I’ve often been intrigued by the range of definitions that are suggested for the word “theology.” I recently came across one by Thomas Oden in his memoir which I think does a nice job of combining the academic, teleological, and doxological aspects of theology:
“Theology is the study of God. The study of God is simply to be enjoyed for its own incomparable subject, the One most beautiful, most worthy to be praised. Life with God delights in its very acts of thinking, reading, praying and communing with that One most worthy to be beheld, pondered and studied, not for its written artifacts or social consequences but for joy in its subject.”
A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir (IVP Academic, 2014), 147.
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