Editing Theology (section)

== Etymology ==
{{Main|History of theology}}
The term "theology" derives from the [[Greek language|Greek]] ''theologia'' (θεολογία), a combination of ''theos'' (Θεός, '[[god]]') and ''[[logia]]'' (λογία, 'utterances, sayings, [[oracle]]s')—the latter word relating to Greek ''[[logos]]'' (λόγος, 'word, [[discourse]], account, [[reasoning]]').<ref>The [[Accusative case|accusative]] plural of the [[neuter noun]] λόγιον; [[cf.]] [[Walter Bauer|Bauer, Walter]], William F. Arndt, [[F. Wilbur Gingrich]], and [[Frederick William Danker|Frederick W. Danker]]. 1979. ''A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament'' (2nd ed.). Chicago: [[University of Chicago Press]]. p. 476.

For examples of λόγια in the [[New Testament]], cf. [[Acts 7]]:38; [[Romans 3]]:2; [[1 Peter 4]]:11.</ref><ref>[[Constantine B. Scouteris|Scouteris, Constantine B.]] [1972] 2016. ''Ἡ ἔννοια τῶν ὅρων 'Θεολογία', 'Θεολογεῖν', 'Θεολόγος', ἐν τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ τῶν Ἑλλήνων Πατέρων καί Ἐκκλησιαστικῶν συγγραφέων μέχρι καί τῶν Καππαδοκῶν'' [''The Meaning of the Terms 'Theology', 'to Theologize' and 'Theologian' in the Teaching of the Greek Fathers up to and Including the Cappadocians''] (in Greek). Athens. pp. 187.</ref> The term would pass on to Latin as {{Lang|la|theologia}}, then French as {{Lang|fr|théologie}}, eventually becoming the English ''theology''.

Through several variants (e.g., ''theologie'', ''teologye''), the English ''theology'' had evolved into its current form by 1362.<ref>Langland, [[Piers Plowman]] A ix 136</ref> The sense that the word has in English depends in large part on the sense that the Latin and Greek equivalents had acquired in [[patristics|patristic]] and [[history of theology#Medieval Christian theology|medieval]] Christian usage although the English term has now spread beyond Christian contexts.[[File:Sanzio 01 Plato Aristotle.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Plato]] (left) and Aristotle in [[Raphael]]'s 1509 fresco ''[[The School of Athens]]'']]

=== Classical philosophy ===
Greek ''theologia'' (θεολογία) was used with the meaning 'discourse on God' around 380 BC by [[Plato]] in ''[[The Republic (Plato)|The Republic]]''.
{{Verse translation
|head1= Greek
|lang1=grc
|… ὀρθῶς, ἔφη· ἀλλʼ αὐτὸ δὴ τοῦτο, οἱ τύποι περὶ '''θεολογίας''' τίνες ἂν εἶεν;<br/> τοιοίδε πού τινες, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ· οἷος τυγχάνει ὁ θεὸς ὤν, ἀεὶ δήπου ἀποδοτέον, ἐάντέ τις αὐτὸν ἐν ἔπεσιν ποιῇ ἐάντε ἐν μέλεσιν ἐάντε ἐν τραγῳδίᾳ.|attr1=Plato, ''Republic'' 379a. <ref name=politeia379a>[https://scaife.perseus.org/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg030.perseus-grc2:2.379?right=perseus-eng2 Plato, ''Republic'', Book 2, Section 379 (2.379)]</ref><ref>Plato. ''Platonis Opera'', ed. John Burnet. Oxford University Press. 1903.</ref> (emphasis added)
|head2= English translation by Shorey (1969)
|lang2=en
|… Right, he said; but this very thing—the patterns or norms of '''right speech about the gods''', what would they be?<br/> Something like this, I said. The true quality of God we must always surely attribute to him whether we compose in epic, melic, or tragic verse.|attr2=Plato, ''Republic'' 379a. <ref name=politeia379a/><ref>Plato. ''Plato in Twelve Volumes'', Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.</ref> (emphasis added)}}

Plato develops his rational theology ([[natural theology]]) in Book 10 of ''[[Laws (dialogue)|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 ([[nous]]). 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.<ref>[http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/mirror/classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.6.vi.html Aristotle, ''Metaphysics'', Book Epsilon.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080216173401/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/mirror/classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.6.vi.html |date=16 February 2008 }}</ref>

Drawing on Greek [[Stoicism|Stoic]] sources, the [[Latin]] writer [[Marcus Terentius Varro|Varro]] distinguished three forms of such discourse:<ref name=":0">[[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]], [http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120106.htm ''City of God'' VI] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061213030350/http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120106.htm |date=13 December 2006 }}, ch. 5.</ref>

# [[Mythology|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 ===
Some Latin Christian authors, such as [[Tertullian]] and [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]], followed Varro's threefold usage.<ref name=":0" /><ref>[[Tertullian]], [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.iv.viii.ii.i.html ''Ad Nationes'' II] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070513210420/http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.iv.viii.ii.i.html |date=13 May 2007 }}, ch. 1.</ref> However, Augustine also defined ''theologia'' as "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity".<ref name="Cityof">[[Augustine of Hippo]]. ''[[City of God (book)|City of God]]'' [http://logicmuseum.googlepages.com/civitate-8.htm Book VIII. i.]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080404123631/http://logicmuseum.googlepages.com/civitate-8.htm|date=4 April 2008}}: "de divinitate rationem sive sermonem."</ref>

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 [[Matter|corporeal]], moving realities.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://pvspade.com/Logic/docs/BoethiusDeTrin.pdf |title=Boethius, On the Holy Trinity |access-date=2012-11-11 |archive-date=7 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207050745/http://pvspade.com/Logic/docs/BoethiusDeTrin.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Boethius' definition influenced medieval Latin usage.<ref>Evans, G. R. 1980. ''Old Arts and New Theology: The Beginnings of Theology as an Academic Discipline''. Oxford: [[Clarendon Press]]. pp. 31–32.</ref>

In [[patristics|patristic]] Greek Christian sources, ''theologia'' could refer narrowly to devout and/or inspired knowledge of and teaching about the essential nature of God.<ref>McGukin, John. 2001. ''Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography''. Crestwood, NY: [[St. Vladimir's Seminary Press]]. p. 278:

[[Gregory of Nazianzus]] uses the word in this sense in his 4th-century [http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-42.htm#P4178_1277213 ''Theological Orations''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060807233004/http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-42.htm#P4178_1277213 |date=7 August 2006 }}. 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 [http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-41.htm#P4162_1255901 ''Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060716140059/http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-41.htm#P4162_1255901 |date=16 July 2006 }} introduction to his ''Theological Orations'', that he was a defender of the divinity of Christ the Word.)</ref>

In [[scholasticism|scholastic]] Latin sources, the term came to denote the rational study of the [[doctrine]]s of the [[Christian religion]], or (more precisely) the academic [[discipline]] that 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]]).{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

In the [[Renaissance]], especially with Florentine Platonist apologists of [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]]'s poetics, the distinction between 'poetic theology' (''[[Theologia Poetica|theologia poetica]]'') and 'revealed' or [[Biblical theology]] serves as stepping stone for a revival of philosophy as independent of theological authority.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

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,<ref>"Theology." ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''. note.</ref> 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]].<ref>See, e.g., [[Charles Hodge|Hodge, Charles]]. 1871. ''Systematic Theology'' 1, part 1.</ref>

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 (e.g., in the term ''[[natural theology]]'', which denoted theology based on reasoning from natural facts independent of specifically Christian revelation)<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'', sense 1</ref> or that are specific to another religion (such as below).

''Theology'' can also be used in a derived sense to mean "a system of theoretical principles; an (impractical or rigid) ideology".<ref>"Theology, 1(d)" and "Theological, A.3." ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''. 1989.</ref><ref>''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'' 329/4. 5 June 1959: "The 'theological' approach to [[Soviet Marxism]]...proves in the long run unsatisfactory."</ref>