Theology
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Albert the Great, patron saint of
Roman Catholic Theologians
The term "theology" literally means the study of God, deriving from the
Greek word theos, meaning 'God', and the suffix -ology from
the Greek word logos meaning "the character of one who speaks or treats
of [a certain subject]", or simply "the study of a certain subject".
Saint Augustine defined theology as "reasoning or discussion concerning the
Deity."
[1]
Theologians
use various forms of analysis and argument (philosophical,
ethnographic,
historical,
spiritual and others) to help
understand,
explain, test,
critique, defend or promote any of myriad
religious topics, discussing such issues by applying reason and perception
to
dogma (divine or ecclesistical authority). 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]
among other things.
Main article:
History of theology
Theology
translates into English the
Greek θεολογία, theologia, from θεός, theos or
God + λόγος or
logos, "word," "discourse,"
or "reasoning"
( + abstract substantive suffix ια, ia), thence into Latin theologia,
French théologie, and late Middle English. θεολογια theologia is
used with the meaning "discourse on god" in the fourth century B.C. by
Plato in
The Republic, Book ii, Ch. 18.[8]
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.[9]
Drawing on Greek
Stoic sources, the
Latin writer
Varro 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).[10]
The composite word θεολογία,
theologia, can be literally translated as "talk about God or the divine" or
"about the Word of God"; further meanings were developed (in Greek, then Latin,
and after 1000 years in English) in European Christian thought in the
Patristic period, the
Middle Ages and
Enlightenment, and then taken up more widely.
The English translation "theology"
(Theologie, Teologye) evolved by 1362[11]
in an overwhelmingly Christian context: the Greek and Latin terms were
intensively used in developing Christian
dogma from the Greek language of the Bible, where each of the two
root-words, θεός, theos, (God)
and λόγος,
Logos, (the Word), separately is of fundamental Christian significance[12].
It is worth noting that the term
"theologian" is more properly applied to one who studies Christian theology, and
the less commonly used term "theologist" applies to a student who studies
comparative religion or many religious traditions. This latter term used to be
applied to an expert or student of polytheistic religion until the early
twentieth Century
[13].
By the seventeenth century Natural
Theology denoted theology based on reasoning from natural facts independent of
divine revelation.[14].
"Theology" can also now be used in
a derived sense to mean "a system of theoretical principles; an (impractical or
rigid) ideology."[15]
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Main article:
Christian theology
Christian writers, influenced by the
Hellenistic tradition, began to use the term theology to describe their
studies. Theologos, closely related to theologia, 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.[16]
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.[17]
- In
Patristic Greek sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout
and inspired knowledge of, and teaching about, the essential nature of God.[18]
- 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.[19]
- 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).[20]
- 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).
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.[21]
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 that are organized differently (religions without a deity, or
that deny that such subjects can be studied logically). ("Hierology"
has been proposed as an alternative, more generic term.[22])
- 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."[23]
- Within
Hindu philosophy, there is a solid and ancient tradition of philosophical
speculation on the nature of the universe, of God (termed "Brahman"
in some schools of Hindu thought) and of the
Atman (soul). The
Sanskrit word for the various schools of Hindu philosophy is
Darshana (meaning "view" or "viewpoint").
Vaishnava theology has been a subject of study for many devotees,
philosophers and scholars in
India for centuries, and in recent decades also has been taken on by a
number of academic institutions in Europe, such as the
Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and
Bhaktivedanta College.[24]
See also:
Krishnology
-
Islamic theological discussion that 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 disciplines, and to the usul
al-fiqh as much as to kalam." (L. Gardet)[25]
A number of
Muslim theologians, such as
Alkindus,
Alfarabi,
Avicenna (see
Avicennism) and
Averroes (see
Averroism), have influenced the development of Christian theology
significantly.[citation
needed]
- In
Judaism, the historical absence of political authority has meant that most
theological reflection has happened within the context of the Jewish community
and
synagogue, rather than within specialized academic institutions.
Nevertheless, Jewish theology historically has been very active and highly
significant for Christian and Islamic theology. It is sometimes claimed,
however, that the Jewish analogue of Christian theological discussion would
more properly be
Rabbinical discussion of
Jewish law and
Jewish Biblical commentaries.[26]
The history of the study of
theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the
history of such institutions themselves. For example,
Taxila was an early centre of Vedic learning, possible from the 6th century
BC or earlier;[27]
the
Platonic Academy founded in Athens in the 4th century BC seems to have
included theological themes in its subject matter;[28]
the Chinese
Taixue delivered Confucian teaching from the 2nd century BC;[29]
the
School of Nisibis was a centre of Christian learning from the 4th century
AD;[30]
Nalanda in India was a site of Buddhist higher learning from at least the
5th or 6th century AD;[31]
and the Moroccan
University of Al-Karaouine was a centre of Islamic learning from the 10th
century,[32]
as was
Al-Azhar University in Cairo.[33]
Modern Western universities
evolved from the
monastic institutions and (especially) cathedral schools of
Western Europe during the
High Middle Ages (see, for instance, the
University of Bologna,
Paris University and
Oxford University).[34]
From the beginning, Christian theological learning was therefore a central
component in these institutions, as was the study of Church or
Canon law): universities played an important role in training people for
ecclesiastical offices, in helping the church pursue the clarification and
defence of its teaching, and in supporting the legal rights of the church over
against secular rulers.[35]
At such universities, theological study was initially closely tied to the life
of faith and of the church: it fed, and was fed by, practices of
preaching,
prayer and celebration of the
Mass.[36]
During the High Middle Ages,
theology was therefore the ultimate subject at universities, being named "The
Queen of the Sciences" and serving as the capstone to the
Trivium and
Quadrivium that young men were expected to study. This meant that the other
subjects (including
Philosophy) existed primarily to help with theological thought.[37]
Christian theology’s preeminent
place in the university began to be challenged during the European
Enlightenment, especially in Germany.[38]
other subjects gained in independence and prestige, and questions were raised
about the place in institutions that were increasingly understood to be devoted
to independent reason of a discipline that seemed to involve commitment to the
authority of particular religious traditions.[39]
Since the early nineteenth
century, various different approaches have emerged in the West to theology as an
academic discipline. Much of the debate concerning theology's place in the
university or within a general higher education curriculum centres on whether
theology's methods are appropriately theoretical and (broadly speaking)
scientific or, on the other hand, whether theology requires a pre-commitment of
faith by its practitioners, and whether such a commitment conflicts with
academic freedom.[40]
In some contexts, theology has
been held to belong in institutions of Higher Education primarily as a form of
professional training for Christian ministry. This was the basis on which
Friedrich Schleiermacher, a liberal theologian, argued for the inclusion of
theology in the new University of Berlin in 1810.[41]
For instance, in
Germany, theological faculties at State universities are typically tied to
particular denominations, Protestant or Catholic, and those faculties will offer
denominationally-bound (konfessionsgebundenes) degrees, and have
denominationally-bound public posts amongst their faculty; as well as
contributing ‘to the development and growth of Christian knowledge’ they
‘provide the academic training for the future clergy and teachers of religious
instruction at German schools.’[42]
In
Britain the first universities in the country, the
University of Oxford and the
University of Cambridge, began as federations of theological colleges
founded by clergy and members of religious orders in the late 12th and early
13th centuries; as late as the 19th century, all college fellows in any subject,
and consequently most schoolmasters, were required to take holy orders.
Similarly, in the U.S.A. several prominent colleges and universities were
started in order to train Christian ministers in the U.S.
Harvard,
[43]
Georgetown University,
[44]
Boston,[45]
Yale,[46]
Princeton,[47],
Brown University[48],
and
Mercer University all had the theological training of clergy as a primary
purpose at their foundation.
Seminaries and Bible colleges have
continued this alliance between the academic study of theology and training for
Christian ministry. The Chicago Theological Union, Graduate Theological Union in
Berkeley,
Creighton University of Omaha,
University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, the
University of San Francisco,
Criswell College in Dallas, Southern Seminary in Louisville, Trinity
Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, Wheaton College and Graduate
School in Wheaton, Illinois, Dallas Theological Seminary, and many other schools
have influenced higher education in theology.
In some contexts, following the
Enlightenment challenge to its legitimacy, theology has evolved into (or been
replaced by) religious studies. In such contexts, the primary forms of study are
likely to include:
These studies normally involve
studying the historical or contemporary practices or ideas of one or more
religious traditions using intellectual tools and frameworks that are not
themselves specifically tied to any religious tradition, but that are (normally)
understood to be neutral or secular.
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See also
- City of
God Book VII. i.
[1] "de divinitate rationem sive sermonem"
- See, e.g.,
Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to
Christian Theology 2nd ed.(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004)
- See, e.g.,
Michael S. Kogan, 'Toward a Jewish Theology of Christianity' in The Journal
of Ecumenical Studies 32.1 (Winter 1995), 89-106; available online at
[2]
- See, e.g.,
David Burrell, Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1994)
- See, e.g.,
John Shelby Spong, Why Christianity Must Change or Die (New York:
Harper Collins, 2001)
- See, e.g.,
Duncan Dormor et al (eds), Anglicanism, the Answer to Modernity
(London: Continuum, 2003)
- See, e.g.,
Timothy Gorringe, Crime, Changing Society and the Churches Series (London:SPCK,
2004)
-
Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon''.
-
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Epsilon.
- as cited by
Augustine,
City of God, Book 6, ch.5.
- Langland,
Piers Plowman A ix 136
- John I v.1
- New
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles,
1993
-
Oxford English Dictionary, sense 1
- Oxford
English Dictionary, 1989
edition, 'Theology' sense 1(d), and 'Theological' sense A.3; the earliest
reference given is from the 1959 Times Literary Supplement 5 June
329/4: "The 'theological' approach to Soviet Marxism ... proves in the long
run unsatisfactory."
- This title
appears quite late in the manuscript tradition for the Book of Revelation: the
two earliest citations provided in David Aune's Word Biblical Commentary
52: Revelation 1-5 (Dallas: Word Books, 1997) are both 11th century -
Gregory 325/Hoskier 9 and Gregory 1006/Hoskier 215; the title was however in
circulation by the 6th century - see Allen Brent ‘John as theologos: the
imperial mysteries and the Apocalypse’, Journal for the Study of the New
Testament 75 (1999), 87-102.
- See Augustine
reference above, and Tertullian,
Ad Nationes, Book 2, ch.1.
-
Gregory of Nazianzus uses the word in this sense in his fourth-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.) See
John McGukin, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography
(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001), p.278.
-
Hugh of St. Victor, Commentariorum in Hierarchiam Coelestem,
Expositio to Book 9: "theologia, id est, divina Scriptura" (in
Migne's
Patrologia Latina vol.175, 1091C).
- See the title
of
Peter Abelard's
Theologia Christiana, and, perhaps most famously, of
Thomas Aquinas'
Summa Theologica
- See, for
example, the initial reaction of Dharmachari Nagapriya in his
review of Jackson and Makrasnky's Buddhist Theology (London: Curzon,
2000) in Western Buddhist Review 3
- E.g., by
Count E. Goblet d'Alviella in 1908; see Alan H. Jones, 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, 1983), p.194.
- Jose Ignacio
Cabezon, 'Buddhist Theology in the Academy' in Roger Jackson and John J.
Makransky's Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary
Buddhist Scholars (London: Routledge, 1999), pp.25-52.
- See Anna S.
King, 'For Love of Krishna: Forty Years of Chanting' in Graham Dwyer and
Richard J. Cole, The Hare Krishna Movement: Forty Years of Chant and Change
(London/New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), pp.134-167: p.163, which describes
developments in both institutions, and speaks of Hare Krishna devotees
'studying Vaishnava theology and practice in mainstream universities.'
- L. Gardet, 'Ilm
al-kalam' in The Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. P.J. Bearman et al (Leiden:
Koninklijke Brill NV, 1999).
- Randi
Rashkover,
'A Call for Jewish Theology', Crosscurrents, Winter 1999, starts by
saying, "Frequently the claim is made that, unlike Christianity, Judaism is a
tradition of deeds and maintains no strict theological tradition. Judaism's
fundamental beliefs are inextricable from their halakhic observance (that set
of laws revealed to Jews by God), embedded and presupposed by that way of life
as it is lived and learned."
- Timothy
Reagan, Non-Western Educational Traditions: Alternative Approaches to
Educational Thought and Practice, 3rd edition (Lawrence Erlbaum: 2004),
p.185 and Sunna Chitnis, 'Higher Education' in Veena Das (ed), The Oxford
India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2003), pp.1032-1056: p.1036 suggest an early date; a more
cautious appraisal is given in Hartmut Scharfe, Education in Ancient India
(Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp.140-142.
- John Dillon,
The Heirs of Plato: A Study in the Old Academy, 347-274BC (Oxford: OUP,
2003)
- Xinzhong Yao,
An Introduction to Confucianism (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), p.50.
- Adam H.
Becker, The Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis
and the Development of Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); see also
The School of Nisibis at Nestorian.org
- Hartmut
Scharfe, Education in Ancient India (Leiden: Brill, 2002), p.149.
- The Al-Qarawiyyin
mosque was founded in 859 AD, but 'While instruction at the mosque must have
begun almost from the beginning, it is only ... by the end of the
tenth-century that its reputation as a center of learning in both religious
and secular sciences ... must have begun to wax.' Y. G-M. Lulat, A History
of African Higher Education from Antiquity to the Present: A Critical
Synthesis (Greenwood, 2005), p.71
- Andrew
Beattie, Cairo: A Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press,
2005), p.101.
- Walter Rüegg,
A History of the University in Europe, vol.1, ed. H. de Ridder-Symoens,
Universities in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003).
- Walter Rüegg,
“Themes” in Walter Rüegg, A History of the University in Europe, vol.1,
ed. H. de Ridder-Symoens, Universities in the Middle Ages (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.3–34:pp.15-16.
- See Gavin
D’Costa, Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy and Nation
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), ch.1.
- Thomas Albert
Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p.56: '[P]hilosophy, the scientia
scientarum in one sense, was, in another, portrayed as the humble
"handmaid of theology".'
- See Thomas
Albert Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German
University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006):
- See Thomas
Albert Howard’s work already cited, and his discussion of, for instance,
Immanuel Kant’s Conflict of the Faculties (1798), and J.G. Fichte’s
Deduzierter Plan einer zu Berlin errichtenden höheren Lehranstalt (1807).
- See Thomas
Albert Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German
University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Hans W. Frei, Types
of Christian Theology, ed. William C. Placher and George Hunsinger (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992); Gavin D’Costa, Theology in the
Public Square: Church, Academy and Nation (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005); James
W. McClendon, Systematic Theology 3: Witness (Nashville, TN: Abingdon,
2000), ch.10: 'Theology and the University'.
- Friedrich
Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study, 2nd
edition, tr. Terrence N. Tice (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1990); Thomas
Albert Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German
University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), ch.14.
- Reinhard G.
Kratz, 'Academic Theology in Germany', Religion 32.2 (2002):
pp.113–116.
- 'The primary
purpose of Harvard College was, accordingly, the training of clergy.’ But ‘the
school served a dual purpose, training men for other professions as well.’
George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant
Establishment to Established Nonbelief (New York: Oxford University Press,
1994), p.41.
- Georgetown
was a Jesuit institution founded in significant part to provide a pool of
educated Catholics some of whom who could go on to full seminary training for
the priesthood. See Robert Emmett Curran, Leo J. O’Donovan, The
Bicentennial History of Georgetown University: From Academy to University
1789-1889 (Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 1961), Part One.
- Boston
University emerged from the Boston School of Theology, a Methodist seminary.
Boston University Information Center, 'History - The Early Years'
[3]
- Yale’s
original 1701 charter speaks of the purpose being 'Sincere Regard & Zeal for
upholding & Propagating of the Christian Protestant Religion by a succession
of Learned & Orthodox' and that 'Youth may be instructed in the Arts and
Sciences (and) through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick
employment both in Church and Civil State.' 'The Charter of the Collegiate
School, October 1701' in Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Documentary History of
Yale University, Under the Original Charter of the Collegiate School of
Connecticut 1701-1745 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1916);
available online at
[4]
- At Princeton,
one of the founders (probably Ebeneezer Pemberton) wrote in c.1750, ‘Though
our great Intention was to erect a seminary for educating Ministers of the
Gospel, yet we hope it will be useful in other learned professions - Ornaments
of the State as Well as the Church. Therefore we propose to make the plan of
Education as extensive as our Circumstances will admit.’ Quoted in Alexander
Leitch,
A Princeton Companion (Princeton University Press, 1978).
- 'Brown was
the Baptist answer to Congregationalist Yale and Harvard, Presbyterian
Princeton, and Episcopalian Penn and Columbia',
'History of Brown', accessed 8 March 2009.
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