What is the status of Theology today? Is it considered a branch of Philosophy? Is it a science or an art? I ask this because it seems (to me at least) that it is a legitimate study, however, it is based on certain premises (like the Bible), and builds on the conclusions of earlier scholars. However, it deals in the most intangible subject-God and his/her relationship to the world. I have delved into some of it-much of it seems tendentious and boring. Furthermore, much of it (like Aquinas) seems to be reasoning built on thin air. Do people take its conclusions seriously? And, some of its more bizarre manifestations-such as speculation over the nature of angels (“how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”)-seem rather fruitless and pointless to me. What does the rest of academia have to say about this topic?
Humans stuying theology is like the cast of Battlestar Galactica studying geology.
Drive-by posting…
Cecil’s column on Angels v. Pins:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_132.html
Theology is usually considered a branch of philosophy. There are a number of topics currently studied in contemporary theology; some examples: ecumenism, liberation theology, comparative religion, theological ethics, study of cults, womanist theology, apocalypticism, sociology of religion. Christian theology of course is going to focus on the Bible and Christianity, but that’s only one focus out of many.
Rather than deal with what they’re talking about in theology departments in the halls of ivy, I’m going to opt for a more general comment.
Richard P. Feynman, the Nobel physicist, despised philosophy, but ultimately found himself wrestling with questions that were ultimately philosophical with respect to science - how one knows what’s knowable, how one deals with doubt, and so forth. A philosophy of science was necessary to him because he’d spent a life wrestling with its fundamentals. That life generated philosophical questions that he needed to have some sort of provisional answers to.
Same with theology, IMO. If your life is involved in a religion in a major way (I’ve been a born-again Christian for nearly three decades), eventually you’re going to come up with conclusions to general questions about God, life and death, salvation, perfection, etc., without even realizing you’re putting the pieces together; after awhile, a smattering of unrelated passages from one’s scriptures, whether the Koran, the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, or whatever, won’t be enough by themselves. You’ll have to integrate them, along with your experiences and those of people you’ve known or heard about. That’s a theology.
I’m not familiar with what academic theology looks like these days, but I suspect it has the same relation to what I described just now as abstract algebra (group, rng, and field theory) has with high-school algebra: high-school algebra generated the questions that motivated abstract algebra in its beginnings, but you’d hardly recognize the connection to look at them.
Any input from anyone more familiar with contemporary theology?
Traditionally, philosophy has been considered a branch of theology. The study of all those greeks was to make one more prepared to study god.
I haven’t studied theololgy formally either, RTF, but I’d agree with your comparison with algebra. In looking up the topics I listed above, I got the impression that the historical, sociological, and psychological aspects of religion are currently the main areas of study. It definitely isn’t research into whether or not God exists or how many angels can dance on a pin.
I actually majored in Theology (1 of 2). And y’know what’s funny is that it’s probably the only field where no matter how much education you have, nobody will ever regard you as having more knowledge than they. If conversation turns to rocks, people will usually turn to the guy with the geology degree. If it’s art, they’ll defer to the guy with the MFA. But when the topic is God, people are all to happy to say “Well I read the Bible once, so I know all about that…”
Anyway, my whining aside, Theology is absolutely linked with Philosophy. Manda Jo is correct in saying that Theology fathered (or mothered) Philosophy, not vice versa. (Although she should have said “Gods”; they were, after all, polytheists.) If you’re trying to figure out the meaning of life, what is truth, what is the nature of the good, etc.–all the things that classical philosophy dealt with, one of the first questions you have to answer is “Is there a God?” Your answer to that question is going to influence all your other questions. And if you answer “Yes,” then the question becomes “What is he/she/it like.” And that is Theology.
Granted, if you answer “There is no God,” then the whole thing is pretty much moot, and all you’re left with are the sociological-type stuff Gilligan mentioned.
If you’re wanting empirical proof for everything then it’s not going to do you much good. But then I can’t explain Mozart, sunsets or love empirically, either.
Some of the topics that are discussed among theologians nowadays are ecumenical issues (looking for common ground between religions), issues raised by modern technology (medical ethics, cloning, etc.), and in Christianity and Islam, the changing roles of women and (in some denominations) gays. And of course, there are many debates which crop up again and again; sort of the same old discussions, questions without ‘provable’ answers along the lines of Socrates’ “What is the nature of the good.”
For me personally, aside from helping me figure out and understand what my own religious beliefs are, the best benefit of a theological education was helping me be more logical; lots of “if/then” type of thinking, learing to think of all the possible answers to a question, etc.
Hope this helped.
“I’m not sure that a donut is capable of handling that kind of velocity”
And to answer one of your questions directly, at my school at least, people with theo degrees got Bachelors of Arts. But Luther referred to it as “the queen of the sciences,” so takes yer pick.
Manda JO wrote:
In the Christian tradition, perhaps. I think you’ll find the Greek tradition questions about knowledge, reality and morality were not merely ways of talking about Gods, though Christian theologians like Augustine justified the study of the Greeks by saying that they were.
Philosophy is a degree in after-dinner conversation isn’t it?
dpr wrote:
By the time you get a degree in philosophy, you know more of the stuff than any non-philosopher is ever going to want to hear. If somebody says, “So, what if, like, life is just a dream?” The last thing they want to hear is, “What would you count as necessary or sufficient evidence that life is not a dream?”
I always thought that theology is philosophy plus the assumption that god exists and says <insert comments appropriate for your religion here>.
[quote}In the Christian tradition, perhaps. I think you’ll find the Greek tradition questions about knowledge, reality and morality were not merely ways of talking about Gods, though Christian theologians like Augustine justified the study of the Greeks by saying that they were.[/quote]
I talked to my Medieval Lit prof about his today, and he confirmed that to the Medieval mind Theology was the “Queen of the Sciences” and that philosophy was subordinated. O nthe other hand, I will admit that there are plenty of medieval refrences to the alchemist or “natural philosopher”, a person that was clearly no theologian. Thus, they must have thought that philosophy could exist outside of theology, albeit in an inferior, degenerate way.