What is Theology?

Christians use the word “theology” so much that you might think we all agree on what it means. Christians began to adopt the term “theology” not long after the time of the New Testament, and it’s become a regular term in our Christian vocabulary today. Of course, throughout the millennia, we’ve understood what it means in different ways.

There are countless ways that both Christians and non-Christians have defined the formal discipline of theology. But we’ll limit ourselves to just a sampling of typical definitions from four respected Christian theologians: Thomas Aquinas, Charles Hodge, William Ames and the contemporary theologian John Frame.

Consider first how Thomas Aquinas defined theology. In his well-known Summa Theologica, Aquinas called theology “sacred doctrine” and defined it as:

[a unified] science [in which] all things are treated under the aspect of God: either because they are God Himself or because they refer to God

Now, here, Aquinas didn’t refer to science in the modern sense of the word. Rather, he used the term in the older and broader sense of “an intellectual or scholarly pursuit.”

In Aquinas’ view, the theologian’s task was primarily to think, speak or write about doctrines or concepts. Of course, Aquinas believed that theology should have practical influences on every dimension of the Christian life. But he primarily conceived of theology itself as a science, an intellectual pursuit.

Let’s consider a similar point of view from the Protestant theologian Charles Hodge. Charles Hodge defined theology in the introduction to his Systematic Theology as:

the science of the facts of divine revelation so far as those facts concern the nature of God and our relation to him (Systematic Theology, Chapter 2, Section 1).

Like Aquinas, Hodge viewed theology mainly as an academic discipline — the task of the theologian was to approach the Bible much like a scientist approaches nature. He was to gather, analyze and organize the facts of Scripture. Now, Hodge also believed that theology should be applied to Christian living. But, like Aquinas, Hodge didn’t see this as the central focus of formal theology. Rather, he tended to leave application in the hands of ministers and pastors, limiting the actual work of formal theology largely to academics and scholars.

William Ames, an influential Puritan, characterized the task of theology in a strikingly different way. In the opening section of his book, The Marrow of Theology, Ames wrote that theology should focus on:

the doctrine or teaching of living to God

Now, it’s clear from Ames’ writings that he de-emphasized the close association of theology with other academic disciplines suggested by the language in Aquinas and Hodge. Instead, he identified the “marrow of theology” — theology’s most central focus — as “living to God.” In Ames view, the most significant dimension of theology is a focus on the full range of the believer’s life before God.

Let’s consider a fourth typical definition offered by the contemporary theologian John Frame. In The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, Frame defined theology as:

the application of the Word of God by persons to all areas of life

Now, elsewhere Frame affirmed that theology involves the intellectual pursuit of Christian teaching or doctrine. But here Frame stressed that theology is the “application” of God’s Word to “all areas of life.” For Frame, theology is not merely thinking about a set of traditional, relatively academic issues. Instead, like Ames, Frame sees theology as application. Applying the Scriptures to life is the centerpiece of all Christian theological work.

Theology really can go a couple of different directions. It can go in the path of academic pursuit, and that can be a legitimate and important thing. It can go in the direction of application to life. Part of what’s interesting is people tend to choose between those and pit them against one another. The reality is, we can take the Scriptures and try and apply them and say, “Here’s theology, and here’s how it applies to your life.” But what if we have the theology wrong? What if we’re saying things that historically, biblically, linguistically are just not true? So, it’s got to be about application, but it’s appropriate for us to be rigorous and careful in our reflections. [Dr. Kelly M. Kapic]