Christian theology


Christian theology is the theology – the systematic study of the divine and religion – of Christian belief and practice. It concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theologians may undertake the study of Christian theology for a variety of reasons, such as in order to:
  • help them better understand Christian tenets
  • make comparisons between Christianity and other traditions
  • defend Christianity against objections and criticism
  • facilitate reforms in the Christian church
  • assist in the propagation of Christianity
  • draw on the resources of the Christian tradition to address some present situation or perceived need
  • education in Christian philosophy, especially in Neoplatonic philosophy

    Christian traditions

Christian theology varies significantly across the main branches of Christian tradition: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. Each of those traditions has its own unique approaches to seminaries and ministerial formation.

Hermeneutics: the Bible

Biblical revelation

is the revealing or disclosing, or making something obvious through active or passive communication with God, and can originate directly from God or through an agent, such as an angel. A person recognised as having experienced such contact is often called a prophet. Christianity generally considers the Bible as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired. Such revelation does not always require the presence of God or an angel. For instance, in the concept which Catholics call interior locution, supernatural revelation can include just an inner voice heard by the recipient.
Thomas Aquinas first described two types of revelation in Christianity: general revelation and special revelation.
  • General revelation occurs through observation of the created order. Such observations can logically lead to important conclusions, such as the existence of God and some of God's attributes. General revelation is also an element of Christian apologetics.
  • Certain specifics, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, as revealed in the teachings of the Scriptures, can not otherwise be deduced except by special revelation.

    Biblical inspiration

The Bible contains many passages in which the authors claim divine inspiration for their message or report the effects of such inspiration on others. Besides the direct accounts of written revelation, the Prophets of the Old Testament frequently claimed that their message was of divine origin by prefacing the revelation using the following phrase: "Thus says the LORD". The Second Epistle of Peter claims that "no prophecy of Scripture... was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" The Second Epistle of Peter also implies that Paul's writings are inspired.
Many Christians cite a verse in Paul's letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:16–17, as evidence that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable..." Here St. Paul is referring to the Old Testament, since the scriptures have been known by Timothy from "infancy". Others offer an alternative reading for the passage; for example, theologian C. H. Dodd suggests that it "is probably to be rendered" as: "Every inspired scripture is also useful..." A similar translation appears in the New English Bible, in the Revised English Bible, and in the New Revised Standard Version. The Latin Vulgate can be so read. Yet others defend the "traditional" interpretation; Daniel B. Wallace calls the alternative "probably not the best translation."
Some modern English versions of the Bible renders theopneustos with "God-breathed" or "breathed out by God", avoiding the word inspiration, which has the Latin root inspīrāre – "to blow or breathe into".

Biblical authority

generally regards the agreed collections of books known as the Bible as authoritative and as written by human authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Some Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant or infallible.
Some Christians infer that the Bible cannot both refer to itself as being divinely inspired and also be errant or fallible. For if the Bible were divinely inspired, then the source of inspiration being divine, would not be subject to fallibility or error in that which is produced. For them, the doctrines of the divine inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy, are inseparably tied together. The idea of biblical integrity is a further concept of infallibility, by suggesting that current biblical text is complete and without error, and that the integrity of biblical text has never been corrupted or degraded. Historians note, or claim, that the doctrine of the Bible's infallibility was adopted hundreds of years after the books of the Bible were written.
The authority of the Bible can also be linked to the principle of sola scriptura, the claim that by scripture alone that the authority of the Bible is more important than the authority of the Church.

Biblical canon

The content of the Protestant Old Testament is the same as the Hebrew Bible canon, with changes in the division and order of books, but the Catholic Old Testament contains additional texts, known as the deuterocanonical books. Protestants recognize 39 books in their Old Testament canon, while Roman Catholic and Eastern Rite Catholics recognize 46 books as canonical. However, various Eastern Orthodox Churches have differing Old Testament canons. For example, Slavic traditions include the book of 2 Esdras in their biblical canons. Some churches, such as the Georgian Orthodox Church, deem the book of 4 Maccabees as "uncanonical", yet still include the book in the Bible; while others do not include the book at all. Eastern Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants use the same 27-book New Testament canon.
Early Christians used the Septuagint, a Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Christianity subsequently endorsed various additional writings that would become the New Testament. In the 4th century a series of synods, most notably the Synod of Hippo in AD 393, produced a list of texts equal to the 46-book canon of the Old Testament that Catholics use today. A definitive list did not come from any early ecumenical council. Around 400, Jerome produced the Vulgate, a definitive Latin edition of the Bible, the contents of which, at the insistence of the Bishop of Rome, accorded with the decisions of the earlier synods. This process effectively set the New Testament canon, although examples exist of other canonical lists in use after this time.
During the 16th-century Protestant Reformation certain reformers proposed different canonical lists of the Old Testament. The texts which appear in the Septuagint but not in the Jewish canon fell out of favor, and eventually disappeared from Protestant canons. Catholic Bibles classify these texts as deuterocanonical books, whereas Protestant contexts label them as the Apocrypha.

Theology proper: God

In Christianity, God is the creator and preserver of the universe. God is presented as a father figure to humanity. God is the sole ultimate power in the universe but is distinct from it. The Bible never speaks of God as impersonal. Instead, it refers to him in personal terms – who speaks, sees, hears, acts, and loves. God is understood to have a will and personality and is an all powerful, divine and benevolent being. He is represented in Scripture as being primarily concerned with people and their salvation.

Attributes of God

Classification

Many Reformed theologians distinguish between the communicable attributes and the incommunicable attributes.

Enumeration

Some attributes ascribed to God in Christian theology are:
  • Aseity—That "God is so independent that he does not need us." It is based on Acts 17:25, where it says that God "is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything". This is often related to God's self-existence and his self-sufficiency.
  • Eternity—That God exists beyond the temporal realm.
  • Graciousness—That God extends His favor and gifts to human beings unconditionally as well as conditionally.
  • Holiness—That God is separate from sin and incorruptible. Noting the refrain of "Holy, holy, holy" in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8,
  • Immanence—That although God is transcendent and holy, He is also accessible and can be dynamically experienced.
  • Immutability—That God's essential nature is unchangeable.
  • Impassibility—That God does not experience emotion or suffering.
  • Impeccability—That God is incapable of error.
  • Incorporeality—That God is without physical composition. A related concept is the spirituality of God, which is derived from Jesus' statement in John 4:24, "God is spirit."
  • Love—That God is care and compassion. 1 John 4:16 says "God is love."
  • Mission—That God is the supreme liberator. While the Mission of God is not traditionally included in this list, David Bosch has argued that "mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God."
  • Omnibenevolence—That God is omnibenevolent. Omnibenevolence of God refers to him being "all good".
  • Omnipotence—That God is supremely or all-powerful.
  • Omnipresence—That God is the supreme being, existing everywhere and at all times; the all-perceiving or all-conceiving foundation of reality.
  • Omniscience—That God is supremely or all-knowing.
  • Oneness—That God is without peer, also that every divine attribute is instantiated in its entirety. See also Monotheism and Divine simplicity.
  • Providence—That God watches over His creation with interest and dedication. While the Providence of God usually refers to his activity in the world, it also implies his care for the universe, and is thus an attribute. A distinction is usually made between "general providence" which refers to God's continuous upholding the existence and natural order of the universe, and "special providence" which refers to God's extraordinary intervention in the life of people. See also Sovereignty.
  • Righteousness—That God is the greatest or only measure of human conduct. The righteousness of God may refer to his holiness, to his justice, or to his saving activity through Christ.
  • Transcendence—That God exists beyond the natural realm of physical laws and thus is not bound by them; He is also wholly Other and incomprehensible apart from general or special self-revelation.
  • Triune—The Christian God is understood to be a "threeness" of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that is fully consistent with His "oneness"; a single infinite being who is both within and beyond nature. Because the persons of the Trinity represent a personal relation even on the level of God to Himself, He is personal both in His relation toward us and in His relation toward Himself.
  • Veracity—That God is the Truth all human beings strive for; He is also impeccably honest. Titus 1:2 refers to "God, who does not lie."
  • Wisdom—That God fully comprehends human nature and the world, and will see His will accomplished in heaven and on earth. Romans 16:27 speaks about the "only wise God".