Intro to Theology

Overview

What is theology? Why is it important? If you are reading this, you are probably a theologian even though you may not think so at first. We will also look at ten major themes of theology.

This series comes from notes for an undergraduate college class in theology that the author taught in 2003.

Intro - God - Christ - Holy Spirit - Angels - Man - Sin - Bible - Salvation - Church - Mission - Last Things 

What is Theology 


Theology comes from two Greek words theos meaning God and logos meaning in this context to study. So, theology is the study of God. Some people make a life's profession out of the study of God or have received degrees in theology. We tend to call them theologians and think that they are people who use big words and study things about God that we don't need to know. However, everyone who has any kind of theory about God is a theologian. Chances are that you are a theologian. 

Some people think that theology is like a rock, firm and fixed, but that is not the case. Though some churches refer to their theology as dogma, that is in some cases human ego speaking and not the humility which Christianity professes. A graduate professor of mine once said that theology is a 2,000 year long discussion and the discussion is not over yet.

Theology-proper studies God. However, when we study God, we also begin to study other related topics and so theology becomes much broader than that. The doctrines of the Church are also theology, because they are doctrines or teachings about God and other things that relate to God. A study of theology then also ought to discuss the important doctrines of the Christian Church. Most Christian churches are in agreement on the core issues. The areas of disagreement are often in non-essential theories. We will discuss the pros and cons of various of these theories of men and the unchangeable nature of absolute truth. We will learn to place our faith in our unchangeable God and not in the potentially flawed understandings of human beings. We will attempt to learn to show grace towards those who hold different opinions on matters of secondary importance, and discern which matters are important and unchanging.

Main Topics of Theology 


These are ten key subtopics within theology which this series deals with: God, Christ, Holy Spirit, Angels, Man, Sin, Bible, Salvation, Church, and the Last Things. 

Intro - God - Christ - Holy Spirit - Angels - Man - Sin - Bible - Salvation - Church - Last Things 

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