Theology
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, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or 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 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, another religious tradition, or it may enable them to explore the nature of divinity without reference to any specific tradition. Theology may be used to propagate, reform, or justify a religious tradition; or it may be used to compare, challenge, or oppose a religious tradition or worldview. Theology might also help a theologian address some present situation or need through a religious tradition, or to explore possible ways of interpreting the world.
Etymology
The term "theology" derives from the Greek theologia, a combination of theos and logia —the latter word relating to Greek logos. The term would pass on to Latin as theologia, then French as théologie, eventually becoming the English theology.Through several variants, the English theology had evolved into its current form by 1362. 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.File:Sanzio 01 Plato Aristotle.jpg|thumb|upright|Plato and Aristotle in Raphael's 1509 fresco ''The School of Athens''
Classical philosophy
Greek theologia was used with the meaning 'discourse on God' around 380 BC by Plato in The Republic.Plato develops his rational 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. 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.
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.
Later usage
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.
In patristic Greek Christian sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout and/or inspired knowledge of and teaching about the essential nature of God.
In scholastic Latin sources, the term came to denote the rational study of the doctrines of the Christian religion, or the academic discipline that investigated the coherence and implications of the language and claims of the Bible and of the theological tradition.
In the Renaissance, especially with Florentine Platonist apologists of Dante's poetics, the distinction between 'poetic theology' 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, 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.
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 or that are specific to another religion.
Theology can also be used in a derived sense to mean "a system of theoretical principles; an ideology".
In religion
The term theology has been deemed by some as only appropriate to the study of religions that worship a supposed deity, i.e. more widely than monotheism; and presuppose a belief in the ability to speak and reason about this deity. They suggest the term is less appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently. Hierology has been proposed, by such people as Eugène Goblet d'Alviella, as an alternative, more generic term.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. 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.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.Some Universities in Germany established departments of islamic theology.
Dharmic religions
Buddhism
Some academic inquiries within Buddhism, dedicated to the 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 or a Creator God. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of theology is in fact 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."Whatever the case, there are various Buddhist theories and discussions on the nature of Buddhahood and the ultimate reality / highest form of divinity, which has been termed "buddhology" by some scholars like Louis de La Vallée-Poussin. This is a different usage of the term than when it is taken to mean the academic study of Buddhism, and here would refer to the study of the nature of what a Buddha is. In Mahayana Buddhism, a central concept in its buddhology is the doctrine of the three Buddha bodies. This doctrine is shared by all Mahayana Buddhist traditions.
Hinduism
Within Hindu philosophy, there are numerous traditions of philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, of God and of the ātman. The Sanskrit word for the various schools of Hindu philosophy is darśana, the most influential one in terms of modern Hindu religion is Vedanta and its various sub-schools, each of which presents a different theory of Ishvara.Vaishnava theology has been a subject of study for many devotees, philosophers and scholars in India for centuries. A large part of its study lies in classifying and organizing the manifestations of thousands of gods and their aspects. In recent decades the study of Hinduism has also been taken up by a number of academic institutions in Europe, such as the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Bhaktivedanta College.
There are also other traditions of Hindu theology, including the various theologies of Shaivism as well as the theologies of the Goddess centered Shakta traditions which posit a feminine deity as the ultimate.