Theology as a Branch of Knowledge

Newman asks the question: “Now what is Theology?” A little too simply, perhaps, he answers: “By Theology, I simply mean the Science of God, or the truths we know about God put into system.” To elaborate, “Behind the veil of the visible universe, there is an invisible, intelligent /Being, acting on and through it, as and when He will.” He then proceeds with a beautiful exposition of God’s attributes, summarized in this quote from Dicourse II:

According to the teaching of Monotheism, God is an Individual, Self-dependent, All-perfect, Unchangeable Being; intelligent, living, personal, and present; almighty, all-seeing, all-remembering; between whom and His creatures there is an infinite gulf; who has no origin, who is all-sufficient for Himself; who created and upholds the universe; who will judge every one of us, sooner or later, according to that Law of right and wrong which He has written on our hearts. He is One who is sovereign over, operative amidst, independent of, the appointments which He has made; One in whose hands are all things, who has a purpose in every event, and a standard for every deed, and thus has relations of His own towards the subject-matter of each particular science which the book of knowledge unfolds; who has with an adorable, never-ceasing energy implicated Himself in all the history of creation, the constitution of nature, the course of the world, the origin of society, the fortunes of nations, the action of the human mind; and who thereby necessarily becomes the subject-matter of a science, far wider and more noble than any of those which are included in the circle of secular Education.

If God is indeed such an all-encompassing, personal, sovereign Being, then the knowledge of Him is indispensible to a full view of reality. Returning to Newman’s “all knowledge forms a whole,” the question about Theology is the following: “Can we drop it out of the circle of knowledge, without allowing, either that that circle is thereby mutilated, or on the other hand, that Theology really is no science?” (50). Knowledge of the universe cannot be separated from knowledge of its Creator, who “has so implicated Himself with it…that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it without in some main aspects contemplating Him.” Therefore, if God is real, Theology is a branch of knowledge that bears heavily on every other branch. Since the University’s purpose is the teaching of universal knowledge, Theology is a part that should not be excluded from the whole.