§ 56. The Name
In the answer to what we are to understand by Theology, even the name is in our time too superficially explained. The reason is that men are in some perplexity about the name. Having broken away from old-time Theology, and having displaced it by something else, the old name is merely kept to maintain in a moral and formal sense an hereditary right to the heritage of Sacrosanct Theology. This is only arbitrary, unless one can prove, genetically at least, his relation to old-time Theology. If this cannot be done, it does not infringe the right to abandon what has become unfit for use, and to replace it by a new complex of studies entirely differently understood, but in that case the old name should be discarded. For then the name becomes a false label, and its retention would be dishonest. Our going back to the name of Theology is therefore no antiquarian predilection, but is demanded by the method that must guide us in defining the conception of Theology. The effort more and more put forth in the second half of this century, either in the psychologic-empiric line of Schleiermacher, or in the speculative track of Hegel, or in both, to form a certain idea of the departments taught in the Theological faculty, to translate this idea into a conception, and to take this conception as the definition of Theology, is a method which can stand no testing, because in this way the certainty that the object of this science remains the same is altogether wanting. In his Cratylus Plato does not say in vain: “To teach a thing rightly it is necessary first to define its name.” Even in itself, therefore, a study of the name of Theology is demanded; but this is much more necessary now since a genealogical proof must be furnished by those who claim hereditary right, and this hereditary right to the Theological inheritance must be disputed with more than one contestant.
For the right understanding of the name Theology the etymology and the usage of the word claim our attention. With respect to the etymology three questions arise: In what sense is -logia to be interpreted? In what sense θεός? And in this connection is θεός to be taken actively or passively? The addition -logia occurs, just as the allied terms, in the sense of speaking about something, as well as in the sense of thinking about something. Λογεῖον was in Athens what we call the platform, and θεολογεῖον was the place on the stage from which they spoke who represented the gods as speaking. The conception of speaking, therefore, and not of thinking, stands here clearly in the foreground. In ὀστεολογία, φυσιολογία, and other combinations, on the other hand, -logia has the sense of tracing, investigating. In itself, therefore, θεολογία could indicate etymologically the action of a θεολόγος, i.e. of one who speaks about God, as well as the thinking about God. The only thing that serves as a more precise indication here is the age of the word and the object to which -λογία is coupled. The root of λέγειν (to speak) with Homer almost always means “to gather,” with or without choice. Only later on it obtains the sense of speaking. And only later still, in its last development, the utterance of the thought is put in the background, in order to cause the thought itself to appear in the front. Since now the word θεολογία occurs already in Plato, the first understanding of -λογία has the choice; a choice which is confirmed by Plato’s own words. In his de Re Publ. Lib. II., p. 379a, he writes: “We, O Adimantos, are at this moment no poets (ποιηταί), but speak as founders of a city (οἰκισταὶ πόλεως), and as such we should understand the forms (τύποι) in which the poets must tell their legend.” The question is then asked, “What should be the forms (types) of Theology?” upon which the answer follows that the gods must be proclaimed as they are, whether they are spoken of in “epics, in lyrics, or in tragedy” (ἐν ἔπεσι, ἐν μελέσιν or ἐν τραγῳδίᾳ). This statement admits of no doubt. In this place at least -λογία is used in the sense of speaking. And with reference to its composition with θεο-, it is evident that the idea of investigating the being of God must have originated much later than the necessity of speaking about the gods. Hence our first conclusion is that -λογία in this combination was originally used in the sense of speaking. The second question, what θεο- in this combination means, the gods in general or the only true God, can likewise be answered by the above citation from Plato. Plato himself interchanges ‘theology’ with a speaking of the gods in epics, in lyrics, or in tragedy. Concerning the third question, however, whether in this combination θεο- is object or subject, we must grant the possibility of both. In θεοδόσιος, θεομηνία, θεοκρατία, θεοκρισία, θεογαμία, θεοπραξία, θεοπροπία, etc., a god is meant who gives, who is angry, who rules, judges, marries, acts, speaks, and thus θεο- is the subject. On the other hand, in θεοσέβεια, θεομιμησία, θεοκλύτησις, θεολατρεία, etc., it is a god who is feared, imitated, invoked, and honored, hence θεο- is the object. Θεολογία, therefore, can mean etymologically the speaking of God, as well as the speaking about God. Or if you take θεολογία in the later sense of knowledge, then it indicates a knowledge which God Himself has, as well as a knowledge which we have of God. Finally, in the last-mentioned sense θεολόγος seems to be older than θεολογεῖν, and it appears that θεολογεῖν as well as θεολογία are derived from it. The result therefore is that Theology etymologically is no combination of θεός and λόγος, but means originally a speaking of or about a god or gods; and that only with the further development of the word logos, which at first indicated a collected mass, then a word, and only later reason or thought, θεολόγος, θεολογεῖν, and θεολογία also were conceived as a knowledge of or concerning a god or the gods.