Theopedia

Theology

Theology, from the Greek theos (“God”) and logos (“word” or “reason”), is reasoned discourse about God. In the Reformed scholastic tradition it has classically been defined as the doctrine of living for God through Christ, a discipline meant to be lived out, not merely known.1 More broadly, Christian theology is what the church of Jesus Christ believes, teaches, and confesses on the basis of God’s Word.2 It is the study of the nature of God and the doctrines of the Christian faith as revealed chiefly in the Bible. A person who pursues this study is called a theologian.

Biblical Basis

  • Christ names the mind alongside heart, soul, and strength in the greatest commandment, so that love for God engages the intellect and not only the affections (Mark 12:30).
  • Paul tells Timothy to persevere in sound teaching, tying such perseverance to the salvation of both Timothy and his hearers (1 Tim. 4:16).
  • The writer to the Hebrews urges his readers to leave behind elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity (Heb. 6:1).

Theological Disciplines

Theology as a whole is commonly divided into distinct disciplines, each approaching Scripture’s content from a different angle. A. A. Hodge grouped these under what he called theological encyclopaedia: exegetical theology (the interpretation of the biblical text itself), historical theology (the church’s doctrinal development over time), systematic theology (Scripture’s content organized topically), and practical theology (the application of doctrine to worship, preaching, and pastoral care), alongside apologetics and the sciences auxiliary to theology.3 Theopedia treats each as its own discipline:

Doctrinal Significance

Because theology alone takes God himself as its object, while every other discipline studies some part of what he has made, Reformed theologians have called it the “queen of the sciences”:

“Theology studies God Himself, while the physical sciences and liberal arts study only His garments. In the very nature of the case, therefore Theology must be the ‘Queen of the Sciences.’ Philosophy, as it has usually been studied by the different schools of thought, is indeed the ground and mistress of the merely human sciences, but is itself only an auxiliary science in the study of Theology.”4

Objections and Responses

Isn’t theology’s real content already available to anyone through ordinary experience and reflection on nature, without the need for formal study? Petrus van Mastricht distinguishes what nature alone can yield from what theology, properly speaking, requires: even natural theology, the knowledge of God available from creation and conscience, “is rather learned than taught,” picked up rather than delivered.5 Christian theology is different in kind. It must be taught, and taught in a particular way:

“It ought to be taught… not only by men but also by God, not only externally by the Word but also internally by the Spirit.”5

On this account, theology is not a body of conclusions a person can reason their way to alone. It is a doctrine God himself delivers, through Scripture and by his Spirit, to those who submit to being taught it.

Related Doctrines

Further Reading

  • Walter Elwell, ed., Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001).
  • Timothy Larsen and Daniel Treier, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
  • Alister McGrath, Theology: The Basics (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004).
  • J. I. Packer, Concise Theology (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2001).
  • David Ford, Theology: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

External Links

References

  1. Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 1, Prolegomena, trans. Todd M. Rester, ed. Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), chap. 1, “The Nature of Theology,” 170. ↩

  2. Jaroslav Pelikan, quoted in Craig A. Carter, “What Is Trinitarian Classical Theism?,” in Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), chap. 2. ↩

  3. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 1, “Christian Theology; Its Several Branches; and Their Relation to Other Departments of Human Knowledge,” 17-18. ↩

  4. Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1932), 243. ↩

  5. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 1, chap. 1, “The Nature of Theology,” 169. ↩ ↩2