St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology

Christian Theology
Judith Wolfe

First published: 10 August 2022

https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/ChristianTheology

Citation
Wolfe, Judith. 2022. 'Christian Theology', St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology.
Edited by Brendan N. Wolfe et al. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/ChristianTheology
Accessed: 24 September 2024

Copyright information
Copyright © Judith Wolfe CC BY-NC

ISSN 2753-3492
Christian Theology
Judith Wolfe

This article introduces Christian theology in its substantial, structural, biblical, historical,
and contextual dimensions. Section 1 lays out the substance of theology: after an
introductory discussion of the term ‘theology’ and its developing meaning within
Christianity, the section introduces theology’s central subjects, outlining their basic claims,
their key questions, and the main challenges they face. Section 2 lays out the structure
within which this substance takes shape: the principles on whose basis theology treats
its subjects, the extent of its capacities to do so, and the settings in which it functions.
This section also outlines the organization of theology as an academic discipline. Section
3 discusses the sources of theological content, practice, and imagination in the Bible:
the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Bible as a unified canon. This section
also briefly discusses the relationship between theology and modern biblical studies.
Section 4 offers a brief overview of the history of theology, enumerating the challenges
and achievements, as well as the institutions, forms, and people that enabled them,
of the five large periods of Christian history in the West: the Patristic era, the Middle
Ages, Reformation and post-Reformation, the Enlightenment, and late modernity. This
section also outlines Eastern Orthodox periodizations after the Great Schism of East and
West, and the volatile history of Jewish Christianity. Section 5 presents theology as a
practice shaped by traditions: denominational traditions, spiritual traditions, and contextual
traditions. Section 6 concludes the article with a brief consideration of theology as science
and as art, also discussing its critical and constructive relationships to the natural, applied,
and social sciences and to the visual, literary, and musical arts.

Keywords: Christianity, Christian theology, Christian doctrine, Christian denominations,

Church history, Theological methods and approaches

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Table of contents
1 The substance of theology

1.1 Terminology and scope

1.2 Doctrine of God

1.3 Creation

1.4 Theological anthropology

1.5 Christology

1.6 Soteriology

1.7 Pneumatology

1.8 Ecclesiology

1.9 Eschatology

2 The structure of theology

2.1 The principles of theology

2.1.1 Revelation

2.1.2 Reason

2.1.3 Tradition

2.1.4 Experience

2.2 The capacities of theology

2.2.1 Language

2.2.2 Method

2.2.3 Style

2.3 The settings and tasks of theology

2.3.1 The community of worship

2.3.2 The life of faith

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 2.3.3 The academy

2.3.4 The public sphere

2.4 The structure of theology as an academic discipline

2.4.1 Biblical studies

2.4.2 Historical theology

2.4.3 Systematic theology

2.4.4 Practical theology

2.4.5 Religious studies

2.4.6 Contextual and interdisciplinary theological studies

3 Biblical sources

3.1 Theology in the Old Testament

3.1.1 History as theology

3.1.2 Law and wisdom as theology

3.1.3 Narrative as theology

3.1.4 Prayer as theology

3.1.5 Prophecy and vision as theology

3.1.6 Names of God as theology

3.2 Theology in the New Testament

3.2.1 History as theology

3.2.2 Ethical teaching as theology

3.2.3 Narrative as theology

3.2.4 Prayer as theology

3.2.5 Prophecy and vision as theology

3.2.6 Names of God as theology

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 3.3 Theology in the canon

3.3.1 Figuration and typology as theology

3.3.2 Canon as theology

3.4 Biblical scholarship and theology

4 History of theology

4.1 Patristic theology (first to seventh centuries)

4.1.1 Challenges and achievements

4.1.2 Institutions and forms

4.1.3 Theologians

4.2 Theology in the medieval church (eighth to fifteenth centuries)

4.2.1 Challenges and achievements

4.2.2 Institutions and forms

4.2.3 Theologians

4.3 Theology during and following the Reformation (sixteenth to mid-seventeenth

centuries)

4.3.1 Challenges and achievements

4.3.2 Institutions and forms

4.3.3 Theologians

4.4 Theology in the Enlightenment (mid-seventeenth to eighteenth centuries)

4.4.1 Challenges and achievements

4.4.2 Institutions and forms

4.4.3 Theologians

4.5 Theology in the late modern era (nineteenth to twenty-first centuries)

4.5.1 Challenges and achievements

4.5.2 Institutions and forms

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 4.5.3 Theologians

4.6 The Eastern churches

4.7 Jewish Christianity

5 Traditions

5.1 Denominational traditions

5.1.1 Eastern Orthodox Church

5.1.2 Roman Catholic Church

5.1.3 Lutheran churches

5.1.4 Reformed churches

5.1.5 Anglican churches

5.1.6 Free churches

5.2 Spiritual traditions

5.2.1 Liturgical traditions

5.2.2 Holiness traditions

5.2.3 Evangelical traditions

5.2.4 Mystical and charismatic traditions

5.3 Contextual traditions

6 Theology between science and art

6.1 Theology as science

6.2 Theology and the sciences

6.3 Theology and the arts

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1 The substance of theology
1.1 Terminology and scope
The Christian use of the term ‘theology’ (from Greek theologia, speech or thought
concerning God) has its roots in the tension between the mythic, philosophical, and cultic
meanings of the term in Graeco-Roman antiquity: theology as mythic stories about the
gods (theologia fabulosa), theology as reasoning about the nature of the divine (theologia
naturalis), and theology as proficiency in civic religion (theologia civilis) (Varro, Antiquities
of Human and Divine Things; cited in Augustine, City of God 6.5). In their classical context,
these three senses were at odds with one another: Plato addressed the difficulty of
reconciling the stories of gods told by the poets with rational criteria for defining divinity,
including immutability and goodness (Republic 2.379). Similarly, Varro discussed the
contrast between this kind of divinity and the gods of whom images might be made in civic
religion (Antiquities of Human and Divine Things 2.1, cited in Augustine, City of God 4.27
and 4.31). When they confessed Jesus as the incarnate Logos and therefore as the true
face of divinity, some early Christian authors consciously adopted the verb theologein in
the specific sense of ‘to speak of someone as God’; that is, ‘to attribute deity to Christ’ (e.g.
Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John 2.1). Theologia as the true doctrine of God
understood through his Word made flesh came to be seen as reconciling the seemingly
irreconcilable aspects of pagan theology – myth, reason, and cult – in new and previously
unimagined ways (Eusebius, The History of the Church 2.1.1).

In uniting the seemingly conflicting domains of myth, reason, and cult, the adoption of
the term ‘theology’ by the early church signals the fact that Christian thought about God
moves within enduring fields of tension: within the spaces created by truths that stand in
tension with each other, but must nevertheless be held together in order to remain true to
the breadth of divine revelation and human experience. These tensions include not only
the basic Christian confessions of one God in three persons and one Saviour with two
‘natures’ (divine and human), but also other tensions, including the following: a belief in
God as both utterly transcendent and intimately present; the need, but also acknowledged
inability, to express divine truth in human language; the confession that universal truth has
been revealed in unique historical events; a trust in ancient texts alongside an expectation
of the creative agency of the Holy Spirit; an aspiration to universal community within a
commitment to clearly delineated statements of faith; a detailed diagnosis of evils within
a basic trust in the goodness of the world; an engagement with death as both natural and
unnatural; a reliance on critical reason, tempered by a commitment to faith, hope, and
love; and an orientation towards the realization and maintenance of social goods delimited
by an expectation that their fulfilment awaits the return of Christ and the eternal reign of
God.

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The character of particular theological periods or movements is often shaped by the ways
in which they endeavour to hold or resolve these tensions, including their relative failures
to consider both poles or to resist premature resolutions. In the present, one dominant
concern is the tension between a trust in divine revelation and ecclesial tradition on the
one hand, and, on the other, awareness of the deep potential of claims to revelation and
of traditional hierarchies and forces to be oppressive, manipulative, and marginalizing.
This tension is being tested in a wide range of ways in feminist, liberation, Black, queer,
and other emerging theologies that resist systematization and impel non-traditional forms
of expression and action. Questions of power, justice, inclusion, freedom, and newness
are also tested in different ways by spiritual movements, including charismatic and new
monastic movements. To these and other communities, it is patent that the breadth of
divine revelation and human experience can only be sustained in their promise and
challenge through spiritual discipline. To many, therefore, theology is above all a way of life
or a practice of prayer and devotion.

In more general modern usage, Christian theology is the systematic and critical
representation, explication, examination, and elaboration of the content and form of
Christian faith. It seeks to represent Christianity’s statements of belief coherently,
to explicate them by reference to their foundations and contexts, to examine their
significance and resilience, and to elaborate them in relation to new questions and
discoveries. The substance of theology is usually divided into two groups: God, and God’s
relation to the world. Within the first, theology asks questions about the character of God
as triune (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and as described by traditional perfections such
as eternity, simplicity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence
(1.2). Within the second, its subjects include the creation of the world (1.3), the nature of
human beings (1.4), the incarnation of the Son (1.5), the achievement of salvation (1.6),
the activity of the Holy Spirit (1.7), the constitution of the church (1.8), and the ‘last things’
or end of the created order (1.9).

1.2 Doctrine of God

The doctrine of God describes God as he is understood through revelation and reason.

Key claims are that God is the creator, redeemer, and perfecter of the world, and that he
has revealed himself as triune, that is, as three persons in one essence. The doctrine of
God therefore reasons about the perfections that belong necessarily to a God who creates
and guides the world, often thought to include necessary existence, eternity, simplicity,
omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence. More distinctively, it
explicates the doctrine of the Trinity, reasoning about the relationship of the three divine
persons – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – to one another and to
the divine essence, as witnessed to in the Bible and defined in the early creeds.

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Key questions for theologians concern adequate accounts of God’s nature and persons; of
God as he is in himself (the immanent Trinity) and as he is ‘for us’ (the economic Trinity);
the ascription of ‘God’ to the Father and to the triune Godhead; and the most appropriate
sources and forms of discourse about God.

Key challenges include the relationship between God as portrayed in the Bible (especially
the Old Testament) and God as conceptually describable; the apparent hiddenness of
God; and the perceived tensions between the Christian doctrine of God as triune and
ordinary logic.

1.3 Creation
The study of creation concerns the act and purposes of creation, and the created world as
a whole.

A key claim is that the world is created from nothing by the triune God. In creation, God
communicates his goodness and love, and establishes material and spiritual order to his
glory and to the delight of his creatures.

Key theological questions about creation concern its ends or purposes (teleology), the
relationship between material and non-material aspects of creation, as well as between
time and eternity; and the forms its relations with its creator take.

Key challenges include the presence of evil in a good creation, and the relationship
between theology and scientific representations of the world. (See Creation.)

1.4 Theological anthropology

Theological anthropology is the theological study of human beings (Greek: anthropoi).

Key claims are that humans are created in God’s image (Gen 1:27) and called to
communion with him, but that their correspondence to this image and their response to this
calling are marred by sin.

Key theological questions concern the forms of human relationship with God; the
relationship of their freedom to their calling; their historical condition as sinful; their rights
and duties; and the relationship between their material and their non-material reality.

Key challenges include how, if at all, to define human ‘nature’; how to understand
human life in relation to illness, decay, and death; how to understand human evil and its
consequences (either natural or divinely imposed); and how to interpret the relationship
between humanity and non-human creatures.

1.5 Christology

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Christology is the study of Jesus Christ (Greek: Christos, meaning ‘anointed’ or ‘Messiah’).

Key claims are that God the Son is the second person of the triune God, begotten of the
Father before all worlds, and one with him in essence; and that Jesus Christ, conceived by
the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, is God the Son, born in human flesh to restore
humans’ broken relationship to God, and to be raised to new life with him.

Key theological questions concern adequate descriptions of the relationship between

Jesus’ humanity and divinity; his humanity and ours; as well as between Jesus Christ, God
the Father, and God the Holy Spirit.

Key challenges include the relationship between divine providence, humanity’s fall, and
Christ’s incarnation; the possibility and relevance of reconstructing the historical Jesus;
the significance of his ministry and teachings; and the apparent tensions between the
Christian doctrine of a God-man and ordinary reasoning.

1.6 Soteriology
Soteriology is the study of salvation (Greek: soteria).

Key claims are that humans, created in and for free communion with God, broke this
communion by disdaining the divine law, and entangled themselves in evil from which they
cannot now free themselves; and that God the Son became a human being to restore and
raise humans into new communion with God by dying on their behalf on a cross, and rising
from the dead.

Key theological questions concern adequate description of the problem and its solution;
the contexts within which salvation is to be understood; the means by which it is achieved
and appropriated; its scope (within and beyond humanity); and its ultimate outcome.

Key challenges include the question whether all humans or only some are saved; how
Jesus’ defeat of death in the resurrection is to be understood in the face of continuing
experiences of death’s triumph; and how a series of events in history can have universal
efficacy.

1.7 Pneumatology
Pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit (Greek: to Hagion Pneuma; see The Spirit in
the Christian Bible).

A key claim is that the Holy Spirit of whom the Bible speaks is the third person of the
triune God, proceeding eternally from the Father (through the Son), active in creation and
incarnation, and sent into the world to guide and sanctify his people.

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Key theological questions concern the relationship of the Spirit to the Father and the
Son, especially the question whether he proceeds from the Father only (as the Eastern
churches affirm) or also from the Son (as the Western churches claim); and his sphere
of action in the world, including the question of the continued presence of the ‘gifts of the
Spirit’ which were characteristic of the New Testament church.

Key challenges include the difficulty of discerning the work of the Holy Spirit amid the
subjective experience and interpretation of an individual or community; and the tendency
to identify the Holy Spirit with the prevailing ‘spirit of the age’.

1.8 Ecclesiology
Ecclesiology is the study of the church (Greek: ekklesia).

A key claim is that after Jesus’ ascension into heaven, a church was established and
quickened by the Holy Spirit. The church is the body of Christ in the world, sustaining his
followers and extending his good news of salvation to the world.

Key theological questions concern the claims and tasks of the church both internally
and externally; the right understanding and practice of the sacraments or ordinances,
especially baptism and the Eucharist; the church’s governance, organization and
boundaries; and its relationship to wider society.

Key challenges include the relationship of the church to the Jewish people, both of whom
may be called the ‘people of God’; the relationship between the empirical reality of the
historical church and the spiritual reality of the church affirmed by faith; the tension
between the credal affirmation of the church as ‘one, holy, catholic, and apostolic’ and the
reality of church division; the tension between church membership constituted by ‘tribal’
descent and by personal belief; and the far-reaching differences between denominational
accounts of the key questions of ecclesiology.

1.9 Eschatology
Eschatology is the study of the last things (Greek: eschata) – that is, the consummation of
God’s purposes for individual lives and for creation at large. Traditionally, this study centres
on the four eschata or ‘last things’: death, judgment, heaven, and hell.

Key claims are that God created and redeemed the world so that at least some of his
creatures might live joyfully with him forever; that the resurrection of Jesus announces the
resurrection of all flesh; and that life and history therefore do not simply dissipate, but await
judgement and fulfilment at Christ’s return in glory.

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Key theological questions concern appropriate interpretation of the eschatological imagery
of the Bible; adequate understandings of eternal life or beatitude (as resurrected bodies, a
peaceable kingdom, and/or the beatific vision); the nature and duration of punishment for
evil; intermediary states of the dead awaiting judgement; the historical claims involved in
the credal affirmations of the church that ‘Christ will come again to judge the living and the
dead’; and the nature and place of death.

Key challenges include the tension of eschatological claims with biological and
cosmological laws of decay and entropy; repeatedly falsified predictions of an imminent
return of Christ; the tension of biblical images of hell with the perceived injustice of eternal
punishment for finite wrongdoing; and the epistemological and logical opaqueness of much
eschatological material.

2 The structure of theology

How communities and theologians approach these doctrinal subjects depends on their
orientation within theology as an intellectual and practical structure. This section describes
theology from this structural perspective. Abstracting from concrete theological traditions, it
describes the dimensions which structure any theological work, and examines the variety
of ways in which these dimensions can be realized and interrelated. There are three main
such dimensions:
• The principles of theology (2.1), that is, the sources and norms of theological
inquiries. The four most widely recognized principles are revelation (2.1.1), reason
(2.1.2), tradition (2.1.3), and experience (2.1.4). The relation of these principles to
each other is itself an important theological question.
• The capacities of theology (2.2), that is, the aims that theology is capable of
achieving through its choice of language (2.2.1), method (2.2.2), and style (2.2.3).
• The settings and tasks of theology (2.3), that is, the contexts within which it is
practised to certain ends. These settings with their respective tasks include the
community of worship (2.3.1), the life of faith (2.3.2), the academy (2.3.3), and the
public sphere (2.3.4).
The section also describes the specific organization of theology as an academic discipline
(2.4).

2.1 The principles of theology

Theology, especially in the Western traditions, treats its subject matter on the basis of four
main principles: revelation, reason, tradition, and experience. ‘Principles’, in this sense,
function in one or both of two ways: as sources or as norms of theology. Principles function
as sources when they provide the substance which theologians interpret, order, and build

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on. They function as norms when they provide criteria for the interpretation, organization,
and elaboration of theology’s substance, and for evaluating its claims.

Most theological traditions recognize all four principles, but differ in their understanding
and weighting of each, and in their uses of each as source and/or norm. These differences
often account for contrasts not only in the claims of different theological traditions, but also
in their ways of arguing for these claims, developing them in changing circumstances,
and evaluating new data. Critical problems and challenges in theology often arise
from perceived conflicts between two principles, such as revelation and tradition (as
paradigmatically in the Reformation), tradition and reason (as paradigmatically in
the Enlightenment), or revelation and experience (as paradigmatically in modernity).
Attempted solutions sometimes involve the repurposing of one principle from a source to a
norm.

Subsections 2.1.1 to 2.1.4 define each of the principles, give examples of their use as
source and as norm, and outline central challenges relating to their definition and use.

2.1.1 Revelation

Revelation, in its most basic sense, is the self-revelation of God to his people. In other
words, it is (within Christian theology) not primarily the disclosure of facts or propositions,
but personal self-communication. The origin and the principal content of revelation are
thus both God as self-revelatory, as a God who opens himself to relationship with his
people. As an offer of relationship, such revelation can only be received in an attitude
of faith: a trusting, receptive disposition on the part of the addressee. Thus, faith is the
human counterpart of revelation. God’s self-revelation is mediated primarily through his
history with his people Israel and, above all, the incarnation, as witnessed by the Bible and
received by faith.

Revelation functions as a source when the self-revelation of God in Christ and in the
Bible furnishes the substance of belief. Central examples are the character of God as
the giver of life, laws, ordinances, and promises through covenants with all humankind,
and especially with Israel; and the identity of Jesus as Messiah of Israel and Son of God,
whose death and resurrection overcome human faithlessness and renew creation’s life
with God.

By contrast, revelation functions as a norm when criteria for formulating and assessing
theological claims are derived from the person, works, and words of Christ, or from the
Bible more generally. The Reformation principle sola scriptura (‘by scripture alone’)
emphasizes the role of the Bible not only as source but also as sole final norm in
arbitrating theological claims.

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Central challenges concerning revelation as a principle of theology include: what role
do human and textual mediators of revelation play? By whom, and by what criteria,
is revelation adequately interpreted? How are experiences of ‘private revelations’,
professed by many Christian believers and groups, to be evaluated? How is revelation to
be understood in relation to other ways in which humans acquire reliable beliefs?

2.1.2 Reason

Theologically, reason may be understood as the illumination of the human intellect by

the light of Reason, that is, of God’s own ordering of creation. In the opening of John’s
gospel, ‘en arche en ho logos […] kai ho logos sarx egeneto’, traditionally translated ‘In the
beginning was the Word…and the Word was made flesh (see John 1:1–14), may also be
translated ‘in the beginning was Reason […] and Reason was made flesh’.

However, in common modern usage, reason is usually understood not in this metaphysical
but in a procedural sense, as the capacity to understand the qualities, causes, and
interrelations of objects or classes of objects, both physical and abstract, through
disciplined processes of observation, description, and forming connections. Such
reasoning processes always begin from assumptions and data that are accepted as
axiomatic, even if separate reasoning processes may investigate these assumptions and
data, relying on others in turn accepted as axiomatic. In this sense, reason understood
procedurally is always grounded in principles not directly accessible to it. Since the
nineteenth century, when these grounding principles were no longer universally assumed
to be divine, questions about the grounds of reason have become sources of profound
cultural anxiety, and there have been growing concerns that reason may always rely on
biases themselves rooted in desire for advantage.

Reason functions as a source of theology when reasoning processes provide the material
of theological claims. Strictly speaking, this is the case only very rarely, most notably in the
ontological argument for the existence of God, which seeks to rely solely on logic. More
broadly, reason is sometimes adduced as a source for ‘natural theology’, understood as
a theology that suspends trust in revelation and draws its substance entirely from human
reason. However, insofar as reason is a capacity to connect or orient oneself within what
is antecedently given in experience, conversation, or imagination, such a use of reason
as source in practice always relies on prior sources. In its fullest theological sense of
the human intellect’s participation in the order of creation, reason functions as a more
comprehensive ‘source’ of theology; but see 6.1 (‘Theology as science’; see also Theology
and Science).

Reason functions as a norm when it is employed in the rational evaluation, organization,

and elaboration of material given in revelation, tradition, and experience. In this capacity,

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reason is intrinsic to theology as to all human thought, though it is open to important
challenges.

Central challenges concerning reason as a principle of theology include: how is reason

conditioned? What are its grounds and proper limits? What is the relationship between ‘ho
Logos’ and human exercises of reason?

2.1.3 Tradition

Tradition describes the process of handing on from one generation to the next, and
comprises the deposit of norms, texts, practices, and sensibilities that is passed on within
a church or other group over significant lengths of time.

Tradition functions as a source when rules, stories, and practices that have arisen and
been handed down within a group form part of the substance of theological work. The
form of the biblical canon and the credal affirmations of the ecumenical councils function
as sources for most Christian traditions; papal pronouncements, conciliar documents,
and confessions (such as those of Augsburg or Westminster) function as identity-defining
sources for particular denominations.

By contrast, tradition functions as a norm when theological sources are interpreted,

assessed, and elaborated according to the precedents, priorities, and practices of a
particular tradition.

Central challenges concerning the principle of tradition include: who determines tradition?
How does one distinguish between the development of tradition and aberration from it?
How does one distinguish its core from its ephemera? Is its authority limited to a group, or
claimed as universal?

2.1.4 Experience

Experience is the phenomenon of being consciously the subject of a condition or action,

or of being consciously affected by an event, including that of divine self-revelation. More
widely, experience describes one’s affective and lived engagement with the world, other
people, oneself, and God.

Experience functions as a source of theology when such engagement and affect, including
affective and transformative experiences of divine reality, form part of the substance of
theological work. Augustine’s ‘restless heart’ (Confessions 1.1), Schleiermacher’s ‘feeling
of absolute dependence’ (Schleiermacher 1996: ch. 2), and John Wesley’s experience of a
‘heart strangely warmed’, shared by so many people of faith, can be sources in this sense
(see The Journal of John Wesley). Experiences of prophecy and miracles, especially in
charismatic movements, form more contentious sources of theological assertion. Beyond

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religious experience, the ordinary experiences of socially defined groups are key sources
for contextual theologies in twentieth- and twenty-first-century theology.

By contrast, experience functions as a norm when theological sources and claims

are assessed against experiential criteria, for example in questions such as: is a rule
or description consistent with experience? Does it lead to suffering or exclusion?
The elevation of non-religious experience as a norm for theology is a distinctive and
contentious aspect of twentieth- and twenty-first-century theology.

Central challenges concerning the principle of experience include: how does one evaluate
experience? In particular, how does one adequately take into account both that experience
is compelling in its immediacy and that it is nevertheless contingent and malleable? How
does one balance its position between subjectivity and universality?

2.2 The capacities of theology

How theologians treat particular subjects depends not only on the principles in which their
understanding is rooted and by which it is conditioned, but also on their basic intuitions
about the capacities of theology to approach, articulate, and shape Christian belief. The
question what theology (as opposed to other articulations of faith, for example in prayer)
is capable of achieving is vital for a critical practice of theology, and all theological work
explicitly or implicitly reflects intuitions about its own capacities.

2.2.1 Language

A central question about theology’s capacities concerns its use of language, particularly
in speaking about God. Since God is not an ordinary object of human understanding, but
trusted as the ground and horizon of all being, knowledge, and speech, the questions
whether and how ordinary language is capable of referring to God determine not only the
content but also the form of any theological work.

There are two basic ways in which theology may be capable of speaking of God:
kataphasis (affirmation) and apophasis (negation). Cataphatic language comprises what
may be said affirmatively or positively about God; apophatic language comprises what
may only be said by negation, which may include negating a final opposition between
affirmation and negation (see Dionysius the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology 1.2).
Some thinkers and traditions practice theology as effectively cataphatic; others regard it as
necessarily apophatic to a larger or smaller degree.

The distinction between cataphatic and apophatic language is related to that between
univocal and analogical language as means of speaking about God. To speak univocally
about God and creation is to use words in just the same sense when applying them to God
as when applying them to created things: to say that ‘God loves’ means just what it means

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to say ‘humans love’ unless differences are specified adjectivally. To speak analogically
is to expect that words, when applied to God, will not mean exactly what they mean when
applied to created things: saying that ‘God loves’ is intended as both similar and infinitely
different to saying that ‘humans love’, though the exact differences will require elaboration.
Some thinkers and traditions regard univocity as the basis of a reliable and meaningful
theology; others regard theological language as necessarily analogical.

2.2.2 Method

Another central question about theology’s capacities concerns the methods by which the
substance of faith is best approached. These in turn depend on how that faith itself is
understood.

Metaphysical methods approach the Christian faith as disclosing a metaphysical structure

which theology is capable of explaining. They usually yield works of systematic theology,
philosophical theology, or fundamental theology.

Hermeneutic methods approach the Christian faith as communicating divine and human
intentions which theology is capable of interpreting and responding to. They usually yield
works of biblical theology, as well as other works of interpretation (including some forms of
historical interpretation).

Historical methods approach the Christian faith as constituting a history that theology
is capable of expounding. They usually yield works of historical theology or intellectual
history.

Critical methods approach the Christian faith as involving assumptions, biases, or errors
that theology is capable of identifying and resolving. They usually yield works of critical or
contextual theology.

Pragmatic methods approach the Christian faith as presenting practical questions and
challenges that theology is capable of addressing. They usually yield works of pastoral,
practical, or ‘occasional’ theology.

2.2.3 Style

The question of theological method is closely related to that of theological style, which
reflects the primary aims that a theological work sets itself in relation to the substance of
Christian belief. Many works of theology combine several styles, though they often deploy
one more successfully than the other.

Dogmatic styles seek to formulate how best to understand the subjects of Christian belief
(see section 1) on the basis of theology’s principles (see 2.1) and capacities (see 2.2),
often in accordance with particular traditions (see section 5).

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Didactic styles seek to explain and pass on received beliefs, usually within particular
settings such as churches or educational institutions (see 2.3), and often in the context of
particular traditions (see section 5).

Apologetic styles seek to show the vitality and truth of Christian beliefs to those who do
not share them, and to defend these beliefs against erosion and encroachment, often by
appealing to or establishing shared principles (see 2.1).

Critical styles examine specific theological beliefs (see section 1), principles (see 2.1), or
capacities (see 2.2), testing them against intellectual and practical challenges from within
or outside theology.

Constructive styles seek to develop the substance of belief creatively to address new
questions and challenges, often arising from within particular contexts (see especially 2.3,
5.3) or interdisciplinary confrontations (see section 6).

2.3 The settings and tasks of theology

Theology is deeply shaped by the settings in which it is practised, and the tasks that it
fulfils in those settings. The four main settings of theological work are the community of
worship (2.3.1), the individual life (2.3.2), the academy (2.3.3), and the public sphere
(2.3.4). The following subsections introduce theology in these settings, describing the aims
to which it contributes there and the qualifications required to pursue it. Although different
traditions prioritize the four settings and tasks differently, all four play some role in most
traditions of theology (see also section 5).

2.3.1 The community of worship

Theology, as Karl Barth describes it, is ‘the rational self-examination of the Christian
Church with respect to the content of its distinctive talk about God’ (Barth 2010: 3): it is
communal reasoning about and in light of the faith received and handed on by the church.
Theology in this sense is situated within a Christian community, and plays a vital role
in its self-understanding, worship practices, teachings, wider activity, and organization.
Theology’s tasks, in this setting, are to illuminate and deepen the church’s worship; to
equip its mission; to inform its self-organization; to clarify its teachings and their meaning
in changing contexts (for example through sermons, lectures, study groups, publications,
and councils); and to guide and hold to account its internal and external practice. The
qualification for leading these theological tasks is typically an ecclesial role, originally
that of bishop, but also other ordained or lay church ministries (such as pastor, priest, or
catechist), a consecrated life within the church (such as monks, nuns, or friars), and high
church office other than bishop. These are supported by lay theologians and the entire

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church community. Significant theological differences mark different denominations and
traditions; these are discussed in section 5 below.

2.3.2 The life of faith

Theology, as Anselm describes it, is ‘faith seeking understanding’ (Anselm of Canterbury

2008: 83): it is the attempt to gain a better understanding of one’s faith, and how it relates
to the whole breadth of one’s experiences, convictions, and actions. Theology in this sense
is situated within a life of faith and plays a vital role in its maturation. Its task is to achieve
increasing aptness, clarity, and coherence of belief and practice, and thereby to support a
deeply rooted, mature, generous, and reflective faith. There are no special qualifications
for this task, insofar as it is not optional but always already being pursued to some extent.
All people of faith have theological intuitions, which are informed by their formation and
disposition, their devotional and church practices, reading and listening habits, and their
engagements with people of the same, other, and no faiths. These intuitions sometimes
remain unreflective and unintegrated: they do not always cohere with each other or with
surrounding beliefs, experiences, and practices. But whether implicit or explicit, they
influence how believers understand and interact with God, other people, the world, and
their own lives. The task of seeking aptness, clarity, and coherence through prayer,
personal reading, communal learning, and discussion, and in some cases academic study,
is therefore a vital part of a life of faith.

2.3.3 The academy

Theology, as Thomas Aquinas defines it, is the study of ‘all things […] treated of under the
aspect of God: either because they are God Himself or because they refer to God as their
beginning and end’ (Summa Theologiae 1.1.7). Theology in this sense is a subject of study
within the university, and plays a role in its mission to conserve, expand, integrate, and
apply knowledge. Theology’s task, in this setting, is the rational examination of the content,
principles, practices, and contexts of religious faith. The qualification for these theological
tasks is an academic rather than ecclesial role, often with a specialization in one or more
subdisciplines, such as biblical studies, historical theology, systematic theology, practical
theology, or religious studies. There is a wide spectrum of approaches to the academic
study of theology; these are discussed in 2.4 below.

2.3.4 The public sphere

Theology, as Jürgen Moltmann describes it, ‘has to be public theology […] for the kingdom
of God’s sake’ (Moltmann 1999: 5). Theology of this kind is driven by a sense of public
responsibility, as assumed by Paul in his speech on the Areopagus (Acts 17). Its main
tasks are to share and apply the gospel, to articulate and defend religious responses to
public questions, and to oppose public ills. There are no formal qualifications for these
theological tasks, which may be undertaken by Christians in any profession, though

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especially by missionaries, teachers, writers, speakers, and other public figures. The
widening separation of church and state, and the secularization of the public sphere since
the eighteenth century, have increasingly problematized the public role of theology: the
basis and scope of theological interventions in public discourse is a subject of debate both
within and across religious boundaries. In many countries, public theology is censored
either officially or tacitly, and incurs risk of professional, private, and sometimes legal
detriment. Nevertheless, the gospel as the announcement of God’s kingdom is not
reducible to the private sphere or the visible church, but addresses itself to all aspects of
personal and communal life.

2.4 The structure of theology as an academic discipline

Theology as an academic discipline is organized into subjects, which developed in their
modern forms in the nineteenth century and continue to evolve. These subjects represent
distinctive approaches to theology and focal points within its key areas. They are shaped
by canons of texts and arguments, and by evolving methodological protocols, apparatus,
and debates.

The organization of subjects varies with their institutional contexts, depending especially
on educational setting and denominational affiliation. The most common academic settings
are seminaries, research universities, and liberal arts colleges. Most larger church bodies
around the world operate seminaries for the education of their ministers. These tend to be
small, and offer both intellectual formation and practical training in church ministry. Within
the wider academy, many research universities were Christian foundations, and commonly
retain theological faculties (as in Europe) or affiliated seminaries (as in the USA). Though
denominationally shaped, these long-established faculties and seminaries generally
accept students of many denominational affiliations for ministerial study, and students both
with and without religious intent for academic study. Similarly, many liberal arts colleges
in the USA are Christian foundations, and some continue to provide a religious education,
both by including a theological curriculum and by teaching the liberal arts within a broadly
religious context.

Theology as an academic discipline is often called Divinity, particularly at institutions

or in academic degrees focused on ministerial training. Although originally a higher
degree, pursued after a foundational education in the liberal arts, it is now often taught
from undergraduate level onwards, especially as an academic (rather than ministerial)
subject. Academically oriented degrees include the standard degrees of BA, MA, and
PhD in Theology, and the (now often honorary) higher Doctor of Divinity (DD). Graduate
degrees preparing for ministerial or professional work within the churches include the
Bachelor of Divinity (BD, now mainly UK) or Master of Divinity (MDiv, mainly US), as well
as the Doctor of Ministry (DMin, mainly US) as ministerial degrees; the Master of Theology

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(MTh or MTheol, sometimes also MTS or STM) and Doctor of Theology (DTh or ThD)
as professional academic degrees; and Pontifical bachelors (STB), licenciates (STL and
JCL) and doctorates (STD and JCD) as professional academic degrees within Roman
Catholicism. (See also the histories of theological institutions in 4.1 to 4.5.)

Subsections 2.4.1 to 2.4.7 introduce the subject areas into which theology is divided within
most Roman Catholic and Protestant seminaries and faculties of theology worldwide:
biblical studies (2.4.1), historical theology (2.4.2), systematic or dogmatic theology
(2.4.3), practical theology (2.4.4), religious studies (2.4.5), and varieties of contextual
and interdisciplinary theological studies (2.4.6). Practical theology (2.4.4) encompasses
a wide range of subjects relevant to church ministry and is most strongly represented at
seminaries. Religious studies (2.4.5) and contextual and interdisciplinary studies (2.4.6)
were widely established in the late twentieth century and are represented primarily at
research universities. Each subsection outlines the range of its subject and the methods it
commonly employs.

2.4.1 Biblical studies

Biblical studies include the study of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible and of the New
Testament: their origins, languages, and textual and literary forms and relationships;
religious and theological questions within and arising from them; the histories, languages,
and texts of surrounding cultures; and (especially in the late twentieth and early twenty-
first centuries) the reception of the Bible in later history. Their methods include philology,
exegesis, hermeneutics, various forms of criticism (especially textual criticism, source
criticism, form criticism, and literary criticism), epigraphy, and archaeology.

2.4.2 Historical theology

Historical theology includes historical particularities and developments of theology, as

well as church history (commonly periodized into Patristic, medieval, Reformation, and
modern). It uses methods shared with history, including manuscript studies, textual
analysis, contextualization and comparison, and (especially in the case of church history)
attention to material culture.

2.4.3 Systematic theology

Systematic theology includes dogmatics, theological ethics, philosophical theology,

philosophy of religion, and (especially in Roman Catholicism) fundamental theology.
It uses methods shared with a variety of disciplines: with philosophy, it shares logical
analysis, critical argument, phenomenological investigation, and other approaches; with
ethics, methods of common-sensical and formal analysis, distinction, and generalization;
with literature, close reading and application of theoretical frameworks; with history,
contextualization and comparison; and with biblical studies, hermeneutics and exegesis.

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Systematic theology uses these methods synthetically, aiming to understand theology as
an intellectual system, with articulated sources, assumptions, criteria, and claims, and
with defined parts that stand in coherent relation to other components as well as to extra-
theological realities.

2.4.4 Practical theology

Practical theology can be understood in two ways: as comprising subjects relevant

to church ministry, including pastoral care and leadership, liturgics, homiletics, and
missiology; or as theological engagement with the practices of church and society. In the
first sense, practical theology cultivates practical skills shared with other professions,
including counselling, rhetoric, management, and administration. In the second sense, it
combines theological and empirical studies in a wide variety of ways.

2.4.5 Religious studies

Religious studies include comparative religion, anthropology of religion, sociology of

religion, psychology of religion, and history of religions. These studies often adopt an etic
(external) rather than an emic (internal) approach to theology. They apply the methods
of anthropology, sociology, psychology, and comparative studies to manifestations of
religious faith and practice, analysing religion as a cluster of psychological, social, and
anthropological phenomena.

2.4.6 Contextual and interdisciplinary theological studies

Contextual theology includes the study of theology through the lens of critical theories
(including gender and queer theories, and race and postcolonial theories), political
theologies, and the study of religion and society. Major fields of interdisciplinary theological
study include theology and philosophy, theology and the arts, and theology and science
(see also 6.2).

3 Biblical sources
The Christian Bible, consisting of texts collected in the Old and New Testaments and
received as the inspired word of God, is Christian theology’s foundational canon of texts.
It is the source of theology in at least four ways. First, it conveys God’s words, actions,
character, and will as revealed to his people Israel and to the wider world. Secondly, it
unfolds the story of God’s good creation, humanity’s alienation, and God’s faithfulness
and redemption which has shaped the history and self-understanding of Israel and of
the church. Thirdly, the Bible therefore institutes theology as a practice that is not merely
speculative, but forms part of a human response to God’s call, aiming to ‘be transformed
by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what
is good and acceptable and perfect’ (Rom 12:2). Fourth, in these and other ways, it

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shapes what sociologists call the ‘imaginary’ of Christian theology, that is, the shared set
of intuitions, values, and symbols through which Christians imagine and encounter their
world.

These four sources of theology – disclosures of God’s agency and will, accounts of
salvation history, expressions of divine calling and human response, and the unfolding
of images, symbols, and stories that fill the Christian imaginary – require a great range
of means of expression. The Bible, accordingly, abounds in different textual genres and
styles, which themselves represent different ways of doing theology. The following sections
explore biblical genres and textual forms in the Old and New Testaments (3.1 and 3.2),
and in the Bible as a unified canon (3.3). They discuss the ways in which different types of
text seek to represent and mediate God, the forms of human response they enable, and
some of the ways they have influenced later theology. These outlines do not aim to present
a biblical theology or to describe all biblical genres, but only to offer an introduction to the
complex relationship between biblical texts and Christian theology.

3.1 Theology in the Old Testament

The Old Testament of the Christian Bible is traditionally divided either into the three
ancient Jewish categories of Torah, Prophets, and Writings, or into the four categories of
Pentateuch, historical books, wisdom books, and prophetic books. The precise extent of
the Old Testament canon varies slightly among denominations.

3.1.1 History as theology

The Pentateuch, the historical books, and large portions of the prophetic books contain
historical material. This material concerns above all the creation and population of the
world, the vocation of the Patriarchs, and the fraught history of Israel as the people of
God’s covenant. It reveals God as the sovereign agent of creation, provision, retribution,
and redemption. In Christian theology, the history recounted in the Old Testament also
furnishes the scheme of salvation history, establishing a characteristically theological view
of history as directed by God towards covenant and consummation. The character of God
as expressed in these histories, and the challenges of interpreting global and personal
history in light of salvation history as instituted through the biblical texts, have shaped
theology and its interactions with other domains from the early church to the present day.

3.1.2 Law and wisdom as theology

The Pentateuch, the historical books, and the wisdom books (especially Proverbs) contain
extensive legal and prudential material: rules, precepts, and maxims intended to order
the lives of communities and individuals. In these texts, the good order of such lives
presupposes, constitutes, and enables knowledge of God, by whom it is ordained and
to whom it is directed. In Christian theology, the laws and moral precepts of the Old

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Testament form complex sources of Christian reasoning. On the one hand, they are
regarded as foundational for moral reasoning and social theory; on the other, they are
seen as requiring figurative interpretation, recasting some (but not all) of Israel’s laws and
precepts typologically through the mediating lens of Jesus Christ’s person, teaching, and
work. The challenges posed by this complex process of reinterpretation and normative
application have defined theological disputes both internally and externally throughout
Christian history.

3.1.3 Narrative as theology

The Pentateuch, historical, wisdom, and prophetic books contain stories and parables
of divine and human action. Some are stories told by the books’ characters with explicit
aims, such as the parable of the sheep owners told by the prophet Nathan to his king
David with the conclusion, ‘thou art the man’ (2 Sam 12:7). Others are stories comprising
entire books, arguably including Job and Jonah. They illuminate moral and metaphysical
questions or provide commentary on historical and legal material. These stories are
significant in figurative and canonical contexts (see 3.3.1 and 3.3.2), and serve as
exemplars for later literary forms.

3.1.4 Prayer as theology

Pervading the Pentateuch, historical, and prophetic books – and concentrated in Job,
the Psalms, and Lamentations – are texts of praise, lamentation, supplication, and
thanksgiving. Some of these are the prayers or compositions of individuals, others the
ritual prayers of communities. In praise and lamentation, God is addressed as one who
not only beholds, but pervades, elucidates, and transforms human experience. Historically,
the Psalms and Canticles which structure the daily prayers of individuals, congregations,
and monastic orders have shaped the theological imaginary and self-understanding more
than most other biblical texts. The common detachment of modern academic theology
from these frameworks of affect, expression, and encounter is a significant rupture with far-
ranging effects.

3.1.5 Prophecy and vision as theology

The dominant mode of the prophetic books, which account for about one quarter of the Old
Testament, is prophetic speech and vision. In words and visions imparted by God or his
angels, God is encountered as speaker, sender, and sovereign actor, and as one whose
providence may be hidden from ordinary sight, yet is active and manifest in prophetic
and apocalyptic vision. This providence, though sometimes retributive, is ultimately
redemptive. Much of the prophetic material of the Old Testament – whether it explicitly
speaks of future events or relates to God’s agency and disposition in the prophet’s present
– is accordingly seen, both in and after the New Testament, as foretelling the coming,
work, and significance of Jesus the Redeemer. In Christian theology, prophetic material is

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also interpreted ethically or allegorically, and sometimes interpreted as predicting certain
historical events, both now past and yet to come. Particularly charged is visionary and
prophetic material concerned with the eschata or ‘last things’, on which much of Christian
eschatology (see 1.9) depends. More generally, these texts assume formal significance as
loci of revelation inaccessible by unaided human reasoning.

3.1.6 Names of God as theology

The biblical texts abound with names addressing or referring to God, including El,
Elohim, El Shaddai, Elyon, and YHWH. These and other names are important sources
for discussions of God’s character in Christian theology, especially in the Patristic and
medieval periods. YHWH (also referred to as the Tetragrammaton, sometimes vocalized
as Yahweh or Jehovah, and often rendered LORD in biblical translations) assumes
special significance as a derivation of God’s self-revelation to Moses in Exod 3:14. That
self-revelation, usually translated ‘I am’ (or, less commonly, ‘I will be’), also forms the
background to the ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John (6:35; 8:12; 8:58;
10:7; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1; 18:4-5), and to later metaphysical accounts of God as Being
itself (e.g. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1.2.3). Other names and forms, including terms
such as ‘the Spirit of the Lord’, as well as the plural form of Elohim, are sometimes linked
in Christian theology to the persons of the Trinity.

3.2 Theology in the New Testament

The New Testament is the recapitulation, transformation, and expansion of the covenantal
history of Israel in the light of Jesus Christ – his person, ministry, work, and commission.
It consists of four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), a chronicle of the work and
experience of the apostles (Acts of the Apostles), twenty-one letters to young churches,
and a visionary book or apocalypse (the Book of Revelation). Like the Old Testament
books, these comprise a range of textual forms that reflect significant theological modes.
Subsections 3.2.1 to 3.2.6 present these as paralleling and transforming Old Testament
modes.

3.2.1 History as theology

The four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and parts of the letters contain histories of
Jesus Christ and of his followers. They continue and reinterpret the history of Israel,
presenting God’s covenants with Adam, Abraham, and Moses as oriented towards a
kingdom ushered in by Jesus through instruction, personal and social transformation, and
the institution of a new covenant in his death and resurrection (see also 3.3.1 and 3.3.2).
In this new covenant, the New Testament histories also find history itself transformed,
marked no longer by a division between the Jews as God’s chosen people and all Gentiles
as aliens, and by a perpetual succession of births and deaths among both Jews and
Gentiles, but rather by the promise of resurrection and eternal life with God extended to all

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humanity. The historical claim that Jesus rose from the dead is therefore the central claim
of the New Testament, and foundational for Christian theology.

3.2.2 Ethical teaching as theology

All books of the New Testament contain moral teaching. This forms an important part of
Jesus’ teaching, often in explicit dialogue with the Mosaic law, which Jesus seeks to clarify,
revise, and consummate. Moral teaching also forms a significant stratum of the apostles’
teaching in the public sphere and, above all, the newly formed Christian communities.
The New Testament’s moral injunctions and advice present interpretative challenges
arising from three key tensions in its understanding of the Christian life. The first tension
is between the conflicting experiences of the Christian life as, on the one hand, a decisive
death to sin and rebirth to God and, on the other, as the continuing exercise of ordinary
human capacities and ongoing struggle with temptation and sin. This is partly related to
the second, theological tension between the call to imitate Jesus’ perfection through works
of righteousness on the one hand, and the unconditional forgiveness of sins received
through faith in his death and resurrection on the other. The third tension is between the
conflicting horizons of Christian agency: on the one hand, the imminent eschaton, which
requires readiness and detachment from the world; on the other, the growing church
and contemporary world, which require intervention and investment. These tensions
have continued to shape theological thought about moral frameworks and orientations
throughout Christian history.

3.2.3 Narrative as theology

The four Gospels contain an extensive catalogue of stories and parables that Jesus tells
to disciples, critics, and crowds. These stories offer analogies and images of aspects of
the kingdom of God which Jesus announces as coming. They are surprising, puzzling, and
sometimes in tension with each other, demanding iterative interpretations and readiness
to identify with their characters and learn from them. They therefore address their hearers’
reason, imagination, and emotions, enabling them to see their own lives and world through
new and shifting lenses. Addressed to all ages and estates, the stories and parables of the
New Testament are among the central elements of Christian instruction, and formative for
Christian imagination and art throughout history.

3.2.4 Prayer as theology

Most books of the New Testament record prayers, both by the books’ subjects and by their
authors (especially Paul’s prayers for his addressees, and the prayer ‘Amen, come Lord
Jesus’ concluding the Book of Revelation). Of special significance is the prayer Jesus
teaches his disciples to exemplify how to pray (see Matt 6:9; Luke 11:2), which became
formative for Christian spirituality and theology through its adoption as ‘the Lord’s Prayer’
or ‘Our Father’. Of notable importance are also those prayers and doxologies which invoke

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the Son, and sometimes the Holy Spirit, as or in association with God, and thereby serve
as earliest exemplars for the development of Trinitarian theology (see e.g. Rom 9:5; Rom
16:25–27; 2 Cor 13:13; Eph 3:20–21; 1 Tim 6:14–16; 2 Tim 4:18).

3.2.5 Prophecy and vision as theology

Many books of the New Testament, including the Gospels, Acts, and several letters,
contain prophetic and visionary material. This material includes prophecies uttered by
Jesus and the apostles, as well as divine visions seen by Peter, Stephen, Paul, and
others. The Book of Revelation as a whole is a visionary book, revealing the eschata or
‘last things’ that take place or will take place as God establishes his everlasting kingdom.
These highly charged visions project a complex world-historical structure, with a double
culmination first in Jesus’ incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension (the historical
events animating the New Testament), and secondly in his expected return to raise the
dead, gather his redeemed, and reign eternally.

3.2.6 Names of God as theology

The Gospels, letters, and Book of Revelation describe and invoke God by various names.
One of the most characteristic is the invocation of God as Father, primarily of Jesus Christ
and secondarily of all believers. Equally significant are the names and invocations of
Jesus: his personal name, Jesus (Hebrew: Yeshua, ‘Saviour’); his epithet, Immanuel
(Hebrew: God with us); his address as the Word of God, the Son of God, the Lamb of
God, Messiah, and Lord; and his self-identification as bread of life (John 6), light of the
world (John 8:12), door (John 10:7), good shepherd (John 10:11), true vine (John 15:1),
resurrection and life (John 11:25), and the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Also
significant are personal invocations of God’s Spirit as Paraclete, Holy Spirit, and Spirit of
God. These names are sources for central Trinitarian and christological doctrines, and
shape theological reflection on God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit throughout Christian
history.

3.3 Theology in the canon

The biblical texts have been read not primarily as individual texts, but as part of a
canon, composed of two testaments. In this canon, the birth, life, death, resurrection and
ascension of Jesus recapitulate and fulfil God’s act of creation and God’s history with his
people Israel. Institutions such as priesthood, sacrifice, and kingship, and the crises they
undergo in Israel’s exile and colonization, are recast; they now appear as anticipations
of the decisive sacrifice, the eternal priesthood, and the everlasting kingship of Jesus as
Israel’s Messiah and Son of God. Within the kingdom of God Jesus inaugurates, Gentiles
as well as Jews are able to ‘worship the Father’, ‘neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem
[…] but in spirit and truth’ (John 4:21–23).

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3.3.1 Figuration and typology as theology

All categories of Old Testament books contain what the New Testament and later Christian
writers regard as figures or types, that is, as anticipations of Jesus Christ and of the history
he shapes. These include events and characters of the Pentateuch and historical books,
literary personae of the wisdom books, and figures in prophetic utterances and visions.
In the New Testament, the citation of Old Testament personages and events as ‘types’
is a generative means of interpreting Jesus and his work, both in specific details (e.g.
in the many biblical glosses on Matthew’s gospel narrative) and more generally (e.g. in
Matthew’s interpretation of Jesus as the new Moses, or Paul’s of Jesus as the second
Adam). Impetus for such typological readings is already found within the Old Testament
canon, where difficult or obscure phenomena are sometimes interpreted by reference to
earlier or later ones: the seventh day of creation as precedent for the weekly Sabbath
and pledge of the messianic kingdom of peace; circumcision and sacrifices as types of
the dedication of human hearts; the kingship of David as surety of an eternal kingdom.
These relations of figuration serve as interpretative lenses on both the earlier and the later
occurrences, which are understood in light of each other.

Types and figures suggest a complex interconnectedness of reality and imply God
as an author poetically narrating, arranging, and illuminating the world. This sense of
interconnection decisively shapes the Christian imaginary, whether or not it is explicated in
theoretical terms.

3.3.2 Canon as theology

The canonical arrangement of the Old and New Testaments is a significant source of
theological understanding and practice, not only because it shapes a continuous narrative,
but also because it establishes central principles of reading texts: principles of coherence,
of permitting mutual inflection and elaboration, of explaining the obscure by the clearer,
and of understanding divine inspiration not primarily through the model of individual
authorship but through the dynamic accumulation and disruption of tradition. Apart from
typology, prominent examples include the complementary perspectives and mutual
commentary of the wisdom books, and the fourfold perspective of the gospels. In Christian
history, this form of reading has also influenced approaches to ecclesial textual traditions
more widely.

3.4 Biblical scholarship and theology

In the early, medieval, and Reformation church, commentary on biblical texts formed a
central part of theological learning, teaching, and discovery. In theology as practised in
the community of worship (see 2.3.1), the life of faith (see 2.3.2), and in confessional
seminaries (see 2.3.3), this often remains true today, especially for Protestant

27
denominations. By contrast, in theology as practised in the research university (see 2.3.3),
biblical scholarship and theology have, since the eighteenth century, increasingly diverged.
The professionalization of philosophical, philological, historical, and empirical disciplines
has led to the pursuit of theology and biblical studies as separate academic subjects with
distinct methods and aims (see 2.4). Their integration has become a challenge rather than
a point of departure.

In this context, the theological significance of biblical texts is most commonly either an
area of interdisciplinary engagement or a specialism within biblical studies and theology,
respectively. Within biblical studies, ‘biblical theology’ (as well as ‘Old Testament theology’
and ‘New Testament theology’) denotes study of the theological rather than textual,
social, or historical dimensions of the biblical texts. It seeks to identify the distinctive
(even conflicting) theological perspectives of different biblical authors, and the contexts
to which they respond. Within theology, ‘biblical theology’ comprises various attempts to
reconstruct the theological outlook of the biblical texts, often with the intent to conform
contemporary theology as closely as possible to their original substance and terminology.
A wider reintegration of biblical scholarship and theology is regarded as an important task
in many theological institutions.

4 History of theology
Christian theology arose from an attempt to make sense of the reality of Jesus Christ,
encountered as both man and God, in light of the faith of ancient Israel and the
philosophies of Greece and Rome. In the first centuries, theological work clustered in the
Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West of the Roman Empire. Despite periods
of close dialogue and shared dogmas codified at seven ecumenical councils between
325 and 787 AD, and East and West formed distinctive traditions, adopting the epithets
‘Greek’ and ‘Latin’ or ‘Roman’, respectively. The Greek tradition predominated in the early
centuries; as Western Europe expanded and the Byzantine empire receded, Western
theology grew to dominance. After the Great Schism of 1054, East and West formed
separate churches each using the title ‘Catholic’ (from Greek katholikos, ‘universal’), with
the East also using ‘Orthodox’ (from Greek orthos doxa, ‘right faith or worship’). This article
surveys the history of theology primarily from a Western perspective, supplying only a brief
overview of Eastern developments after the era of the seven ecumenical councils.

The history of Western theology is traditionally surveyed in five long periods: Patristic
(first to seventh centuries), medieval (eighth to fifteenth centuries), Reformation and post-
Reformation (sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries), Enlightenment (mid-seventeenth to
eighteenth centuries), and modern (nineteenth to twenty-first centuries). Sections 4.1 to
4.5 introduce each of these periods, enumerating their distinctive concerns, challenges,
and achievements, and their outstanding theologians. They also describe theology’s

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characteristic institutions and forms, which express its priorities and possibilities and form
its structures of communication.

An outline of Eastern periodization follows in 4.6, and a brief discussion of the history of
Jewish Christianity in 4.7.

4.1 Patristic theology (first to seventh centuries)

4.1.1 Challenges and achievements

The New Testament texts theorize about God in language and categories shaped by the
Old Testament and inflected by the revelation of Jesus Christ. They profess that the God
covenanted to Israel is revealed in and through the person of Jesus, who is ‘the Son of
God’ (Luke 1:32–35; etc.) and ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15). Christ’s virgin
birth, messianic ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, and commission to ‘go and make
disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28:19) recapitulate and fulfil God’s promises to his people
Israel, and extend his covenant beyond that people’s bounds to the whole world.

This framework of understanding God and his self-revelation in the person of Jesus
Christ depended on a lived covenantal history of the Jewish people as the chosen
people who had received God’s law, inhabited the land he had promised, endured exile
and foreign rule, and held fast to the promise of redemption. As the gospel of Christ’s
universal rule and reconciliation with God spread to the Graeco-Roman world, it had to
be made intelligible within or against that world’s theology in its three dimensions: civic
religion (theologia civilis), pagan myth (theologia fabulosa), and metaphysical and moral
philosophy (theologia naturalis). Christian theology as it emerged in the early church was
shaped by this conversation.

Between the second and seventh centuries, Christian theologians engaged in great detail
with the public worship, mystery cults, and philosophical traditions of classical and late
antique Greece and Rome, especially middle and neo-Platonism and Stoicism. They
reshaped terms from philosophical discourse including logos, ousia, and hypostasis to
express the metaphysical realities seen to underlie and make sense of biblical witness. In
doing so, questions of orthodoxy or heresy – faithful interpretation of God’s self-revelation
or its distortion through misapplied philosophy or incorrect exegesis – were central criteria
of engagement. Central dogmas about the reality of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
and about the reality of Jesus Christ as the eternal Son born as a man, were codified at
ecumenical councils representing the church in both East and West.

Consolidated initially in the midst of imperial persecution, the Christian faith was legalized
and then adopted as the imperial religion in the early fourth century, after which theology
was looked to (and sometimes forcefully wielded) as a unifying power within the Roman
empire and its successors.

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4.1.2 Institutions and forms

The doctrinal, catechetical and speculative developments of the early church were enabled
by two institutions. One comprised schools and free teachers, who shaped and passed
on knowledge orally, and produced commentaries, apologetic and polemical writings,
and philosophical treatises. The other was the episcopacy, which oversaw the churches,
delivering catechetical instruction and sermons, as well as letters and other pastoral
documents; and which sat in councils, issuing conciliar documents including creeds,
anathemas, and proceedings. From the fourth century on, councils were often called
and partly manoeuvred by the imperial court, which gradually became its own locus of
theological importance. Notable individuals also wrote hymns (e.g. Ephrem the Syrian),
poetry (e.g. Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose of Milan, Prudentius, and Augustine), and
autobiographies (especially Gregory of Nazianzus and Augustine).

4.1.3 Theologians

Patristic theologians are traditionally categorized either chronologically (into Apostolic,

ante-Nicene, and Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers) or linguistically (primarily into Greek
and Latin Fathers).

Among Apostolic Fathers, the most notable named theologians are Polycarp, Clement of
Rome, and Ignatius of Antioch.

Among ante-Nicene Fathers, notable Greek-speaking theologians include Justin Martyr,

Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen of Alexandria; notable Latin-
speaking theologians include Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage, and Lactantius; notable
Coptic-speaking theologians include Anthony the Great.

Among Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers, notable Greek-speaking theologians include

Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius of Alexandria, the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of
Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa), John Chrysostom, Cyril of
Alexandria, Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and John of Damascus; notable
Latin-speaking theologians include Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome, Augustine
of Hippo, Pope Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, and Boethius; notable Syriac- and
Coptic-speaking theologians include Ephrem the Syrian, Macarius of Egypt, and Isaac the
Syrian.

4.2 Theology in the medieval church (eighth to fifteenth

centuries)
4.2.1 Challenges and achievements

Medieval theology, building above all on the seminal work of Augustine, was conditioned
by conflicts between state and papal power in the Christian West, and by the schism of

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Eastern and Western churches in the eleventh century; by movements of reform and
repristination in different parts of the church, driven especially by religious orders and
reformers; and by interreligious encounters especially between Christianity and newly
expanding Islam, both conflictual (as in the Muslim conquest of Hispania or the crusades
to the Holy Land) and constructive (as in the intellectual exchanges occasioned by the
Arabic rediscovery and translation of Aristotle; see * * Christian Views of Islam).

The theological work that emerged from these contexts profoundly shaped medieval
Europe and determined the course of theology, both substantially and as a catalyst,
for many centuries. This work had legal, mystical, and scholastic dimensions. In the
papal court, canon law was formalized and expanded, setting the practical parameters
of theological reasoning. In the religious orders, the ideals of evangelical simplicity and
mystical union with God blossomed in enduring works of mystical vision and theology,
which inspired poetry and art, exploring the far reaches of human experience. In the
universities, the newly appropriated Aristotelian physics and metaphysics – especially
his models of form and matter (hylomorphism) and of act and potency, and his resultant
accounts of causality, motion, and the acquisition of knowledge and virtue – enabled
theologians to formulate a unified understanding of physical and intellectual realities
in their relationship to God and each other. These progressively formalized accounts
encompassed medieval understandings of science, revelation, history, metaphysics, and
ethics, sometimes at the price of increasing remoteness from ordinary experience and the
language of biblical revelation.

4.2.2 Institutions and forms

Courts and councils continued to mould theology in the Middle Ages. Alongside and
in rivalry with imperial and princely courts, the papal court gained significant influence
over the doctrinal, administrative, and disciplinary affairs of the Western church from
the eleventh century onwards. It convened councils, issued bulls (formal letters), and
sponsored legal documents, collected in the Corpus Iuris Canonici (‘Body of Canon Law’).

Cathedrals continued to exert theological influence, creating and performing choral and
other liturgical settings, offering catechesis and direction, and establishing schools for
the education of clergy and laity. In this, they were often supported by religious orders,
themselves among the most significant institutions of medieval Europe. Beginning with St
Benedict and the order he established in the sixth century, religious communities of monks
or nuns, and later friars, spread throughout Europe, working, praying, studying, teaching,
as well as creating and copying the manuscripts of ancient and modern learning and piety.

Cathedral and monastic schools were instrumental in the development of the other
great institution of medieval Europe, the university. Established from the eleventh
century onwards, universities trained clergy and lay professionals in the liberal arts

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and the higher disciplines of law, medicine, or theology; alongside monasteries, they
produced, translated, and transmitted written texts, including the newly rediscovered
works of Aristotle. The proliferation of theological and philosophical sources required the
development of a critical method for their apposition, assessment, and harmonization. That
method, employed in both research and teaching, included commentaries on seminal texts
and the structured disputation of questions arising from them. Pioneered by Anselm and
others, this scholastic method informed the great philosophical-theological syntheses of
Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.

Other forms of medieval theology included hagiographies, biographies, and

autobiographies; mystical writings; and the theological sensibilities expressed and
stimulated by art, architecture, poetry, and music.

4.2.3 Theologians

Medieval Western theologians are traditionally categorized as pre-scholastic, scholastic, or

mystical.

Pre-scholastic theologians notably include Alcuin of York, John Scotus Eriugena, and Bede
the Venerable.

Scholastic theologians notably include Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Peter

Lombard, Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus,
Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.

Mystical and devotional theologians notably include Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard

of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, John of Ruysbroeck, Johannes Tauler, Catherine of Siena,
Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilio Ficino, Julian of Norwich, Jean Gerson, and Thomas à Kempis.

4.3 Theology during and following the Reformation (sixteenth

to mid-seventeenth centuries)
4.3.1 Challenges and achievements

Scholastic systematization came under intense scrutiny in the sixteenth-century

Reformation of the church. The moral impetus of the Reformation was the perception of
grave distortions of the gospel by church authorities. Its intellectual impetus was derived
from the aim to relativize human speculation in favour of an immediate reliance on divine
pro-action through receptive faith informed by biblical witness (solus Christus, sola gratia,
sola fide, sola scriptura). The reformers found these not to be achievable within existing
structures and hierarchies. The Lutheran and Reformed churches, as well as the Church
of England, emerged as separate church bodies, carrying forward the theological and
organizational reforms of the magisterial Reformers. Radical reform groups also formed
throughout Europe, prominent among them the Anabaptists, whose expectation of the

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imminent return of Christ intensified a more widespread sense among reform-seeking
Christians that the profound upheavals of the time carried apocalyptic urgency.

These upheavals affected theology at all levels. On the one hand, the Humanist
rediscovery of ancient and early Christian texts enabled a more immediate understanding
of theological sources than the curated medieval compilations had afforded, and
invigorated the study of the Bible and the early Church Fathers. On the other hand, the
intellectual structures within which knowledge of God and creation had previously been
ordered were pervasively entwined with theological understandings of the church and
its mediation of divine reality and revelation. The division of the church made a simple
reliance on its universal magisterium impossible. This fuelled a profound scepticism about
reliable modes of knowledge and argument, which catalysed the intellectual developments
of modernity.

4.3.2 Institutions and forms

Theology during the Reformation and post-Reformation era continued to be shaped by

universities, as well as by the establishment of dedicated seminaries for the training of
clergy and missionaries. In the Roman Catholic Church, the papal court continued to exert
strong influence on the development of theology; in the Protestant churches, by contrast,
the critique of church hierarchy led to a fresh emphasis on parish churches as loci of
theological learning and transmission. The need to re-establish theological foundations
also led to a renewed prominence of councils, synods, and convocations in all Western
churches, which produced or ratified the great confessional statements of the Lutheran
and Reformed traditions, as well as reassertions and reforms of Catholicism (especially
in the Council of Trent, which was foundational for the post-Reformation Roman Catholic
Church).

The rise of the print industry after the invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth
century enabled a proliferation of theological forms, including tracts and polemical
treatises, catechetical materials, collections of sermons, and above all vernacular
translations of the Bible. The ability to reproduce and distribute printed works also
significantly simplified the transmission of confessional statements and other forms of
theological material.

4.3.3 Theologians

Reformation and post-Reformation Western theologians are generally categorized by

denomination.

Roman Catholic theologians notably include Erasmus of Rotterdam, Thomas Cajetan,

Johann Eck, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Philip Neri, Charles Borromeo, John of the
Cross, Robert Bellarmine, and Cornelius Jansen.

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Lutheran theologians notably include Martin Luther, Argula von Grumbach, Philip
Melanchthon, Andreas Osiander, Martin Chemnitz, Jakob Andreä, Johann Arndt, Jakob
Böhme, Johann Gerhard, Georg Calixtus, Abraham Calov, and Johannes Quenstedt.

Reformed and Presbyterian theologians notably include Huldrych Zwingli, William Farel,
Martin Bucer, Peter Vermigli, Heinrich Bullinger, John Calvin, John Knox, Theodore Beza,
and Samuel Rutherford.

Anglican theologians notably include William Tyndale, Thomas Cranmer, Richard Hooker,
Lancelot Andrewes, William Perkins, William Laud, Jeremy Taylor, and Richard Baxter.

Radical Reformers notably include Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Karlstadt, Caspar

Schwenkfeld, Sebastian Franck, Jacob Hutter, Michael Servetus, and Faustus Socinus.

4.4 Theology in the Enlightenment (mid-seventeenth to

eighteenth centuries)
4.4.1 Challenges and achievements

In the seventeenth century, the separation between philosophical and theological claims
– originally motivated by theological concerns – catalysed an emancipation of rational
thought from theological authority. The resultant critique of religious tradition prompted new
attempts to integrate philosophy and theology, usually by erecting a modest theology on
the foundation of philosophy understood as pure rationality. Philosophical theologies of the
early Enlightenment, such as those of René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and John Locke,
characteristically focused on accounts of God that are derivable from the nature of the
world and of human knowledge. Many central eighteenth-century philosophical debates
arose from the contested viability of such natural theology, especially in its radical Deist
form. David Hume’s critiques of causation and induction presented a radical challenge to
Deist claims. Hume’s perspective in turn elicited Immanuel Kant’s critiques of pure and
practical reason, which transposed Protestant scepticism of philosophical constructs of
God into an Enlightenment focus on the nature of reason.

These and other developments took place within a wider context of increasing criticism
of tradition and authority, leading (in the political sphere) to the increasing separation
of church and state and (in the academic sphere) to a surge of new discoveries,
theorems, and theories, often described as ‘the scientific revolution’. Resistance to these
understandings of rationality and emancipation emphasized the irreducible significance of
experience and feeling, expressed in the terms of the Romantic movement and of various
religious renewal movements including the Pietists and Methodists.

4.4.2 Institutions and forms

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During the Enlightenment, intellectual culture developed institutions separate from
ecclesial oversight, through the establishment of academies, learned societies, clubs,
and salons. Theologians participated only to a limited extent in these endeavours, though
theologically influenced philosophers and scientists were among their driving forces,
publishing academic treatises, encyclopaedia entries, journal articles, and tracts.

Within ecclesial circles, the papal court continued to grow in theological influence
within the increasingly ultramontanist Roman Catholic Church. Meanwhile, local and
general synods and assemblies set the theological and practical course of the Protestant
churches. Seminaries and colleges for the education of clergy became widespread,
including in America, where the nine colonial colleges were founded, training ministers in a
range of denominations.

4.4.3 Theologians

Enlightenment theologians may be categorized by the denomination to which they adhered

or by which they were formed.

Roman Catholic theologians or philosophers notably include René Descartes, Blaise

Pascal, Giambattista Vico, Nicholas Malebranche, Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier, and Benedict
Stattler.

Lutheran theologians or philosophers notably include G. W. Leibniz, Philipp Spener, David

Hollatz, Johann Sebastian Bach, Immanuel Kant, Johann Georg Hamann, G. E. Lessing,
and Johann Gottfried Herder.

Anglican theologians notably include George Berkeley, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and
George Whitefield.

Reformed, Presbyterian, and non-conformist theologians notably include John Owen,

Isaac Watts, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Reid, and John Witherspoon.

4.5 Theology in the late modern era (nineteenth to twenty-first

centuries)
4.5.1 Challenges and achievements

In late modernity, and for the first time since the Apostolic era, theology developed in
a context which it was no longer actively shaping. Although many of the intellectual
and social structures of the modern West were rooted in Christian ideas, values, and
expectations, these structures became increasingly uprooted from their theological soil,
and were justified and developed on new, secular terms. In the intellectual world, the
pursuit of discoveries and theories without theological assumptions produced explanatory
frameworks that rivalled, and radically challenged, Christian ones. This is especially the

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case in materialist accounts of constitution and causation (spanning both the natural
world and the human psyche), and modern critical theories of the origins of biblical texts,
structures of authority, and other traditional sources of Christian identity. Theologians,
consequently, increasingly adopted stances that were either responsive (rethinking
theology in the light of secular developments) or oppositional (setting theological
principles against prevailing cultural or intellectual ones). Among the former, feminist,
postcolonial and liberation theologies, and (in the twenty-first century) queer and critical
race theories, have decisively shaped contemporary theology especially in North America.
Among the latter, traditionalist Catholic and other denominational movements, as well
as forms of Protestant fundamentalism, have grown increasingly influential. Beside
responsive strategies, mediating strategies – attempting to illuminate and sublate secular
developments theologically – have often marked the academic theological elite, as in the
Protestant and Catholic Tübingen Schools, Christian existentialism, post-liberalism, and
Radical Orthodoxy movements.

Within the churches, increasing resistance or disregard from wider society led to a
continuing splintering of religious denominations, driven by contrasting responses to
this secular context. At the same time, there has been an increasing need and desire
for Christian unity, pursued through ecumenical dialogue and interdenominational
associations.

4.5.2 Institutions and forms

In the nineteenth century, the establishment of the modern research university –

first in Germany and then across Europe and North America – led to increasing
professionalization and subdivision within theology. Modern forms of academic writing,
including theological journals, monographs, and large systematizing works, became
standard modes of developing, debating, and disseminating theological arguments.
Although sometimes still under ecclesial oversight, the appointment of university scholars
became increasingly independent from church office and standing, and the university
came to be understood as a secular sphere in which theology should pursue a discourse
convertible with that of other disciplines. Decolonization and globalization unsettled the
casual assumption of European and white American centrality in the theological enterprise,
and called for engagement with the widely divergent experiences and perspectives
of different people groups, including the suffering caused by the forceful imposition of
dominant views.

The churches, too, have undergone increasing professionalization, resulting in the

establishment or reform of specialized departments (including the papal congregations)
and commissions to advise church leaders on theological matters. Decolonialization and
globalization led to the establishment of independent church bodies especially in former
British colonies, and to increasingly complex international denominational associations.

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These brought the contrasting theological realities and priorities of different areas to the
forefront of theological discussion.

In the public sphere, theological sensibilities have been expressed, fostered, and
increasingly questioned through poetry, novels, plays, and ephemera including radio,
television, and (in the twenty-first century) online media.

4.5.3 Theologians

Modern Western theologians are most commonly categorized by denomination.

Roman Catholic theologians notably include John Henry Newman, H. E. Manning, Joseph
Kleutgen, Tommaso Maria Zigliara, Matthias Joseph Scheeben, Prosper Guéranger,
Désiré-Joseph Mercier, Thérèse of Lisieux, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Yves Congar,
Romano Guardini, Edith Stein, Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, and
Joseph Ratzinger.

Lutheran theologians notably include G. W. F. Hegel, N.F.S. Grundtvig, J. K. W. Löhe,

Isaak August Dorner, C. F. W. Walther, Albrecht Ritschl, Søren Kierkegaard, Adolf von
Harnack, Wilhelm Hermann, Ernst Troeltsch, Rudolf Otto, Albert Schweitzer, Gustaf Aulén,
Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, Anders Nygren, Bo Giertz, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wolfhart
Pannenberg, Robert Jenson, Eberhard Jüngel, Tuomo Mannermaa, and Christoph
Schwöbel.

Reformed and Presbyterian theologians notably include Friedrich Schleiermacher, Thomas

Erskine, Charles Finney, Charles Hodge, John McLeod Campbell, Philip Schaff, Abraham
Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, B.B. Warfield, Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, G.C. Berkouwer, T.F.
Torrance, and Jürgen Moltmann.

Anglican theologians notably include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keble, Edward
Pusey, John Henry Newman, F.D. Maurice, Benjamin Jowett, B.F. Westcott, J.B. Lightfoot,
Charles Gore, Alfred Whitehead, William Temple, C.S. Lewis, Austin Farrer, Michael
Ramsey, E.L. Mascall, Henry Chadwick, J.I. Packer, John Mbiti, Oliver O’Donovan, N.
T. Wright, Rowan Williams, Sarah Coakley, John Milbank, John Webster, and Kathryn
Tanner.

4.6 The Eastern churches

The Eastern understanding of the Church as manifested in local churches specific
to geographic regions deters attempts at a unified theological history of the Eastern
Christianity organized by a single system of periodization. Nevertheless, histories of
Eastern theology commonly share the following broadly chronological elements.

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The first and second centuries marked a founding era dedicated to theological definition,
identity, and establishment.

The second to fifth centuries comprised a seminal era for the formation of christological
and trinitarian dogma, in which theologians consolidated theoretical-speculative and
spiritual-meditative reflection upon the church’s foundational definitions and institutions.
Alexandrine dissent from the Chalcedonian definition of Christology resulted in a
separation of portions of the churches in Armenia, Egypt, and Syria from the rest of the
Christian church, establishing what are now known as the Oriental Orthodox churches.

The sixth to fifteenth centuries were dominated by the Byzantine Empire, including its rise,
mission or expansion, fall, and the consequence of this dissolution, including life with and
under Islam. The ninth to twelfth centuries were also shaped by the Great Schism with the
Western Church, its antecedents and consequences.

The twelfth to twentieth centuries are generally described in separate accounts of the
lives and concerns of regional or national Churches. These are often presented relatively
autonomously, though typically with some reference to the more recent history of the
Russian Church.

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been marked by brutal persecution under
communism, and by a wide dispersion and concomitant theological activity. This includes
reflection upon Orthodox identity in relation to other Christian Churches, the relation of the
present to the Patristic era, and the Church and Orthodox spiritual life in the modern world.

Notable theologians include:

• Byzantine: John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite, Symeon the New Theologian,
Gregory Palamas, and Nicholas Cabasilas.
• Early modern: Cyril Lucaris, Peter Mohyla, Dositheus of Jerusalem, Macarius
Notaras, and Nicodemus the Hagiorite.
• Modern: Aleksey Khomiakov, Alexander Bukharev, Vladimir Solovyov, Sergius
Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky, Georges Florovsky, Vladimir Lossky, Dumitru Staniloae,
Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, Alexander Schmemann, Oliver Clement, Boris Bobrinskoy,
John Meyendorff, John Zizoulas, Kallistos Ware, Christos Yannaras, and David
Bentley Hart.
See also 5.1.1.

4.7 Jewish Christianity

Neither of these periodizations reflects theological developments in Jewish Christianity
or in Messianic Judaism, understood as adherence to Jesus Christ as a form of Jewish
identity. A significant constituency within the New Testament church were Jews who

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followed Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and Son of God. The Gospel of Matthew, the Didache,
and sources underlying the fourth-century Pseudo-Clementine writings bear witness to the
existence and vitality of communities which combined faith in Jesus and a commitment to
distinctive Jewish patterns of life. From at least the third century onwards, however, the
two identities were treated by most Jewish and Christian authorities as mutually exclusive.
The causes, means, and timescales of the ‘parting of the ways’ of Judaism and Christianity
are matters of significant scholarly debate.

In the nineteenth century, adherence to Jesus as Israel’s Messiah re-emerged as

a form of Jewish identity among self-identified Hebrew or Jewish Christians. This
modern phenomenon originated among Jewish Christians associated with Protestant
environments, but by the twentieth century also appeared in Catholic and Orthodox
settings. In the final third of the twentieth century, Protestant-inflected streams of Jewish
Christianity consolidated into a new movement calling itself ‘Messianic Judaism’.
Adherents of this movement worship Jesus (a name usually rendered in its original
Hebrew form, Yeshua) as God’s son and Israel’s Messiah, and seek to live their faith and
identity in distinctive Jewish patterns of life. In the twenty-first century, Jewish followers of
Jesus operate in diverse contexts, both Messianic Jewish and historic Christian, where
they have developed a range of institutions, forms, and emerging traditions.

Key theological figures have included Alfred Edersheim, Joseph Rabinowitz, Paul
Levertoff, Jakob Jocz, Edith Stein, Elias Friedman, Cardinal Jean-Marie Aaron Lustiger,
Alexander Men, David Stern, Daniel Juster, and Mark Kinzer.

5 Traditions
Theology is a traditioned practice: it is pursued and passed on within traditions of study,
worship, and life. These traditions are of different types. The most conspicuous are
denominational; that is, traditions that shape a particular church over an extended period
(5.1). Others are more broadly spiritual, crossing denominational lines; these include
liturgical traditions, holiness traditions, evangelical traditions, mystical traditions, and
charismatic traditions (5.2). Yet others are contextual, shaping theology through the
geographic or demographic contexts within which it is practised (5.3). This section briefly
introduces these types of traditions, indicating their central features and aspects of their
development.

5.1 Denominational traditions

The most visible traditions are denominations: large church groupings bearing a
common name, sharing common beliefs and practices, and organized within a common
administrative structure. Denominations have their historical origins in successive divisions
within Christianity: the eleventh-century schism between Eastern and Western Churches;

39
the sixteenth-century division of the Western Church into Roman Catholic and Protestant
churches during the Reformation; and subsequent divisions between Protestant churches
continuing to the present day. Notwithstanding these divisions, denominations understand
themselves as ‘the church’ in one or more of several ways: as its fullness, as its local
manifestation, as a movement for its reform, or as its faithful remnant.

Denominational traditions are shaped by a denomination’s origins, especially if these

are marked by conflict; by its foundational figures, especially if these are outstanding
theologians; by its local conditions, especially if it is established in a particular country;
and by factors such as size and antiquity. The following subsections briefly outline the
distinctive traditioning elements of the largest denominations or groups of denominations
in the Christian world: the Eastern Orthodox Church (5.1.1), the Roman Catholic Church
(5.1.2), the Lutheran churches (5.1.3), the Reformed churches (5.1.4), the Anglican
churches (5.1.5), and the Free churches (5.1.6).

5.1.1 Eastern Orthodox Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church dates the origin of its order, teaching, and practice to the
Apostolic and Patristic eras. Its theological tradition is governed by the biblical canon,
the Nicene Creed, and the seven ecumenical councils, and guided by the writings of
exemplary theologians (see 4.1 and 4.6 above). It consciously distinguishes itself from
developments in Western theology and intellectual culture, especially postdating the Great
Schism of the Eastern and Western Church in 1054.

Eastern Orthodox theology is decisively traditioned by the church’s spiritual practices,

above all the divine liturgy and daily office, the veneration of icons, fasting and other
ascetic practices, and deference to monastic guidance. The divine liturgies of the Orthodox
churches date with some variations from the fourth to sixth centuries. They form the centre
of wider practices, especially the veneration of saints and icons at church and in the home,
and communal fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, during the Nativity Fast and Great Lent,
and in preparation for other feasts. These spiritual practices are often seen as led and
sustained by monastic communities, which provide exemplars and spiritual direction.

As a communion of autocephalous (i.e. not subject to the authority of an external patriarch

or archbishop) churches broadly coinciding with national boundaries in eastern and south-
eastern Europe and northern and central Asia, the Eastern Orthodox Church also displays
notable local traditions; among these, the Russian (as the most populous) and the Greek
(as linguistically continuous with the early church) exert worldwide influence. In the USA,
significant communities of converts without ethnic ties to the East have also emerged.

In line with these traditioning elements, recurrent themes in Eastern Orthodox theology
include:

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 • the seven ecumenical councils and synodality
• the dogmas (especially christological and trinitarian) agreed at the ecumenical
councils
• monastic and ascetic traditions and their continuing influence
• the place of icons in Orthodox liturgy and spiritual life
• Hesychasm (the Orthodox tradition of seeking inner quietude through ascesis
and contemplative prayer) and related mystical-spiritual practices and associated
debates
• saints
• relations with the Western Churches, including church-political tensions and
theological disagreements (especially the filioque)
• relations of the Orthodox Church to local political powers
• the relationship of Orthodoxy to modernity, especially Western modernity, prompted
by the twentieth-century dispersion of Orthodox faithful throughout the West.
5.1.2 Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church traditionally dates the origin of its order and teaching to
the Apostle Peter as the first bishop of Rome. Its theological tradition is governed by the
biblical canon, the ecumenical creeds, and the magisterium – that is, the authority of the
pope and of councils of bishops, under set conditions, to pronounce doctrinal and moral
teachings that are binding for members of the church. These include ecumenical councils,
which the Roman Catholic Church enumerates beyond the widely recognized seven to
include fourteen further councils; most recently, the First and Second Vatican Councils
(1869–1870 and 1962–1965). Catholic theology is also guided by exemplary theologians,
above all Thomas Aquinas, who was the first post-Patristic theologian declared a Doctor
of the Church (in 1567), and who was proclaimed its central theologian in Pope Leo XIII’s
encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879).

Roman Catholic theological tradition has also been shaped by the Mass of the Roman
Rite, which constitutes the Church’s central liturgy, and by the daily offices of prayer
said or sung in monastic and other ecclesial contexts. These liturgical traditions were
codified and harmonized at various times, especially the sixteenth century (associated
with the Council of Trent), and undergoing significant change in the late twentieth century
(associated with the Second Vatican Council). Similarly, since the twelfth century, Roman
Catholic order, practice, and consequently also theology were distinctively shaped by
the church’s canon law, collected in the Corpus Juris Canonici (‘Body of Canon Law’).
This too was significantly revised in the twentieth century (1917 and again 1983). Among
common devotional practices with a shaping influence on Roman Catholic theology are a
heightened veneration of Mary, associated with feast days, rituals, prayers and hymns, and
a widespread and often locally concentrated devotion to the saints.

41
The Roman Catholic Church is the state church or dominant denomination of a large
number of countries, especially in Central and South America, in western, southern,
central and eastern Europe, and in parts of western and central Africa and of South-East
Asia. Because its ecclesial governance is firmly centred in the Vatican, itself a sovereign
city-state in Rome, Roman Catholic theology and practice have often been shaped by the
shifting relationships between national and ecclesial authorities.

In line with these traditioning elements, recurrent themes in Roman Catholic theology
include:
• the relationship of revelation and reason, and the question of a philosophia perennis
(universal or perennial philosophy)
• the relationship of nature and grace
• the seven sacraments: baptism, holy communion, penance, confirmation, marriage,
ordination, and anointing of the sick
• the role of Mary in salvation history and in personal devotion
• the identity, example, and teaching of the saints
• the role and authority of the magisterium, especially the pope
• relations with the Protestant churches formed during the Reformation, and with the
Eastern Orthodox Church
• relations of the Church to local political powers
• the relationship of Roman Catholicism to modernity, especially its intellectual, moral,
and political culture.
5.1.3 Lutheran churches

Lutheran Christianity comprises a range of church bodies which originate in Martin

Luther’s organizational, doctrinal, and liturgical reforms of the Western Church. The
Lutheran theological tradition, which remains in close contact with the work of its founding
theologians, especially Luther, is governed by the biblical canon as containing the unique
revelation of God, above all in Christ. The creeds and the Lutheran Confessions are
also held as governing expressions of the scriptures, as are the traditions of the church.
Among these traditions, calendars and lectionaries, formulations of councils or significant
theologians, and liturgical orders are largely continuous with their earlier Western forms.
Some mediaeval Western traditions, such as conciliarism, shape Lutheran more distinctly
than Roman Catholic theology. Lutheran theology draws on biblical concepts of God’s
‘living word’ to see the proclaimed scriptures as God’s power active in the world, convicting
and absolving sin, empowering the sacraments, and accomplishing his purposes.

In light of this emphasis on the word, a natural goal of the Lutheran reforms of the
sixteenth century was a raising of the educational standard of the clergy and thereby the

42
laity. The products of this effort, in the shape of catechisms, sermon collections (postils),
and biblical commentaries, continue to shape Lutheran Christianity.

The Lutheran Reformation was also accompanied by a new attitude to church music,
exemplified by the introduction of vernacular hymns alongside existing chant. Beginning
with Luther, the authorship and deployment of these ‘chorales’ has been one of the most
distinctive features of the Lutheran churches; hymns remain a focus of Lutheran piety.
Lutheran composers, above all Johann Sebastian Bach, drew on this tradition to create
sacred cantatas which elevate the common language of worship to sacred art.

The Lutheran Reformation was accepted and advanced at the state level in much of
northern Europe, beginning with the Augsburg Confession (AD 1530), presented by
German rulers. Lutheran Christianity is therefore also the bearer of local traditions,
especially in and relating to Germany and Scandinavia.

In line with these traditioning elements, recurrent themes in Lutheran theology include:
• the primacy of God’s action and will
• the centrality of Christ
• the sufficiency of scripture, grace, and faith for salvation
• the proclamation of the Word, often focused on the principles of law and gospel
• the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
• the vocations of ordinary believers
• the excesses and aberrations of the Roman Catholic Church
• the omissions and contractions of the Reformed churches.
5.1.4 Reformed churches

Reformed Christianity comprises a range of denominational groups, including Continental

Reformed, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and some evangelical Anglican. These
originated in the organizational, doctrinal, and liturgical reforms of the Western Church
led by Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, John Knox, and others. The Reformed theological
tradition is governed primarily by the biblical canon and secondarily by the creeds; the
first four ecumenical councils; and by various confessional documents, especially the
Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Confession. Although it is guided by exemplary
theologians, Reformed theology is traditioned less by exegesis of its founding figures
than by the development of their methods, formalized in the Reformed Scholasticism that
dominated the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Reformed theology is shaped by characteristic, restrained liturgical practices focused

on biblical elements, including confession, psalmody, and the reading and preaching
of scripture. The Eucharist is celebrated less frequently and understood in memorial
or receptionist terms. The constant assurance and joy of salvation is emphasized over

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against distinct feast days and seasons, which are sometimes regarded as distracting or
indulgent.

Besides baptism and Eucharist, Reformed theology typically regards discipline as the
third mark of the church. The Reformed churches are therefore organized in polities
that lend structure to such discipline. They are led by ordained ministers of Word and
Sacrament and by Elders; more widely, they are overseen by presbyteries (local groups
of ministers), regional synods, and national general assemblies with elected moderators
(or, in some cases, episcopal oversight, as in the Hungarian Reformed Church and historic
Anglican churches). This plurality of leadership creates distributed centres of discipline
and theology, also reflected in the Reformed confessions as products of plural voices.
As a loose association of churches and groupings, Reformed Christianity is also locally
inflected, especially where national identities were decisively shaped by its reformatory
zeal, including in Switzerland, Scotland, and the United States of America.

In line with these traditioning elements, recurrent themes in Reformed theology include:
• doctrinal themes, especially divine election or predestination, human sin (understood
as complete depravity), the means of salvation (often understood as penal
substitution), and the ordo salutis (‘order of salvation’: calling, justification,
regeneration, sanctification)
• the sovereignty of God
• covenant theology
• the significance and place of natural theology, and the inspiration and authority of
scripture
• elements of church order and practice, especially the Eucharist (often understood in
receptionist or memorial terms)
• questions of individual and communal conduct.
5.1.5 Anglican churches

Anglican Christianity (since 1867 organized as the Anglican Communion) comprises a

range of national and regional churches, or provinces, historically in communion with
the See of Canterbury. The forty-one provinces continue or emanate from the Church
in England as jurisdictionally distinct from the rest of Western Christianity since the
Reformation, and mediatory between its theological divisions. This includes the Church of
England, the Church of Ireland, the Church in Wales, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and
Anglican Churches especially in North America (most prominently the Episcopal Church
of the United States of America), South America, Africa, South-East Asia, and Australasia.
Anglican theology is governed by the biblical canon, the creeds, four or seven ecumenical
councils, the statements on doctrine and practice that comprise the Thirty-Nine Articles,
and episcopal oversight.

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More than by specific teachings, Anglican theology is traditioned by distinctive patterns
of prayer and worship, rooted in the Book of Common Prayer (in its various recensions
since 1549, especially that of 1662) and the King James Version of the Bible (published
in 1611). Anglicanism understands itself to be part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic
church whilst at the same time refusing the centralized authority of the Papacy and the
Roman magisterium, and the confessional systems of the European protestant churches.
Whilst Anglican theology is often thought to receive its classic expression in the so-
called ‘High Church’ tradition of seventeenth-century England, it remains a broad tradition
encompassing elements of evangelical, Catholic, and liberal Christianity. The rise of
evangelicalism amongst Anglicans in Britain and the United States in the late eighteenth
century emphasized its roots in Reformed theology. The Tractarian or Oxford Movement of
the nineteenth century revived Catholic Anglicanism through an emphasis on the centrality
of the sacraments and ritual worship, and the continuity of the Church of England with the
primitive church. Under the influence of the Tractarians, Anglicans returned to patristic
theology as a vital source for Christian teaching. Whilst remaining rooted in the Book of
Common Prayer, the influence of a moderate catholic tradition in Anglicanism led to a
return to patristic liturgical patterns in Anglican churches and a consequent alignment with
Roman Catholic liturgy following the vernacular reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

In line with these traditioning elements, recurrent themes in Anglican theology include:
• the nature of authority (often expressing a conciliar and dispersed understanding of
authority rooted in episcopal oversight)
• the relationship between church and state, and between the Christian community
and wider society
• ecumenism and the role of Anglicanism within the relations between churches, often
understood as the via media (middle way)
• the importance of critical reason and of various traditions in theological enquiry.
5.1.6 Free churches

Many other churches trace their distinctive identities to the Reformation or to subsequent
reforms of the churches that emerged from it. These churches prominently include the
Methodist (originating in an eighteenth-century revival within the Church of England),
Baptist (originating in seventeenth-century dissent from the Church of England or, some
argue, in the Radical Reformation), Adventist (originating in the nineteenth-century Baptist
Church), and Pentecostal (originating in nineteenth-century Methodism and wider early
twentieth-century revivals).

These churches generally reject any association of the church with state authority, and
any central authority within the contemporary church. They place a strong emphasis on
the authority of scripture and, in some cases, the indwelling and personal guidance of

45
the Holy Spirit, as well as on personal holiness and discipline. They generally regard
the creeds as normative and the ecumenical councils as informative, and draw widely
but often unsystematically on various textual, liturgical, and spiritual traditions. Their
theological traditions are strongly shaped by personal and communal practices, above
all biblical reading (guided by sermons, commentaries, informal teaching, and group
discussion), communal worship (including, besides traditional liturgical elements, the
public examination of conscience and giving of testimony, spontaneous praise and prayer,
and extended practices of preaching), and practices of piety (including study and support
groups, charitable work, and public witness through prayer, testimony, evangelization, and
practical aid). These churches are often theologically shaped for certain periods of time by
influential individuals or movements, particularly charismatic leaders, preachers, or writers.

In line with these traditioning elements, recurrent themes in free church theology include:
• biblical commentary and reflection
• the character, will, and intentions of God
• guidance for personal devotion and piety
• the Christian life in the contexts of Christian community and secular modernity
• theological interpretations of current events, trends, and ideas.

5.2 Spiritual traditions

Theology is also shaped by spiritual traditions that cross denominational lines and are
found across a range of churches at various times in history. Sometimes, these traditions
develop at the same time in different churches, in response to shared wider contexts;
sometimes, they flower at characteristic stages of a church’s life, and therefore become
manifest at different times in history. Many such traditions can be identified, among which
the following are especially notable: liturgical traditions (5.2.1), holiness traditions (5.2.2),
evangelical traditions (5.2.3), and mystical and charismatic traditions (5.2.4).

5.2.1 Liturgical traditions

The Christian churches’ liturgies of divine worship share roots in the early church, from
which originate both the traditional elements of worship and specific forms of words.
These elements of worship include confession of sins, adoration, recitation of psalms
and canticles, readings from scripture, sermon, prayers of thanksgiving and supplication,
offering, Eucharistic prayers and actions, and blessing. Early and Patristic forms of words
include the Gloria Patri, the Kyrie, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Te Deum, and the Sanctus,
as well as liturgical renditions of biblical canticles, above all the Benedictus, the Magnificat,
and the Nunc Dimittis.

These shared elements and words have been developed in a wide variety of ways, not
only between but also within some denominations, showing a wide range of realizations

46
especially within Protestant churches. In terminology adapted from Anglican usage,
these liturgical realizations are often grouped into ‘high’ and ‘low’. ‘High’ liturgies display
highly elaborated forms of ritual (especially sacramental ritual), music, vestments,
vessels, and other artistic artefacts; ‘low’ liturgies emphasize simplicity, authenticity,
and communality of word, gesture, music, and decoration. This division is formalized in
the Anglican church, but present in other Protestant churches including Lutheran and
Reformed; although ‘high’ liturgical practice is traditionally associated with the Orthodox
and Roman Catholic churches, the liturgical reforms associated with the Second Vatican
Council have introduced ‘low’ practices within much of the Roman Catholic Church. These
liturgical traditions often inspire, and are inspired by, theological sensibilities that shape the
development of theology in manifold ways.

5.2.2 Holiness traditions

The Christian churches share roots in the formative work of the leaders and theologians of
the early church, who regarded the gospel as divine teaching that imparted true knowledge
and demanded a life lived in its light. The lives of holiness or sainthood pursued by early
believers were among the most significant factors in the spread of Christianity and shaped
the foundations of many of its lasting structures, texts, and ideals. Across denominations,
distinctive forms of the pursuit of holiness have been passed on and in some cases
formalized. These may be oriented either towards an otherwise ordinary life or away from
ordinary life; a prominent theological theme throughout Christian history are the relative
merits and risks of these orientations.

In the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican churches, the most visible
holiness tradition oriented away from ordinary life is monasticism. Monasticism is the
formal dedication to a life of work and prayer, sometimes solitary but usually communal,
renouncing the pursuit of ordinary human satisfactions including autonomy, ownership,
sexuality, and offspring. Subject to repeated critique and reform within and across
denominations, monastic traditions have nevertheless been instrumental in preserving,
shaping, extending, and communicating theological work throughout Christian history.

In all churches, there are also traditions of holiness pursued within an otherwise ordinary
life: that is, a life lived within wider human society and its mores, though in partial
resistance to it. These have a wide range of manifestations and theological frameworks,
the most explicit and prominent being found in the cross-denominational Holiness
movement originating in nineteenth-century Methodism.

5.2.3 Evangelical traditions

The Christian churches share roots in Jesus Christ’s commission to his disciples to
proclaim the gospel, the good news of God’s kingdom, throughout the world (Matt 28:18–
20). In all churches, especially in Protestant denominations, there arise sustained and

47
recurrent calls to return to this founding gospel and ‘great commission’. These evangelical
traditions usually emphasize personal devotion to Christ, adherence to the words of
the Bible simply understood, evangelistic outreach, and communal forms and practices
modelled on the New Testament church. They resist ecclesial traditions and structures of
authority not attested in the Bible. Theologically, they tend to be suspicious of theological
system-building that is perceived to be removed from the Bible in its presuppositions,
substance, or form, e.g. in scholasticism or philosophical analysis.

Evangelical impetuses arise at various times in all churches, and consolidate into traditions
in many. Examples in the historic churches include the Franciscan movement in thirteenth-
century Catholicism, the Pietist movement in seventeenth-century Lutheranism, the
Evangelical movement beginning in eighteenth-century Anglicanism, and the Tolstoyan
movement in nineteenth-century Orthodoxy. Evangelical impetuses have also engendered
or decisively shaped many Protestant denominations and non-denominational movements,
often referred to collectively as ‘evangelicalism’ or ‘evangelical Protestantism’. (See
Evangelical Theology.)

5.2.4 Mystical and charismatic traditions

The Christian churches share roots in the New Testament church, which was
characterized by the experience of a direct and transformative presence of God, and
by the exercise of spiritual gifts including prophecy, glossolalia (speaking in tongues),
healing, and exorcism (see Charismatic Gifts). In most churches, such presence and
powers are experienced in renewed form at various times in history or among certain
groups. Although institutionally channelled through sacraments and ordinances, especially
baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick, God’s presence may also
be experienced and his gifts exercised directly and spontaneously. The preparation for,
experience of, and reflection on unmediated communion with God is often described as
‘mystical’; the experience of divine presence habitually issuing in prophecy, glossolalia,
or other gifts is sometimes described as ‘charismatic’. Traditions of mystical practice and
writing have been attested since the early church and have remained highly regarded and
influential in the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and some Protestant churches. They
have engendered distinctive forms of theology, sometimes called mystical theology, and
have influenced other theological as well as artistic forms. Wider charismatic experience
and practice are more sporadic and contested, but in the twentieth century gave rise to
Pentecostalism as well as charismatic movements within many historic churches.

5.3 Contextual traditions

Theology is also traditioned by its wider contexts, especially geographical, demographic,
and political. Many geographic regions have developed distinctive theological traditions

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shaped by indigenous concerns, transnational interactions, and by their cultural and socio-
economic histories more generally.

The scope and impact of these and other contexts is the immediate subject of contextual
theologies, which have assumed central importance in twentieth- and twenty-first-
century Christianity, when expanding globalization and forms of emancipation, including
postcolonialism, foregrounded radically diverging social and religious experiences. In
de-emphasizing canons of texts and ideas, and delineating the unique experiences and
traditions of particular groups (especially those marginalized in Western political, social,
and intellectual history), contextual theologies seek to rebalance what they perceive as
theologically distorting social, intellectual, and religious hierarchies. Among contextual
theologies, those concerned with gender, sexuality, geographic region, and race have
been among the main shaping powers of twenty-first-century theology, especially in North
America and Europe.

Where geographic contexts entail significant interactions with other locally practised
religions, such interactions may shape a theological tradition in distinct and sometimes
creative ways. Historical examples include first- to third-century encounters with classical
paganisms, twelfth-century debates with Islamic interpreters of Aristotle, sixteenth-century
appropriations of Jewish mysticism, the inculturation of Christianity in native contexts, and
twentieth-century encounters with Buddhism.

6 Theology between science and art

6.1 Theology as science
To speak of ‘science’ has, since the Middle Ages, been to speak of the university and
its faculties. The history of theology as a science therefore correlates closely with that
of the university, from its establishment in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries to its re-
establishment in the nineteenth century.

The term ‘science’ came to be used in the sense of a unified field of rational enquiry in
the thirteenth century, with the rise of the medieval universities. There, the liberal arts
comprising the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry,
music, and astronomy) supplied the preparatory curriculum for the higher sciences of
theology, medicine, and law. Theology as enquiry into the highest realities thus occupied
a central place in these universities, although the principle of its unity and the ground of
its rationality remained matters of debate. This debate was often focused through the
Aristotelian requirement that scientific explanation be rooted in self-evident principles.
Attempts to formalize the self-evidence of theology’s principles – most importantly, the
existence of God – through proofs such as the ontological argument were controversial
(see esp. ‘Proslogion’, Anselm of Canterbury 2008). Aquinas famously argued that

49
God’s existence, being identical with his essence, is self-evident to those who grasp that
essence, namely God and the blessed. Earthly human beings, however, whose finite
and sinful condition precludes knowledge of God’s essence, achieve knowledge of his
existence through the study of his effects, and through revelation received in faith (Summa
Theologiae part 1, qq. 1–2).

Although the role of reason in faith was fiercely debated during and after the Reformation,
the description of theology as a science long remained commonplace across
denominations (see e.g. Hooker 2013 (vol. 3): ch. 8, para. 11; Westcott 1892: 89). In the
last two centuries, however, the description has confronted institutional challenges. In the
German-speaking world, the establishment of the modern research university formalized
a fragmentation of theology into specialized subdisciplines variously concerned with
texts, history, doctrine, and practice, which challenged the unity of theology as a field
of study. ‘Theological encyclopaedias’ were developed to re-establish this unity (see
esp. Schleiermacher 2011). In the English-speaking world, meanwhile, rapid progress
in biology, physics, and chemistry resulted in a narrowing of the reference of ‘science’ to
the natural sciences, and a shift of its perceived value from stewardship of knowledge to
mastery by knowledge. Theology is nevertheless aptly called a science in the wider sense
of Wissenschaft, possessing a unified field of enquiry and defined critical methods for its
investigation (see, for example, Torrance 1969).

6.2 Theology and the sciences

Theology, as speech about God and all things in relation to God, interacts in some
measure with all other disciplines, including the natural, applied, and social sciences.
These interactions have historical, critical, and constructive dimensions which merit close
and careful attention. (See The History of Science and Theology.)

The natural sciences investigate structures and processes of the natural world at its
macro- and microlevels, their history and potential future. There are significant interfaces
between these investigations and theological questions about creation, eschatology, divine
providence, and human nature. (See Theology and Evolution.)

The application of scientific knowledge in medicine and technology intervenes in

organisms and processes long considered natural and unchangeable. Medicine and
technology therefore interact with theological questions and claims concerning the integrity
of human nature and of moral action, the significance of life and death, and the divine
ordination of natural processes. (See Theology and Technology.)

The social sciences observe and explain patterns of behaviour in individuals and groups.
In particular, psychology and neuroscience investigate the triggers, processes, and objects
of human emotion, cognition, and behaviour, including their neural and other organic

50
substrata. They therefore interact directly with theological questions and claims about the
nature of faith and virtue, knowledge and understanding, free will, and sin. (See Theology
and the Cognitive Science of Religion.)

6.3 Theology and the arts

To have religious faith is not only to believe in unseen things, but also to see the visible
world as possessing an immaterial ‘depth’ of order, goodness, and purpose. The task
of theology is therefore not merely to rationalize the Christian faith but also to enable
such depth vision. In this task, theology is more akin to art than to science. Throughout
Christian history, faith and the arts have inspired, enlarged, and challenged one another,
and continue to do so.

Since late antiquity, artistic forms, methods, and subjects were created or adapted to
express Christian belief, often in ways not available to non-artistic forms of expression.
In the fine arts, these include icons, mosaics, and a wide range of religious motifs; in
architecture, basilicas and cathedrals; in music, chants, Mass settings, cantatas, passions,
and oratorios; and in literature, religious lyrics, (auto-)biography, and mystery, passion, and
morality plays. Conversely, Christian beliefs have been energized and shaped by artistic
realizations, especially devotional and ecclesial art and music.

In the nineteenth century, when widespread belief in God receded, human art was widely
regarded as an alternative source of depth, beauty, order, and purpose, and aesthetic
experience as a more genuinely human form of religious experience. In the twentieth
century, however, aesthetic order and experience began, in turn, to appear illusory and
manipulative, masking the ineradicable irrationality, violence, and fragility of human life
within society and nature. Elite forms of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
increasingly saw their task as social and cultural critique, including critique of religion. In all
these contexts, the relationship between theology and the arts has been complex but vital,
as the two domains clarify, contest, and expand one another.

Attributions

Copyright Judith Wolfe (CC BY-NC)

The author wishes to thank the following for their comments and improvements: Peter
Bouteneff, Oliver Crisp, Mark Edwards, Euan Grant, William Gallagher, Derek Keefe, Mark
Kinzer, Andrew Moore, Simon Oliver, Mike Rea, Christoph Schwöbel, Brendan Wolfe, and
N.T. Wright, as well as seven anonymous peer reviewers from the full range of Christian
churches.

51
Bibliography
• Further reading
◦ Chopp, Rebecca, and Mark Taylor (eds). 1994. Reconstructing Christian
Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
◦ Ford, David (ed.). 2005. The Modern Theologians. Oxford: Blackwell. 3rd edition.
◦ Jenson, Robert. 1997. Systematic Theology. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
◦ McGrath, Alister. 2016. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell. 6th edition.
◦ Pannenberg, Wolfhart. 1988. Systematic Theology. 2 vols. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans.
◦ Ratzinger, Joseph. 2004. Introduction to Christianity. Translated by J. R. Foster.
San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 2nd edition.
• Works cited
◦ Anselm of Canterbury. 2008. Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works. Edited by
Brian Davies and G. R. Evans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
◦ Aquinas, Thomas. 1920. Summa Theologiae. Translated by English Dominican
Fathers. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne.
◦ Augustine of Hippo. 2003. City of God. Edited by G. R. Evans. Translated by
Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin.
◦ Augustine of Hippo. 2008. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
◦ Barth, Karl. 2010. Church Dogmatics I.1: The Doctrine of the Word of God. Edited
by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance. London: T & T Clark.
◦ Dionysius the Areopagite. 2020. The Mystical Theology. Translated by William
Riordan. Ann Arbor: Sapientia Press.
◦ Eusebius. 1989. The History of the Church. Edited by Andrew Louth. Translated
by G. A. Williamson. London: Penguin.
◦ Hooker, Richard. 2013. Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity: A Critical Edition
with Modern Spelling. 3 vols. Edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
◦ Moltmann, Jürgen. 1999. God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of
Theology. London: SCM Press.
◦ Origen. 1896. Commentary on the Gospel of John. Ante-Nicene Fathers 9. Edited
by Allan Menzies. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co.
◦ Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 1996. On Religion: Speeches To Its Cultured
Despisers. Translated by Richard Crouter. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

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◦ Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 2011. Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study:
Translation of the 1811 and 1830 Editions. Edited by Terrence N. Tice. Louisville,
KY: Westminster/John Knox Press. 3rd edition.
◦ Torrance, T. F. 1969. Theological Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
◦ Wesley, John. 1951. The Journal of John Wesley. Tyndale Series of Great
Biographies. Edited by Percy Livingstone Parker. Chicago: Moody Press. https://
ccel.org/ccel/wesley/journal/journal.
◦ Westcott, B. F. 1892. The Gospel of Life. London: Macmillan.

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