The One and the Many: Devoted to the Universal and the Particulars

The usage of the term theology in Greek philosophical writings and its development in the Christian church has significance and can inform our understanding to the development of theology within Western Civilization.  The term theology in Greek philosophy developed from a general term relating to the poets who oversaw Greek mythology to a technical term related to the study of sacred revelation and tradition with the Christian church.  For this summary of the usage of the term theology within both the Greek philosophical and Christian theological history there is reliance upon the work of A. R. Sutherland, who provides an excellent description of the diachronic development of the term theology with its own context. 

In sum, Plato in the Republic addressed the poets, who oversee the myths of the gods as engaging in a type of theology, but Plato remained skeptical of their treatment of the subject and desired a “more adequate treatment of the gods.”[1] Although Plato does recognize theology as a discipline, “he does not suggest that philosophy has any important contribution to make to the understanding of the gods.”[2]

Aristotle, in the Metaphysics, conceived of a branch of knowledge that expressed a belief “concerning the fundamental nature of being: it is a science, separate from the other sciences, on which the possibility of separate and distinct sciences depends.”[3] Although Aristotle does use the term theology in Plato’s sense, he did however develop the word theology as a synonym for the highest philosophy of the theoretical sciences.[4] 

The Stoics, who flourished not long after the death of Aristotle and viewed the subjective side of mankind as irrational and promoted a life of harmony, described theology as either a division of physics (seen in Cleanthes) or as pertaining to its basic and general etymological sense (seen in Panaetius of Rhodes and Marcus Terentius Varro).[5]

Generally, from this time forth, the word theology continued to be used either in a Platonic, Aristotelian, or Stoic sense.  It was not until the Christian church and its tradition that the term theology further developed.[6]

Philo (d. ca. 50) a Jewish theologian in Alexandria, maintained, in his De mundi opificio, that Moses’ account of creation was a form of theology, but it was probably Justin Martyr of the second century, who was the “first Christian author to use the word in any form-even then he did not use it in its traditional context, but a neutral etymological sense.”[7] Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. 215) used the term theology to mean a “body of doctrine about the divinity,” and Origen (d. ca. 254) also used this same definition.[8]

Eusebius of Caesarea (d. ca. 340) incorporated the term theology with what he called the “scriptural term economy,” and therefore the term was not used in its etymological sense, but connected with the Christian church and its sacred text.  It is not without significance that Eusebius incorporated such a term in his work titled, On Ecclesiastical Theology.  The only “significant change…was the Cappadocian limitation of the application of the word theology to the discussion of the nature of God, while they use the biblical term economy to designate matters dealing with the history of salvation.”[9]

During the third century, the term theology was first used in a Latin Christian context by Tertullian in his work titled: Ad nationes.  Although Tertullian often used the term as a pejorative to contrast Pagan theology with Christian theology, his influence set the term for the “use of the word in Latin Christianity for more than two centuries.”[10]

In the Latin Christian tradition, Augustine (d. ca. 430) also used the term theology to contrast two types of theology.  In City of God book IV, he contrasted “deficient theology of the pagan tradition with the ‘true theology,’ but here he continues to use the word in its etymological sense rather than in any precisely Christian sense.”[11]

It was not until the influence of Boethius that in the Latin Christian world the term theology profoundly changed in meaning.  This change was from its general etymological sense to a particular technical sense that was concerned primarily with sacred revelation and catholic tradition all within a speculative division of human knowledge.[12] In De trinitate, Boethius called his description of the doctrine of the Trinity: theological and placed it within the Greek philosophical tradition of the speculative sciences.  Although Boethius was aware of its usage in both Platonic and Aristotelian definitions, seen in his descriptions on the Isagoge, Boethius ultimately transformed “the meaning of the term in the Latin Christian usage… making it into a technical Christian term.”[13]

[2]    Sutherland, “Boethius’ Conception of Theology,” 96.

[3]    McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle,xix.

[4]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 97.

[5]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 101.

[6]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 101.

[7]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 101.

[8]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 104.

[9]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 105.

[10]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 107.

[11]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 108. See also, Augustine, De civitate Dei 6. 2-7.35 (PL, XLI, 177-224).

[12]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 108.

[13]    Sutherland, “Boethius Conception of Theology,” 108.