Foundations
How does theology know what it knows?
- 3Fields
- 342Sources
- 35Key works
- 30Key terms
Reading order
Where to begin in this branch
Start with the fields the others build on.
Step 1: DivinityDivinity is the degree through which most scholars and ministers are trained. Knowing how it is taught shows what they have studied.
Step 2: Philosophy and philosophy of religionPhilosophy supplies the tools theology reasons with: logic, the arguments about God, and the language of being and knowing. The creeds themselves use its terms.
Step 3: Foundations and methodEvery theological claim depends on how its sources are weighed: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. This field sets those ground rules for the fields that lean on it.
Fields
The fields in this branch
Divinity is the English institutional and degree name for the academic study of theology; a divinity degree is an academic qualification, not a licence to minister.
Read the field: DivinityWhere traditions divide
Traditions divide on who governs formation (a peer accreditor, the Holy See, a Holy Synod with the state) and on the ordination of women.
Every tradition names Scripture as fundamental but ranks other sources differently; theology reflects on its grounds as prolegomena or fundamental theology, and some twenty method models are now mapped.
Read the field: Foundations and methodWhere traditions divide
Traditions divide on natural theology, from Vatican I's certain knowledge of God by reason to Barth's Nein!, and on how Scripture relates to tradition, reason and experience.
Christian theology adopted, transformed and contested philosophy's terms and logic, from Greek being, substance and hypostasis to modern epistemology; the creeds use these terms, and analytic philosophy of religion revived from the 1960s.
Read the field: Philosophy and philosophy of religionWhere traditions divide
Traditions divide on how far reason reaches without revelation: natural theology, analogy or univocity, apophatic limits and essence-energies, Christological terms, analytic theology, and whether philosophy may correct readings of Scripture.
The theology map
