Questions about Christian theology
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is Christian theology and what does it study?
Christian theology is the systematic study of the divine and of religious belief and practice within Christianity. It concentrates primarily on the texts of the Old and New Testaments and on Christian tradition, using biblical exegesis, rational analysis, and structured argument. Theologians undertake the study to understand Christian tenets, compare Christianity with other traditions, defend the faith, facilitate reforms, or address present needs.
What did Thomas Aquinas say about revelation in Christian theology?
Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225 to 1274, described two types of revelation in Christianity. General revelation occurs through observation of the created order and can lead to conclusions about the existence and attributes of God. Special revelation covers doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation that cannot be deduced through reason alone and are available only through scripture.
How many books are in the Protestant versus Catholic Old Testament canon?
Protestants recognize 39 books in their Old Testament canon, while Roman Catholics and Eastern Rite Catholics recognize 46. The additional Catholic books, known as the deuterocanonical books, were present in the Septuagint but absent from the Hebrew Bible canon adopted by Protestants during the 16th-century Reformation. All major Christian traditions share the same 27-book New Testament canon.
What was Arianism and why was it condemned at the Council of Nicaea?
Arianism was the teaching that Jesus was divine but nonetheless a created being, and therefore less divine than God the Father. The debate hinged on a single Greek term: Arianism taught Homoiousia, meaning Jesus's divinity is similar to the Father's, while orthodoxy insisted on Homoousia, meaning it is identical. The Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism, though the view remained the majority position in much of western Europe well into the 6th century.
What did the Council of Chalcedon in 451 decide about the nature of Christ?
The Council of Chalcedon in 451 declared that Jesus Christ had two natures, divine and human, joined in one person in hypostatic union. Each nature was held to be distinct and complete, neither overriding the other. This ruling rejected Monophysitism, the teaching that Christ had only one nature, and Monothelitism, which accepted two natures but only a divine will.
What is the Pentecostal view of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Christian theology?
The Pentecostal movement, which grew significantly in the late 19th century, holds that the absence of supernatural gifts such as prophecy, healing, and speaking in tongues in earlier centuries was due to the church's neglect of the Holy Spirit. This contrasts with the view held by some Catholic and mainstream Protestant groups that these supernatural gifts were a special dispensation for the apostolic age and are extremely rarely bestowed today.