Definition and Divisions of Theology (1 of 16 notes)

Part One
INTRODUCTION: 4 SOURCES AND DIVISIONS OF THEOLOGY SOURCES
A DISPENSATIONAL THEOLOGY
By Charles F Baker

THEOLOGY (Gk. theologia), lit. the 'Science of God'. In its Christian sense it is the science of the Divinely revealed religious truths. Its theme is the Being and Nature of God and His Creatures and the whole complex of the Divine dispensation from the Fall of Adam to the Redemption through Christ and its mediation to men by His Church, including the so-called natural truths of God, the soul, the moral Law, etc., which are accessible to mere reason. Its purpose is the investigation of the contents of belief by means of reason enlightened by faith (tides quaerens intellectum) and the promotion of its deeper understanding. Catholic theology differs from Protestant theology in that it also admits the authority of tradition, the utterances of which are accounted binding, whereas Protestant theology, insofar as it is conservative, is circumscribed by the Biblical revelation. Liberal Protestant theologians, however, recognize the existence of no revelation except insofar as it is confirmed by the conscience and reason of the believer. In the course of time theology has developed into several branches, among them dogmatic, historical, and practical theology. The methods of classification of the sub-disciplines, however, fluctuate in different theological systems.²

2            The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 1344.

PREVIOUS
NEXT