What is Theology
In summary, we may define theology as the authoritative knowledge and wisdom revealed in God’s Word concerning God so that we may joyfully live unto him through Jesus Christ. It is authoritative because it stands upon the Word of God. It is knowledge and wisdom because it informs the mind with certain truths and directs the life. It pertains to God not in the narrow sense of the doctrine of God, but broadly regarding God’s nature, will, and works. It aims at producing a God-centered life. And it comes to us through Jesus Christ and brings us to God through Christ, for he is the only Mediator between God and man.
It seems best to consider theology to involve both science and wisdom, with its heaviest accent on wisdom. As a science, it seeks true knowledge by interpreting God’s revelation and making logical inferences from it. Aquinas said, “Sacred doctrine is a science….Sacred science is established on principles revealed by God.”1
Augustine
In treating Christian doctrine, Augustine said that the true objects of our happiness are “the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are at the same time the Trinity, one Being, supreme above all”; we “rest with satisfaction” only by knowing, trusting, loving, and living in God for his own sake; all other things are means to be used to gain God.2
Augustine said that the true objects of our happiness are “the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are at the same time the Trinity, one Being, supreme above all”; we “rest with satisfaction” only by knowing, trusting, loving, and living in God for his own sake; all other things are means to be used to gain God3
William Ames
William Ames wrote, “Theology is the doctrine of living to God.”4 Living “unto the Lord” is the great result of Christ’s saving work, as the apostle Paul delighted to declare.5 Ames explained the phrase: “Men live to God when they live in accord with the will of God, to the glory of God, and with God working in them.”6 Thus, theology aims at the fulfillment of man’s created purpose: to glorify God and enjoy him forever in obeying God’s will by God’s grace. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) noted that some theologians, such as Petrus van Mastricht (1630–1706), slightly expanded Ames’s definition to “the doctrine of living to God by Christ.”7
Johannes Polyander
Johannes Polyander (1568–1646) offered a comprehensive definition of theology in Synopsis of a Purer Theology: “We define Theology as the knowledge or wisdom of the divine matters that God has revealed to people in this world through ministers of his word inspired by the prophetic Spirit, and that he has adapted to their capability, to lead them to knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness and renders them wise unto their own salvation and God’s eternal glory.
Footnotes
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: R.&T. Washbourne, 1914), Pt. 1, Q. 1, Art. 2. ↩︎
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1.4, in NPNF1, 2:523–24. ↩︎
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1.4, in NPNF1, 2:523–24. ↩︎
Ames, The Marrow of Theology, 1.1.1 (77). ↩︎
Rom. 6:10–11; 14:7–9; 2 Cor. 5:15; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21. ↩︎
Ames, The Marrow of Theology, 1.1.6 (77). ↩︎
Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, trans. Todd M. Rester, ed. Joel R. Beeke, 7 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), 1.1.26 (1:98); and Jonathan Edwards, “The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth,” Sermon on Heb. 5:12, in WJE, 22:86. On Petrus van Mastricht, cf. PRRD, 1:156. ↩︎