds that theology must begin not from human religious experience but from God's word. See also the lessons What is theology? and The sources of theology.