difference between religion and theology

difference between religion and theology

Understanding the Difference between Religion and Theology

1. Introduction

At the same time, theology is a positive study because it seeks to commend the teachings of religion that are in agreement with the word of God and also to teach sound doctrine to those in the Christian faith. This too is no easy task, and it often requires much dialogue and debate with the hope that those who are in error may come to see the truth of God’s word.

But going back to the comparison of religion and theology, just as biology is a study of life, theology is a study of religion. And as is the case that not all biology is based around life positive, good or bad, so too is it with religion and its teachings. Sometimes the things taught in religion are not true, and sometimes they are not good. Because of this, theology is both a critical and a positive study. It is critical in that it must sift through the various teachings of religion and evaluate them in the light of the word of God. This is no easy task, and theologians often face a lot of adversity when their theological critiques of religion challenge the status quo of certain religious teachings.

An example of religion and theology is the Jehovah’s Witness doctrine of the deity of Christ. According to the Bible, Christ is the eternal God in human flesh, whereas Jehovah’s Witness doctrine states that Christ is not God but rather a created being. Now, Christianity teaches that it is necessary for one to believe that Christ is God to be saved, thus Jehovah’s Witness doctrine is denying the eternal salvation of its followers.

Comparing the meaning of theology to the meaning of religion is a bit like comparing the meanings of the words biology and life. Just as biology is the study of life, theology is the study of religion. Like theology, comparing what religion says to the word of God is an essential aspect of its study. This is because there is often a very strong contrast between what is taught in the Bible and what is taught in religion.

Finally, theology is an ongoing study and discussion. There may be a best answer for what theology is, but there is no final answer, and there is no one person who has all the answers.

Regardless, theology is not something that belongs to one religion only. In fact, it belongs to all religions and cannot be separated from them. This is why it is possible to study theology at secular universities. While a theology degree from a secular university may lack in certain areas due to the secular environment, a good theology degree should provide an education that is both broad and deep, using resources from the whole intellectual and cultural spectrum of humankind.

Now, this is where it gets tough for theology and theologians because not all religions treat the Bible as the ultimate authority. Some religions have other texts that they consider to be equal in authority to the Bible, while still others have additional texts that they consider to be superior to the Bible.

The word theology refers to the study of God or religion. It is a study that focuses on the word of God. Theology involves making a close examination of religion, comparing what religion says on particular issues with what the Bible says on the same issues, and evaluating the various teachings of religion in the light of the main teachings of the Bible. Essentially, theology is a study that seeks to understand the teachings of religion as they relate to the word of God.

2. Definition of Religion

Ruth Benedict sees religion as the emotions, beliefs, values, habits, and so forth when writing of a specific culture. She says that it is the concepts of general theories that guide the feelings, and religious symbols express feelings. Ernest Crawford agrees with Benedict when he appears to be talking about religion, but he uses other terms. He makes a general concept of symbol, giving it a wide meaning. According to Crawford, religion, being a specific cultural phenomenon, can be seen as a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivation in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic. Religion must also pose solutions to problems of universal human concern and tragedy, and in developing his concept of religion, Crawford says that a specific cultural religion is any historically conditioned and culturally relative form of a more general and transhistorical phenomenon. By this, he means that each religion is a relative expression of a more general and absolute religion.

Religion is essentially an integral part of an individual, and it can also be viewed as that which the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. This could be seen as religion being a person’s feeling with his whole heart and mind of the meaning of his life, as it is an expression of the way he is at his ultimate level. Religion is thus apparent to various degrees in the societies and cultures practiced by many, and this impact can also be classified in various countries in terms of its collective effect.

Religion is the relationship between humanity and what is regarded as sacred. Every religion is made up of storylines, rules, beliefs, and sacred spaces. The essence of religion that is conveyed contains the beliefs and values around which the religion is based. These beliefs and values make a particular religion distinct from other religions and also aid in differentiating religions from one another. All these factors make religion the comprehensive term for the sacred, that is, everything the individual regards as extraordinary, divine, sacred, ultimate, and precious that lifts him/her above the level of the ordinary and gives life meaning, a higher purpose.

3. Definition of Theology

During history, theology has come under fire, particularly from within its own religious community. Theologians, for example, are often accused of simply trying to define what they already believe in order to give it legitimacy (St. Anselm’s 11th century dictum Credo ut intelligam ‘I believe in order that I may understand’ reflects this opinion). The major problem that arises is that any religion has had a historical context and thus theologians will keep one eye on the past, trying to understand what has been said about God within their own religious tradition. But the constant practice of appealing to old texts can become ‘irrelevant babbling’ if theologians are only trying to reinterpret things that may be best left in their original context. Thus, theology is constantly criticized when it attempts to speak about God in a way that is relevant to the present.

Theology comes from the Greek word Theologia, which means speaking about God—any words about the gods in Greek culture were called Theology. There are different types of theology depending on what form of higher being the particular theology is based on. For example, Christian Theology is about the higher being of God as people understand him in the Christian faith. Though different religions can have different theologies, this does not mean that theology cannot study the higher being of other religious faiths. For example, Christian Theology is highly influenced by Greek Philosophy, particularly Plato’s understanding of forms. This has created an understanding of God in Christianity as a perfect being, and though it may not be what was described in the Bible, Christian theology studies this form of God. Islamic theologians study the higher being of Allah and have done so within a philosophical context. So theology can be seen as a search for understanding what is said about God.

4. Key Differences between Religion and Theology

Static and Dynamic models is another point that Habel uses to illustrate the difference between religion and theology (Habel, 39). This model illustrates that religion tends to keep things as they are, preserve and maintain, whilst theology will always look to change things, use creative language to communicate a vision, and implement this into some kind of program for change. This is quite true also, religion is content with things being as they are. For example, the Christian ritual of baptism, different Christian denominations may have different beliefs as to what it achieves, but generally, they are content with maintaining this ritual as it is. A theologian will look to alter the meanings of baptism or bring about a new ritual to effectively demonstrate and communicate a new theological belief. A theologian may feel that it is time for change and in saying this will create a new context for an existing religious context thereby entering religion and its theology. This will be a lifelong process of maintaining that there is a context for theology, but it leads to religion, i.e., new religious context. Static and dynamic models are not exclusive to religion and theology, but Habel uses it to demonstrate the difference between the two.

There are three different points that Habel brought up in the study of the Old Testament and the New Testament that lay out the difference between religion and theology. Habel points out the difference between the two is often quite evident, but to be unaware of there being a difference often reflects the mindset of the theologian. In the study, Habel states, “Religion tends to relate to given contexts; theology relates to alternative contexts” (Habel, 39). A context is a setting or circumstance, and Habel is right when he says that religion is based upon given context. For example, the Christian New Year’s Eve ceremony is based upon the context of ending the year and bringing in the new year in a congregational setting. That same ceremony can be changed to an alternative context with alternative meanings, depending on the theological motives of the people running the ceremony. This can be a bad example given that religion and theology often synthesize together, but nonetheless, Habel is correct that religion and theology are different in that theology can alter an existing religious context with another context to suit another meaning.

5. Conclusion

There has been a lot of theology which is in the service of this, but not much which is distinguishable from philosophy of religion. For those types or meanings of the words theology and theology, religion and philosophy of religion, there is no great problem of distinction, though there might be a question of the comparative centrality of their concerns.

Religion can mean the outer forms and the inner experiences of that which has been believed and practiced by communities of men in their relations to the powers they regard as supernatural. Theological can mean the logical, coherent, and systematic working out of the implications of Christian revelation, and it can mean the clarification of the religious insights which are contained in the Bible. It can also mean the correlating of these with one another and with the understandings of God and his world that are to be gained in other ways.

Religion and theology are two terms that have been widely confused and misused within the humanities of late, and this frequent misunderstanding is the driving force behind this paper. There are two chief reasons for the mix-up. The first is that in certain contexts, the meanings of the words undergo a switch. The second is that theologians have been so enthusiastic about what they are doing that they like to describe it in terms that suggest it is a science like any other.