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How to Write a Paper on a Biblical or Theological Topic

Writing research papers is an excellent way to learn because it trains you to gather information, interpret it, and persuasively present an informed opinion. The process teaches you a great deal, but it also equips you to contribute to ongoing discussions on a given topic.

Here’s the basic process of writing a research paper on a biblical or theological topic, either for a class or for your own personal research. Start at the top, or skip to what topic interests you most.

• Pick a topic
• Research your topic
• Construct an outline
• Draft your paper
• Revise and refine

Pick a Topic

Choosing the topic you want to research is often easier said than done. But perhaps the best advice to get the ball rolling is to narrow your scope. When your topic is too broad, you’ll likely find too much information (much of it unhelpful). But when your topic is appropriately focused, you can hone in on the information you need to gather and get down to the business of interpreting it.

For example, choosing to write a paper on the topic of sanctification is too broad to be helpful. But if you narrow your focus to a specific question about sanctification (for example: How do spiritual disciplines contribute to our sanctification?), you’ll find better direction for your research.

Remember, you don’t have to be an expert on the question you want to find an answer to—that’s what the research process will accomplish. You should, however, have an interest in the question and in finding an answer (or several!) to it.

For more on the process of researching and writing a paper, check out these resources:

• The Craft of Research  – particularly chapter 3
• Writing & Research: A Guide for Theological Students  by Kevin Gary Smith
• Logos Academic Blog:   Work with Librarians to Help Students Write Better Papers

Logos Theological Topic Workflow

The Theological Topic Study Workflow in Logos guides you through the steps of studying a theological topic. It taps into the Lexham Survey of Theology and the built-in Theology Guide to give you the topic’s broader context, basic concepts, and issues associated with the topic. Review the biblical support and go deeper in your theological study by reading relevant sections from systematic theologies.

Research Your Topic

With your topic selected, it’s time to find the resources you’re going to use and dig into them. You may find that one resource offers the best discussion of your topic, but you can’t stop there! Researching well means considering opinions that differ from each other (and probably from your own). It’s in the conversation that emerges from engaging with multiple perspectives on a topic that real insight and understanding emerge.

Start the research phase by reviewing literature and building your bibliography, then consult standard sources and peer-reviewed journals.

1. Conduct a literature review and build your bibliography

The process of conducting a literature review and building a bibliography is an iterative process. It’s not a one-time step but a step you’ll return to repeatedly as you move through your research.

Essentially, in this step, you’re discovering what resources exist and cataloging them. As you begin to read the resources you discover, you’ll likely find references to other works that you’ll then want to read.

Logos Topic Guide

The Topic Guide gathers information from your library about a topic or concept. Using the Logos Controlled Vocabulary dataset , the guide finds topics in your Bible dictionaries and other resources that correspond to the key term you enter.

2. Consult standard sources

Encyclopedias, commentaries, theological dictionaries, concordances, and other theological reference tools contain useful information that will orient you to the topic you’ve selected and its context, but their biggest help to you at this stage will in their bibliographies. Be sure to check the cross-references often.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, rev. ed.  by E. A. Livingstone and F. L. Cross

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, since its first appearance in 1957, has established itself as the indispensable one-volume reference work on all aspects of the Christian Church. This Revised Edition, published in 2005, builds on the unrivaled reputation of the previous editions. Revised and updated, it reflects changes in academic opinion and Church organization.

Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity (3 vols.)  by Angelo Di Berardino

The Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity covers eight centuries of the Christian church and comprises 3,220 entries by a team of 266 scholars from 26 countries representing a variety of Christian traditions. It draws upon such fields as archaeology, art and architecture, biography, cultural studies, ecclesiology, geography, history, philosophy, and theology.

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) (10 vols.)  by Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, Geoffrey William Bromiley

This monumental reference work, complete in ten volumes, is the authorized and unabridged translation of the famous Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, known commonly as “Kittel” and considered by many scholars to be the best New Testament dictionary ever compiled.

3. Consult peer-reviewed journals

Even if you’re writing on a single text (like John 15:1–8 or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite’s The Divine Names), you need to see what your contemporaries have to say about it to situate your research in its context. This means consulting peer-reviewed journals. As you read, you’ll discover where scholars agree and disagree and how the study of that topic has advanced over time.

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (11 vols.)

The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures is an academic, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the study of the Hebrew Bible, and provides a forum for critical scholarly exchange. You’ll find hundreds of articles from top Hebrew scholars on trends in Hebrew and Old Testament scholarship, including historical, literary, textual, and interpretive topics.

Construct an Outline

This step is incredibly important, but it’s often overlooked. Start by refining your topic based on your research, then arrange your notes and research materials into a clear outline that will guide you toward a convincing and coherent argument.

See chapters 8 and 9 of  The Craft of Research  for more guidance on constructing your outline.

Draft Your Paper

You are now ready to draft your paper. Your initial focus is to expand your outline into paragraph form as straightforwardly as possible. While your outline will be essential as you draft, you don’t have to stick to it absolutely. You may discover as you write that a different structure or organization will better advance your argument. While you’re at it, add relevant quotations from your research to clarify your points or support your arguments.

Revise and Refine

Notice the word “draft” in the previous step. That word is intentionally selected because, arguably, the most important part of the writing process is in your revisions. Drafting gets the ball rolling, but revising is where you refine and revise your previous drafts, ensuring your argument is clear and forceful.

Before you send your final paper, you’ll want to make sure you’re writing clearly and using the right style. If you are in school, follow the rules of your academic handbook. If not, adopt a common style guide like APA, Turabian, or the  SBL Handbook of Style , and consult online guides like  EasyBib  or the  Chicago Manual of Style   for help. You can also find helpful writing advice in  The Elements of Style .

If there are multiple paragraphs, just add another paragraph tag. If you need more padding, use an additional text block section as you see below.

While this structure is helpful, you may find that some variation of it works better for you. Go with what works because, at the end of the day, a thoroughly researched and well-written paper is what you’re after.

See how Logos can power research and aid you in the writing process.

Logos Staff

Logos is the largest developer of tools that empower Christians to go deeper in the Bible.

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Essays in Analytic Theology: Volume 1

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This book is the first of two volumes collecting together the most substantial work in analytic theology that I have done between 2003 and 2018. The essays in this volume focus on the nature of God, whereas the essays in the companion volume focus on humanity and the human condition. The essays in the first part of this volume deal with issues in the philosophy of theology having to do with discourse about God and the authority of scripture; the essays in the second part focus on divine attributes; and the essays in the third part discuss the doctrine of the trinity and related issues. The book includes one new essay, another essay that was previously published only in German translation, and new postscripts to two of the essays.

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Below are downloads (PDF format) of the M.A. (Religion) theses of some of our graduates to date.

Note: Certain requirements for current thesis students have changed since earlier theses were completed.

188 Theology Topics for Discussion, Thesis, & Research Paper

As you may know, theology is the study of religion: its history, traditions, philosophy, morality, and literary works. Are you looking for theology topics? Here, you’ll find plenty of interesting theology topics to write about! Our extensive list includes ideas for a research paper, essay, and discussion, along with theology thesis topics. Read on to discover the most engaging biblical and Christian theology research paper topics and more!

🏆 Best Theology Topics for Discussion

✍️ theology essay topics for college, 👍 good theology research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting theology research paper topics, 🔎 unique theological research topics, 💡 simple theology essay topics, ⛪ master of theology thesis topics, ❓ questions about theology, ✝️ christian theology topics, 📖 biblical theology topics.

• Saint Augustine vs Aquinas: Theological Approaches Comparison
• Eternal Life in John’s Gospel: Theological Perspective
• “Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling” Book by McMinn
• Theology: Virgin Mary as a Goddess
• “Christian Theology” by Millard J. Erickson
• The Ashari Theology in Sunni Islam
• Missional Praxis: The Fruit of Theological Reflection
• Theological Translatability, Inspiration, and Authority in Religious Traditions The genesis of human inspiration is a major topic in almost every religion. Degrees of the authoritativeness of scriptures are another important thing in religious traditions.
• Psychology and Theology: Worldview Issues, and Models of Integration The model views theology and psychology as valid disciplines that should not be in conflict as both contribute to the contemporary understanding of human nature.
• Theory and Theology of Helping People The theoretical approach to helping people is found in biblical, Christian, and Church values different from the psychology of helping people.
• Leadership in Church and Its Theological Aspects ​In theology, leadership has various meanings, but all have their foundation in Christ. All leaders aspire to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and lead others to redemption.
• Scriptural Authority and Theological Interpretation Scriptural authority and theological interpretation are two distinct and different topics. According to Entwistle (2021), scripture is incredibly authoritative.
• Theological Vision of “Pleasantville” by Gary Ross “Pleasantville” by Gary Ross is a movie that brilliantly shows how worldviews are transforming, causing rapid social change.
• Theological Challenges Between Judaism and Christianity Judaism originated from the covenantal relationship between the Jews and God. Christianity emerged from Judaism, and both faiths believe that God is the creator of the universe.
• Global Mission Theology of Samuel Escobar In his thesis on Global Missions, Samuel Escobar, a Latin American theologian, argues that Christian theology is contextual.
• Neo-Orthodoxy Theology: Barth, Brunner et al. Neo-orthodoxy is a concept used in advanced contemporary theology. This essay seeks to evaluate the theologies of Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, and Niebuhr.
• Theology of Family Life, Marriage and Parenting Religious marriage is possible when a ceremony is conducted (simultaneously or separately, depending on religion) with the couple being wed in the eyes of God.
• Biblical Theology of Sexuality and Sex Sexuality, coupled with loyalty, is God’s gift for lovers who want to start a family and be with each other for a long time.
• Understanding the Holy Trinity in Christian Theology The assertion the solo God lives as or in 3 mutually supernatural beings is a popular way to describe the Christian belief of the Holy Trinity.
• The Importance of Theological Study of Film The research paper seeks to build a constructive discussion by defying the notion that although the theological study of films is trendy, it is ultimately a meaningless exercise.
• Theology: Discipleship and a Healthy Church The report presents a disciple-making plan aimed to improve the organization’s efficiency in the task of making disciples and boost evangelistic efforts.
• Narrative Theology: Biblical Metanarrative Biblical metanarrative can underpin systematic and biblical theology, presenting a progressive narrative of God’s revelation to mankind.
• Christian Theology and World Religions: Christianity and Islam Christianity and Islam share many similarities, although they are two distinct religious traditions. The paper analyzes their similarities and differences.
• Apologetics as a Theological Discipline Apologetics is an old discipline of theology that involves the defense of ones’ religious position by systematically reasoning out disputed issues.
• The Religious Pluralism Theological Framework The current theological framework for responding to religious pluralism was significantly shaped by Alan Race’s threefold typology.
• Psychological and Theological Perspectives on Anthropology Psychological and theological perspectives on anthropology have some things in common; for example, they employ the scientific method to some extent.
• Psychology and Christian Theology Integration Finding connections between psychology and Christian theology might be a first step toward integration, and an integrative perspective can lead to the search for parallels.
• Liberation Theology in Mid-20th Century Latin America Liberation theology is a movement in Catholic beliefs and socioeconomic mobility which emerged in mid-20th century Latin America.
• Liberation Theology and Its Expressions This essay delves into and delineates the uniqueness of three expressions of liberation theology within the context of each other.
• Theological Differences Within the Major Christian Traditions Christians are followers of Christ who use the bible as the primary religious book for conducting services and personal spiritual nourishment.
• The Holocaust Impact on Jewish Theology Holocaust had a major impact on Jewish theology by providing an earth-shattering tragedy the likes of which the Jewish have never seen in the past, to explain.
• The Research of Theological History There is a hermeneutical problem in Genesis 1: other approaches exist apart from a traditional one; the summary approach to view entered theological debates in the twentieth century.
• Predestination: The Theological Concept In theology, predestination is the belief that God has predetermined all events, generally concerning the person’s ultimate fate.
• “Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling” by Mark McMinn In “Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling,” Mark McMinn comes up with a healing model, which involves need, sense of self, and relationship with God.
• Theology of Hope: Moltmann and Pannenberg This essay attempts to compare and contrast the theologies of Moltmann and Pannenberg within the rubric of Theology of Hope.
• Thomas Aquinas: Philosopher and Theologian To this day, Aquinas is widely studied by the philosophy scholars all around the world as a great example of a pragmatic Christian theologian and philosopher.
• Calvinism and Arminianism in Historical Theology Calvinism and Arminianism are theological systems that introduce methods to explain the relations which develop between God and people, which are directed to achieve salvation.
• Biblical Theology and How to Practice It Scholars have used different evangelical approaches to accurately articulate the significance of Christ-themed biblical theology and its prospects.
• Theology and Contextualization in Latin America This paper discusses theology and contextualization in Latin America and aims to give a full-fledged description of contextualization’s impact.
• The Positioning of Systematic Theology The paper states that the purpose of theology is not to investigate God’s phenomenon but to explore issues of belief and approaches to following biblical teaching.
• Evangelical Theology of Grenz and Olson This essay evaluates Evangelical Theology in terms of the affirmations of Grenz and Olson defining what God’s transcendence and immanence are in relation to Evangelical Theology.
• Process and Secular Theology: Tillich and Bonhoeffer This essay proceeds by delving into the connection between the theology of Tillich and Process Theology and the connections between the thoughts of Bonhoeffer and Secular Theology.
• Thinking through Paul: Survey of His Life, Letters and Theology The authors of the book “Thinking through Paul: Survey of His Life, Letters and Theology” wanted to analyze the significance of Paul’s life to Christians.
• Theological Reasoning as a Basis for Faith Theological reasoning strives to pose questions and answer them in terms of sacred theology. Meaning, essences, causes, distinctions, and so on compose the core of reason.
• Holistic Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology The holistic mission provides worshiping, evangelism, dialogue among religions, compassion, seeking justice, peacemaking, ecological protection, and social responsibility.
• Philosophical Anthropology and Theological Perspectives Despite their methodological differences, psychological and theological viewpoints on philosophical anthropology share a high degree of agreement.
• Augustine and Organization of Latin Theology Donatists were exclusively an African schismatic sect who viewed themselves as the true heirs to Christianity and claimed to be the church of martyrs.
• Book Review of “Paul the Jewish Theologian” by Young In the book “Paul the Jewish Theologian”, Young reveals Saul of Tarsus as a rejected individual who never departed from his Jewish roots.
• The Incarnation of Christ: Theological Survey The theory of the Incarnation of Christ is the central teaching of the Christian church. It says that God took a fleshly appearance and a human nature.
• Paul, the Jewish Theologian by B. H. Young The title of the selected book for this review is Paul, the Jewish Theologian: A Pharisee among Christians, Jews, and Gentiles.
• Integrated Theory of Leadership from Theological Perspective This paper has demonstrated that the integrated theory of leadership relies on an adaptive leadership style and theological beliefs.
• White Theology and Its Core Characteristics This paper looks at the factors that distinguish white theology and the ways in which it manifests itself in the Pentecostal church.
• The Theology of Christ Through the Ancient Ecumenical Councils It is essential to trace the development of Christ’s theology through the ancient ecumenical councils and reflect on how they developed the Church’s understanding of Jesus.
• Divine Currency: The Theological Power of Money in the West Money in Christianity is a dangerous matter, which requires careful and proper management to stay on the path of Christ.
• The Theology and Science Roles and Relationships The relationship between science and faith is a relevant topic in theology, and the synthetic approach is one of the most viable solutions.
• “Grace Without Nature”: Theological Understanding of the Imago Dei The essay “Grace without Nature” significantly contributes to expanding human understanding of the meaning of the formula imago Dei.
• Early Christology: Historical Theology Historical theology provides research on the way that the Church has undergone interpreting the Scripture under various conditions determined by the different epochs.
• The Old Testament Theology Review This paper provides the Old Testament theology review, including approaches to Old Testament theology, discussing God and creation, worship and sacrifice, God and the future.
• Integration Model: Theological Reasoning The paper dissects a case study of two couples who are unmarried. It references Piaget, Freud, and Sullivan’s psychological theories and offers adaptations.
• Latin American Liberation Theology Latin American liberation theology was the prime example of contextual theology manifesting in the region, where the praxis model or method of theology was utilized.
• Peculiarities of Religious Belief in Theology The intended audience is theologians and religious communities as well as all people interested in the issue of belief.
• Natural Theology Book by William Paley In his book Natural Theology, William Paley paid considerable attention to the criticism of contemporary transformist concepts.
• Theology: Japan’s View of Christianity Christianity is one of the most extensively practiced religions worldwide, and, in some countries, it even has the status of a state religion.
• Liberation Theology and Gutierrez’s Contribution to It This essay will examine liberation theology’s background and provide a detailed overview of Gutierrez’s contribution to it.
• Theological-Political Treatise According to Spinoza, superstition stems from the willingness of individuals not to link everything to certainty.
• Biodiversity, Environmental Ethics and Theology This paper will focus on the issue of decreasing biodiversity, explaining how environmental ethics and theology apply to this problem.
• The Limits of Language in Theology Apophatic theology suggests that everyone should try to reach beyond the image someone creates when speaking about God, his essence, or plans regarding humanity.
• Lutheran Theology – Insights for Today’s Church Martin Luther’s theology started the reformation in Germany through his famous 95 Theses and, in doing so, helped model the contemporary society and Protestant Church.
• Theology in the Context of World Christianity Perception of shame and guilt in different cultures plays an important role in people’s personalities and their vision of the world itself.
• Lutheran Theology and Its Implications for Contemporary Church and Society This study, therefore, focuses on Lutheran theology and explains why Luther can be regarded as the founder of the modern church and society.
• Malcolm X, a Revolutionary. Philosophical Theology Malcolm X is the eminent personality of the 20th century, widely known for his combat against African-American harassment.
• Theology Doctrine Universalism The purpose of this paper is to discuss universalism. Universalism is a doctrine in theology that refers to universal salvation.
• Christian Theology and World Religions Religion in the context of human history has been a part of people’s existence for many centuries; for some, gods were the creators of the word and its masters.
• Martin Luther King and His Theology Analysis Martin Luther was born in the age of Renaissance, which was blossoming with its artists and their works and which had a positive impact on the development of his personality.
• Religious Study and Theology. I AM statements I AM statements are found both in the New and Old Testament. In the New Testament, the Gospel according to John emphasizes the statements.
• Religious Studies and Theology: Paganism in the Military Paganism has spread far and wide in society. From academia to the military, the practice of paganism is being accepted and accommodated just like other religions.
• Theology History: Forms of Beliefs Humans began to worship physical forms commonly seen around them in the form of oceans, mountains, the sun and the moon, animals, and even weather.
• Theology Concepts Brief Review The gentiles were religiously accepted as Christians by the early Christians because they both common beliefs Jesus Christ.
• Religious Studies & Theology: The Davidic Kingdom The paper is about David – one of the most prominent rulers who united many tribes and established a strong monarchy for the people of Judah and Israel.
• Black Theology and Its Impact on Drug Addiction I have chosen the topic of Black Theology and its impact on drug addiction because I have experienced the impact of opioid addiction on my family.
• Theology in the Enlightenment Age The enlightenment age started gaining momentum in the 13th when Thomas Aquinas recovered the Aristotelian logic that was primarily used in defending Christianity.
• Roman Catholic Theology of Rahner and Kung This article evaluates the theology of Rahner and Kung in terms of how much they pushed for the envelope of traditionally accepted Roman Catholic theology.
• Courage and Paul Tillich’s Philosophy and Theology The research argues that courage is not merely an ethical value but an ontological conception and is opposed by the classical purely moral perspective on courage.
• Marriage Theology Through the Protestant Reformation
• Human Qualities Within Theology
• Christian Theology and Greek Culture
• The Youth and Islam Theology
• Understanding Dialect, Philosophy, and Theology Through Scholasticism
• Relationship Between Theology and Spirituality
• Philosophy, Theology, and Ideology
• Christian Worship Music and Theology
• Roman Catholic Theology and Contemporary Culture
• Relationship Between Science and Theology
• Biblical Foundations for Health Theology
• Theology and Theologians: Differences and Similarities
• Biblical Foundation for Developing Contextual Theology
• Immortality: Philosophy and Theology
• Christian Theology and the Doctrine of Evangelism
• Influential Ideas for Protestant Theology
• The Universalism and Annihilationism Theology
• Holy Trinity and Systematic Theology
• Christian Theology, Family, and Marriage
• Wesleyan Theology and the Concept of Salvation
• The Theology and Anthropology of Mormonism
• Appropriation, Politics, and Theology in the Gospel of Mark
• Liberation Theology and the Catholic Church
• Galileo Galilei and His Impact Theology
• Sexual Theology: Biblical Insight on Sexuality
• Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s World Theology
• Understanding Political Theology and Its Application in the Canadian Democracy
• The Most Important Contribution to Eucharist Theology
• Relationship Between Theology and Natural Science
• Christian Mediation and Theology
• Catholic Moral Theology and the Medical Field
• Buddhist and Christian Ethics Theology
• John Calvin and the Calvinist Theology
• Christian Theology and Feminist Theology
• The Relationship Between Theology and Economics: The Role of the Jansenism Movement
• Comparative Feminist Theology Analysis
• Twentieth-Century Christian Theology and ‘Holiness’
• John and Matthew’s Theology
• Hierarchical Church and Liberation Theology
• Contemporary Theology and Orthodoxy of the New Testament
• Christian Theology and Market Economics
• Biblical Paradigm and Ministry Theology
• Jerusalem Politically Contested City Theology Religion
• Urban Theology Using the Old Testament
• Christian Theology and Religious Beliefs
• Catholic Theology and Scripture Assignment
• Family and Mass Media Influences Theology Religion
• Church History and How It Fits With Biblical Theology
• Mathematics and Theology Blossoming Together
• Christian Counseling, Theology, and Spirituality
• African American Women and Womanist Theology
• Philosophy and Christian Theology
• Christian and Navajo Creation Theology Religion
• Integrating Psychology With Christian Theology
• The Theology, Christology, and Pneumatology of the Book of Revelation
• Integrating Change Models and the Theology of Leadership
• Christianity and Faith, Evangelization, Life and Theology
• Liberation Theology and Discernment
• Anne Hutchinson and Her Theology Theory
• Psychology Theology and Spirituality in Christian Counseling
• Does Religious Theology Undermine the Basic Doctrines of Christianity?
• What’s the Difference Between Reformed Theology and Calvinism?
• What Is the Contribution to and Impact of Feminist Theology in Judaism?
• Is Christian Theology More Modern Than Islamic Theology?
• What Is the Difference Between Philosophy and Theology?
• How Does Mormon Theology Explain Intersex People?
• How Does Moral Theology Differ From Moral Philosophy?
• What Is the Difference Between ‘Biblical’ and ‘Systematic’ Theology?
• Is Constantly Asking Questions a Good Way to Get Better at Christian Theology?
• How Did the Reformation Influence Eucharistic Theology?
• Is Theology an Actual Science or a Pseudoscience?
• What Is a Relationship Between Religion and Theology?
• Has Theology Made Any Contribution to Knowledge in the Past 500 Years?
• Is It True That Early Christianity Was Much Closer to Islam in Theology?
• What Is the Purpose of Heaven and Hell in Christian and Islamic Theology?
• What Parts of Hindu Theology Are Similar to Greek Theology?
• What Effect Did Plato Have on Augustine and the Origins of Christian Theology?
• What Are Some of the Most Controversial Views in Christian Theology?
• What Is the Fundamental Theology Behind Why Jews Disagree With Islam?
• How Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Reconcile Matthew 8:11 With Their Theology?
• Is There a Way to Discuss the Deeper Theology of Religion Without the Extremist Positions?
• To What Extent Has “Existentialism” Influenced Theology?
• What Are Some Examples of the Apophatic Nature of Orthodox Theology?
• Why Is It Important to Differentiate Spirituality, Theology, and Philosophy?
• How the Church Handles Postmodernism Theology?
• The concept of the Holy Trinity and its significance in Christian theology.
• Atonement in Christianity: an analysis of different theories.
• Theodicy: the issue of evil in the world created by benevolent God.
• The views of death and afterlife in Christian eschatology.
• Different theological perspectives on the nature of God.
• Bioethics from the Christian ethics perspective.
• The meaning and significance of Christian sacraments.
• The role of women in Christian theology.
• Liberation theology and its connection to social justice.
• Faith and science: Christian views on evolution and the origin of the universe.
• Covenant theology as an approach to interpreting the Bible.
• Did Jesus Christ fulfill the messianic prophecies in the Old Testament?
• Analysis of the biblical concept of the Kingdom of God.
• A historical-critical approach to interpreting the Bible.
• The role of the Mosaic Law in the Old and New Testaments.
• Analysis of ethical teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
• Prophets’ call for social justice: analyzing the Old Testament.
• The apocalyptic imagery in the Book of Revelation.
• How does the Bible address the problem of suffering?
• The biblical understanding of Israel as God’s chosen people.

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StudyCorgi. (2022, March 1). 188 Theology Topics for Discussion, Thesis, & Research Paper. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/theology-essay-topics/

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StudyCorgi . "188 Theology Topics for Discussion, Thesis, & Research Paper." March 1, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/theology-essay-topics/.

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These essay examples and topics on Theology were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on June 24, 2024 .

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Theology Proper - Questions and Answers

This is a series of theological essays on important questions concerning the doctrine of God!

Related Papers

https://www.swrktec.org/theology

Herb Swanson

We surface a brief overview of a few of the problems of contemporary theology, in hope that readers will find a fresh starting place in old evidence: a place to build a consensus that reaches for unanimous agreement in the Spirit.

Domenic Marbaniang

THEOLOGY is about God and Creation, or more precisely perhaps about our ideas of them, how they are formed and somewhat justified, although it is stressed that they can be neither proved nor disproved. This book is a thematic compilation drawn from past works by the author over a period of thirteen years. A new essay was added in 2022.

The Doctrine of God is an introductory textbook aiming to provide a clear and concise introduction to the doctrine of God by addressing some big questions concerning divine attributes and the God-world relationship in mainly recent Christian theology. More precisely the book provides an issue-focused presentation on selected contemporary perspectives. The book in its coverage is however not limited only to recent Christian debates, but frequently features also philosophical and historical voices which complement the debates. The book is therefore not a book in historical theology, or philosophical theology, but rather a book in systematic theology proper covering the contemporary debates relating to major questions surrounding the doctrine of God. Since the book is framed as an introductory textbook its readership is assumed to be mostly students of theology. Given the level of the presented material, its dense and detailed nature will primary be most beneficial to graduate level (p...

Amenu Daba D A B A Waktola

Edward Seely: How Can Churches Facilitate Education Leading to Maturity in Jesus Christ Worldwide?

This PowerPoint presentation on the first of the six loci (Biblical doctrines) of historic Christian systematic theology is an abbreviated version of the accompanying Overview of the Theology section in the larger unabridged PowerPoint (PPT) program, “Essential Christianity: Historic Christian Systematic Theology—With a Focus on Its Very Practical Dimensions, Including God’s Answers to Our Great Questions of Life—for Now and Eternity.” For use in classes that have time constraints, this further condensed version with highlighted subjects indicates the minimum topics to be addressed in class. Ask the class to read the larger version(s), at least the Overview, prior to the class session. Provide opportunities for discussion of any of the subjects in the larger version, the abridged version, or related subjects, especially contemporary implications and applications of the Biblical content. Both the larger unabridged, and the abridged, PPTs in expanded sentence outline format, are for the third session of a nine-week course for adults and youth classes, which offer an introductory overview of historic Christian systematic theology with an emphasis on its many practical applications. This program, the third lesson in the third session of this series (the first lesson, an overview of the overview, needs the first two sessions in an average class of 50 minutes), introduces the doctrine of God, the first of the six loci, of systematic theology. It answers the question: Who is God; what is he like; what has he done; and what is he doing? It also offers a brief look at what God will do in the future, returning to the rest of that subject when the class discusses eschatology, the doctrine of the last things or the end time. This study of the Biblical teaching about God answers why our study needs to begin with God, and then the following Biblical doctrines become much more understandable. For further information on each subject in this course, the teachers and students can access the unabridged PPT on the Christian Theology page of the author’s general Website at https://fromacorntooak12.com/ or on his academic Website at https://seelyedward.academia.edu/research. Each of the PowerPoint presentations is written in an expanded sentence outline format in order to provide a stand-alone resource for teachers, students, and others, including those using it for independent study and/or devotional purposes. Week nine is for a review and discussion of matters the class wants to address. See also the related loci, doctrines, on this Website.

Johannes Zachhuber

Sarah Yardley

This PowerPoint presentation on the first of the six loci (Biblical doctrines) of historic Christian systematic theology is an abbreviated version of the accompanying larger unabridged version. For use in classes that have time constraints, another accompanying, further condensed, version with highlighted subjects indicates the minimum topics to be addressed in class. Ask the class to read the larger version(s), at least this Overview, prior to the class meeting. Provide opportunities for discussion of any of the subjects in the larger version, the abridged version, or related subjects, especially contemporary implications and applications of the Biblical content. Both the larger and abridged PowerPoint presentations in expanded sentence outline format, are for the third session of a nine-week course for adults and youth classes, which offer an introductory overview of historic Christian systematic theology with an emphasis on its many practical applications. This program, the third lesson in the third session of this series (the first lesson, an overview of the overview, needs the first two sessions in an average class of 50 minutes), introduces the doctrine of God, the first of the six loci, of systematic theology. It answers the question: Who is God; what is he like; what has he done; and what is he doing? It also offers a brief look at what God will do in the future, returning to the rest of that subject when the class discusses eschatology, the doctrine of the last things or the end time. This study of the Biblical teaching about God answers why our study needs to begin with God, and then the following Biblical doctrines make sense and are understandable. For further information on each subject in this course, the teachers and students can access the unabridged PowerPoint, “Essential Christianity: Historic Christian Systematic Theology—With a Focus on Its Very Practical Dimensions, Including God’s Answers to Our Great Questions of Life—for Now and Eternity,” on the Christian Theology page of the author’s general Website at https://fromacorntooak12.com/ or on his academic Website at https://seelyedward.academia.edu/research. Each of the PowerPoint presentations is written in an expanded sentence outline format in order to provide a stand-alone resource for teachers, students, and others, including those using it for independent study and/or devotional purposes. Week nine is for a review and discussion of matters the class wants to address. See the related loci, doctrines, on this Website.

Jon Winkelman

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Towards a Phenomenology of Kenosis: Thinking after the Theological Turn

What could it mean to think “after the theological turn”? This article proposes one possible answer by reframing the theological turn in light of the way in which Paul’s kenosis serves as a metaphor for deconstruction in a variety of continental philosophers who are all nevertheless hostile to overt theologising. Tracking this notion through the history of theology and philosophy, the article argues that it has been philosophically appropriated so as to indicate the point within the Christian theological complex that constitutes its fatal agent by setting in motion Christianity’s own self-deconstruction or de-theologisation. This dynamic, which implies that every engagement with theology ultimately carries itself outside of theology proper, will then allow the article to reconceive the gesture operated by phenomenology’s theological turn: in their right turn towards theology, the philosopher must be careful not to simply remain stuck there, for it only serves their investigation insofar as this engagement is precisely what allows them to turn away from “the theological,” or for phenomenology de-theologise itself. By drawing out the kenotic motif in contemporary continental philosophy and connecting it to phenomenology’s theological turn, the article thus argues that what is needed now is a deconstruction of the theological turn. This can be accomplished by way of what the article proposes to call a “phenomenology of kenosis”: namely, a phenomenology that starts from theology (Paul’s notion of kenosis), precisely so as to move beyond it (to de-theologise itself).

One day, the gods withdraw. Of their own volition, they withdraw their divinity, which is to say, their presence. They won’t simply leave, they won’t go somewhere else, they’ll withdraw their own presence – they’ll disappear within it. – Jean-Luc Nancy, Expectation , 25.

What could it mean to think “after the theological turn”? As only a single author belonging to the set originally accused by Dominique Janicaud of misdirecting French phenomenology in this way still survives, the question of what the present and future direction of continental philosophy of religion might be is becoming increasingly urgent. Today, there is indeed no other option than to think after the theological turn, much like one cannot avoid engaging in post-theological or post-modern thinking in general without sinking into a quaint naiveté: one must look back on these respective projects – in which we are still involved to some degree but of which time has exposed the internal contradictions and inherent dangers – so as to pursue their ambitions by other and hopefully improved means.

The shortcomings of the theological turn have been demonstrated, directly or indirectly, by numerous other approaches in contemporary continental philosophy of religion: Quentin Meillassoux rejects phenomenology and its purported fideism outright, Giorgio Agamben provides a sharp contrast to the theological turn’s extraordinary political apathy, and Jean-Luc Nancy – perhaps most significantly – increasingly presses “that in order to speak of God, we have to speak of something other than the Other.” [1] This is not to mention the remarkable institutional irrelevance of the theological turn’s expansive phenomenological ambitions: the “purely” phenomenological analyses provided by these authors have remained perhaps surprisingly marginal to academic philosophy in general (even within the continental tradition) and are met with indifference by academic theologians (e.g. it is remarkable that phenomenology is nowadays far less popular a method for formal theologising than it was in the mid-twentieth century). A different vision for what continental philosophy of religion could be, especially according to the phenomenological method and in the wake of the theological turn, is therefore needed.

Here, I propose one such possible vision – though, undoubtedly, by no means the only possible one – [2] by reframing the theological turn in light of the way in which Paul’s kenosis serves as a metaphor for deconstruction in a variety of other continental philosophers who are all nevertheless hostile to overt theologising (including but not limited to Jean-Luc Nancy, Catherine Malabou, and Jacques Derrida). [3] Tracking this notion through the history of theology and philosophy, I will argue that it has been philosophically appropriated so as to indicate the point within the Christian theological complex that constitutes its fatal agent by setting in motion its own self-deconstruction or de-theologisation. This dynamic, which implies that every engagement with theology ultimately carries itself outside of theology proper, will then allow us to reconceive, or even to complete, the gesture operated by phenomenology’s theological turn: in their right turn towards theology, the philosopher must be careful not to simply remain stuck there, for it only serves their investigation insofar as this engagement is precisely what allows them to turn away from “the theological,” or for phenomenology de-theologise itself – illustrating perfectly what Emmanuel Falque means when he says that “the more we theologise, the better we philosophise.” In other words, by drawing out the kenotic motif in contemporary continental philosophy and connecting it to phenomenology’s theological turn, I will argue that what is needed now is a deconstruction of the theological turn . This, I suggest, can be accomplished by way of what I would call – if only in a programmatic way – a “phenomenology of kenosis”: namely, a phenomenology that starts from theology (Paul’s notion of kenosis), precisely so as to move beyond it (to de-theologise itself). As my aim in this article is to elucidate what thinking “after the theological turn” might mean, this phenomenology will not actually be developed here; instead, the space is simply cleared for it and its potential significance to the field outlined. Nevertheless, the present investigation, perhaps like the theological turn itself, certainly constitutes a first (theological) step towards such a phenomenology of kenosis, even if the (philosophical and phenomenological) destination is thereby not yet reached.

To make this step, I will first give an overview of the present state of continental philosophy, noting in particular that the “return of religion” – which arguably defines the scope of the field – is actually composed of two distinct movements: the “theological turn” is only one of these, since there is a parallel set of authors who all approach religion through the lens of Paul’s kenosis. Subsequently, I will briefly discuss a few examples from this second set of authors, but only after first giving a detailed overview of the role the kenotic motif plays within systematic theology. After all, the very logic of kenosis demands as much: we can only move beyond “the theological” by first starting with theology. Finally, I conclude with a programmatic section that, though it must still remain somewhat abstract and provisional, proposes what “thinking after the theological turn” by way of a “phenomenology of kenosis” might mean and how it is significant to the field of continental philosophy (of religion).

1 The ambiguous return of religion

With philosophers from different traditions and religious backgrounds collectively turning to religious themes and language, the “return of religion” is a widely observed fact of the recent history of thought that has nevertheless been described rather inadequately. This is partly due to “religion” inevitably proving impossible to define, [4] though we may pragmatically understand this “return” here as the use philosophers make of theological texts and language. [5] However, more importantly, scholarship has generally insufficiently recognised that this “return” is made up of two distinct “turns” to religion or – more accurately – two different ways of making philosophical use of theology. If religion then returns to philosophy, it does so in a highly ambiguous way.

First, there is the movement known as the theological turn , comprising a set of prominent French religious thinkers of the 1980s and 1990s (Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, and Jean-Louis Chrétien) who placed those specific experiences that can be considered “religious” – or, again more accurately, “theophanic” (i.e. referring to the transcendence of divinity) – at the centre of the phenomenological investigation into the general structure of experience. [6] This immediately drew accusations of an unwarranted theologisation of philosophy that have not died down since, notably by Dominique Janicaud’s – intentionally polemical and therefore easily but all too often wrongly dismissed – report on the state of French philosophy entitled The Theological Turn of French Phenomenology . [7] In the English-speaking world, this movement shares its attempt at grounding all thought in the theological dimension with so-called “radical orthodoxy.” [8] Meanwhile, in parallel though ostensibly unconnected, a broader set of apparently atheist thinkers (e.g. Jürgen Habermas, Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy, Slavoj Zizek, etc.) began unearthing the roots of Western modernity in the theological structure of the Christian religion – this development has become known as the post-secular turn . [9] These two movements, which together comprise philosophy’s “return to religion,” nevertheless “turn” to “religion” in very different ways: whilst the theological turn grounds philosophical reflection in a theological dimension, the post-secular turn uncovers to what extent modern thought remains innervated by theology in an attempt to articulate a more authentic atheism. [10] In short, one is theological, the other (aspires to be) post-theological: the first returns to religion in order to turn towards the theological dimension; the second only does so in an attempt to turn away from it.

Existing scholarship has neglected this split in the “return of religion,” often focussing exclusively on the post-secular turn insofar as its insights are useful to cultural theory. For example, in Return Statements: The Return of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy , Gregg Lambert speaks casually of the “theological and/or post-secular turn,” [11] and focusses – despite the title of his book – on “the ‘post-secular turn’ ..., even though there is a tradition that dates to a much earlier period in French phenomenological circles, namely from the early 1980s.” [12] Hent de Vries, in Philosophy and the Turn to Religion , likewise distances his inquiry from Marion or (parts of) Levinas, since they “opt for a purely theological … discourse.” [13] Instead, he is interested in authors like Heidegger or Derrida, whose “turn to religion … does not signal a return to theology or religion per se ,” since “religion is never conceived of as the hidden meaning of a secular historical or anthropological truth,” and instead “show that citations from religious traditions are more fundamental to the structure of language and experience than the genealogies, critiques, and transcendental reflections of the modern discourse that has deemed such citations obsolete.” [14] Yet, in the theological turn, theology and religion are very much returned to: religious or theophanic experience becomes the touchstone for the phenomenological analysis of experience more generally, and Marion in particular identifies this experience – rightly or wrongly – with the Revelation of Christ. [15]

The scholarship of philosophy’s return to religion has thus been confused on two levels. Firstly, it neglects the difference between authors who (re)turn to theology and those who try to think beyond it. [16] John Caputo is one of the few scholars escaping this charge, recognising the difference as one between phenomenological (e.g. Marion and Henry) and deconstructive (e.g. Derrida and Nancy) approaches in recent philosophy of religion: “if deconstruction has taken a ‘religious’ turn, this is a religion without theology, representing … a religious but ‘a-theological’ turn …, while the new phenomenology has taken a decidedly ‘theological turn’.” [17] In short, they (re)turn to religion in different ways: “it comes down to the difference between a theological and an atheological religion,” and thus two distinct (re)turns, “the one with and the other without attachment to a determinate theological tradition.” [18] Implicit in Caputo’s formulation also lies the second confusion of the existing scholarship, namely that the atheological turn to religion would be but an exposition of the “post-secular” condition: a philosophy of culture, rather than a philosophical style as such.

Yet, these projects – and Nancy’s deconstruction of Christianity suffers especially from this superficial reading as yet another discourse on the post-secular – nevertheless extend far beyond Christianity, modern society, or even metaphysical reason. [19] Here, I therefore suggest reconceiving the “post-secular” turn by way of a theological figure many of its authors draw on: namely, what Paul describes as the kenosis of Christ or God’s self-emptying ( ekenosen ) of divinity by assuming the human condition in the Incarnation (Philippians 2:7). This dynamic, characteristic of the Christian God, becomes characteristic of Christianity as such in the authors of the “post-secular” turn: Christianity is the religion that empties itself out of its religious or theological character into secular modernity. In Marcel Gauchet’s famous phrase, Christianity is “the religion of the egress ( sortie ) from religion.” [20] Yet, as the implications of this philosophical gesture exceed the question of the relationship between Christianity and modern society, I would suggest that philosophy’s return to religion is comprised by the theological turn , on the one hand, and the kenotic turn , on the other.

The authors of the kenotic turn, unlike their colleagues comprising the theological turn, are not interested in theological notions like kenosis for Christianity’s sake, as a theologian would be; they only explore them to the extent that the “death of God” (Nietzsche), the “de-theologisation” (Heidegger), [21] or “de-Christianisation” (Derrida) [22] characteristic of modern thought is itself a product of Christian theology’s self-effacing (i.e. kenotic) structure: the turn towards Christian “theology” (its language and texts), paradoxically, serves the distinctly philosophical purpose of turning away from “the theological” (Derrida’s metaphysics of presence or Heidegger’s onto-theo-logy). Nancy’s “deconstruction of Christianity,” for example, describes how, as theological–metaphysical construct, Christianity equally de-theologises or deconstructs itself as Christianity: due to its characteristic kenotic doctrine of God (divinity’s self-effacement), it sets in motion its own de-theologisation or secularisation (Christianity’s self-effacement). The divine self-emptying denoted by the theological notion of kenosis thus serves only as the means for elaborating the implications of the death of God, for thinking “atheologically.” We might therefore say that these authors do not primarily understand kenosis theologically, but articulate what it might mean once pushed – precisely according to its proper logic  – towards its own de-theologisation. In other words, kenosis as a piece of Christian theology is what provides the egress ( sortie ) not just from theology but precisely as theology: it is only by turning towards theology (i.e. starting from the theological notion of kenosis) that phenomenology will be able to turn away from theology (i.e. to “de-theologise” itself or move beyond theology) – which is what I understand here by thinking after the theological turn . [23] Why this is something worth doing, indeed something that is necessary out of a distinctly phenomenological urgency (i.e. as the deconstruction of contemporary phenomenology and philosophy of religion), I will explain in the final section. Before doing so, however, I will give a theological and philosophical overview of the kenotic motif in order to establish its meaning to and significance for contemporary continental philosophy (i.e. how it becomes a metaphor for the very movement of deconstruction).

2 Kenosis in theology

The very logic of kenosis, which is that of thinking after the theological (i.e. in a movement beyond yet starting from it), demands that we first entertain some theological preliminaries, even if they will by no means be exhaustive. Pivotal to the Christian faith is a conception of God as self-emptying or condescending to humanity in Jesus Christ for the sake of its redemption: the world is saved because God voluntarily assumed the limits of finitude, human existence in the world, including its suffering and death. However, in this free act of self-limitation, through which God empties himself of himself in order to become fully human, God nevertheless equally remains fully God: the self-revelation of God takes places precisely as the human life of Jesus Christ. Rather than bestowing it on a spiritual elite as a mystical vision of his glory, God makes his saving revelation available to all by giving it in the form of a humble human servant: only by sharing our human condition, does God reveal himself to us. Without ceasing to be God, he therefore emptied himself of his divinity for the sake of humanity, namely so that it might receive his revelation and be saved thereby. [24]

It is this dynamic of divine self-emptying – which ties together revelation, salvation, and incarnation – that Christianity understands with the Greek word kenosis . It originates in Paul’s recitation of a supposedly early Christian hymn in the Epistle to the Philippians (2:5–11):

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It is not my intention to provide this passage with a rigorous exegesis or a history of its theological development, but merely to highlight a few relevant theological aspects to render intelligible how philosophy’s “kenotic turn” makes use of this notion: namely, the fact that kenosis concerns not simply Christology, but rather (1) the doctrine of God, (2) the phenomenology of revelation, and (3) the theology of incarnation.

2.1 Kenosis as a statement about God

Though otherwise not averse to high-flying theologising; here, Paul opts for a pre-existing Christian hymn. This immediately serves to indicate that Paul is not providing us with a treatise in systematic Christology or a metaphysics of the Incarnation: i.e. an account of how the divine and human natures of Christ are conjoined, or of the ontological change divinity would supposedly undergo in entering into humanity. Such a highly metaphysical account of kenosis is provided by the so-called “kenotic theology” of mid-nineteenth-century Germany and early twentieth-century Britain. [25] Its most famous exponent is Gottfried Thomasius, who uses the kenotic motif to conceptualise the Incarnation as an ontological change in God: though divine, Christ is not omniscient or omnipotent on his account; because, in becoming human, divinity divests or empties itself of certain attributes. [26] Yet, the genre of the text really pre-empts the idea that we are dealing with such deeply metaphysical concerns: due to its poetic form, the New Testament scholar Michael Gorman suggests, emptying “should not be read as a reference to the divestiture of something (whether divinity itself or some divine attribute) …, but ‘figuratively,’ as a robust metaphor for total self-abandonment and self-giving.” [27] In this section, I will therefore draw on a series of modern theologians who all react against the so-called “kenotic theology” in order to lay the groundwork for a phenomenological rather than metaphysical understanding of kenosis.

Looking at the specific wording of the hymn, T.F. Torrance agrees that it provides “no ground for any theory of kenosis or emptying as that has been expounded in the ‘kenotic theories’ of the incarnation,” according to which “in becoming man the eternal Son emptied himself of some of his divine properties or attributes in order to come within our human and historical existence.” [28] The hymn, Torrance emphasises, speaks of God’s self-emptying of the divine form ( morphe ) into that of the human servant: in taking-on the servant form of humanity, God humbles himself by taking-leave of the majestic and glorious form of divinity, yet without ceasing to be God. Indeed, paradoxically, God is fully God precisely in emptying himself out in the human. [29] On this account, kenosis serves to indicate precisely that a metaphysical theory of the Incarnation is ill-advised if not impossible, since it does not concern a change in God’s way of being but only in his form of manifestation: in emptying himself of divinity, God is God; in assuming humanity, God is God. This paradox is not presented to reason to be accounted for, but only to faith to be believed:

It is God himself, he who was in the form of God and equal to God, who condescended to be very man of very man. Nothing at all is said of how that takes place. All kenotic theories are attempts to explain the how of the incarnation in some measure: how God and man are united in one Jesus Christ, how the Word has become flesh. All that is said is that this union is a way of incredible humiliation and grace. [30]

By kenosis (and incarnation generally), we should therefore not understand the indwelling of a foreign substance, or the diminution of essential attributes, but rather the constitutive movement of the self’s descent ( katabasis ) – its self-effacement and self-humiliation – that simultaneously forms its coming-into itself.

This same idea is expressed more vividly, more paradoxically, by Sergei Bulgakov: the Incarnation, he says, expresses “an unfathomable mystery,” namely that “God ‘was made ( egeneto )’ a creature, ‘flesh’,” meaning “that God became not God without ceasing to be God.” In short, “flesh is not God,” and consequently, “the Word-God (without ceasing to be Word and God) became not-God; the Creator became a creature .” [31] Like Torrance, Bulgakov understands this not as a change in God’s being, but as a descent to the historical and worldly form of humanity:

God left the supramundane absoluteness of His being and became the Creator; but the Creator, the Word …, Himself became a creature. From His absoluteness He descended into creatureliness. … Here, God the Word leaves heaven with its unperturbed tranquillity of blessed divine being and enters inside creaturely cosmic being, “becomes” a creature. [32]

Note here that insofar as Bulgakov speaks of different kinds of being, these do not concern a change in God himself, but rather his movement between ontological realms: God leaves-behind divine being (kenosis of absoluteness) and enters-into creaturely being (incarnation into creatureliness), without ceasing to be God. As he puts it: “In becoming man, God does not stop being God; even after descending from heaven, He remains in heaven.” [33] Bulgakov therefore places a robust “kenotic principle” at the centre of his theology: though noting his appreciation of the kenotic theologians, who have “done a great deal to advance this principle (first in Germany, then in England),” they only did so “in a one-sided manner.” [34] First of all, they limit the question of kenosis to Christology, and the Incarnation specifically, instead of understanding it as comprising the whole relation of God to the world (e.g. creation): “The kenosis of the Absolute in the world and for the world is a basic, unifying idea for theology.” [35] Kenosis is therefore at the core of how we conceive of God, and not just Christ. Secondly, their metaphysical account insufficiently appreciates the paradox and mystery of the Incarnation: “Without ceasing to be God, God ceases to be God (even though that is inconceivable and impossible), and He becomes man; that is, He enters human life in the most real sense, and He makes this life His own.” [36]

These two criticisms can be combined by saying that kenosis does not primarily concern Christ, in his human and divine natures, but God, who voluntarily descends towards man and humbles himself. This is crystallised in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s criticism of the kenotic theologians: identifying kenosis precisely “with the divine freedom , over against every way of thinking that would posit here a process of a natural (Gnostic) or logical (Hegelian) character,” he sees “in the powerlessness of the Incarnate and Crucified One the shining forth of God’s omnipotence .” [37] This means that kenosis does not concern what happens to God’s freedom and omnipotence in the Incarnation, but rather how these “attributes” are understood in the first place: kenosis concerns the doctrine of God, rather than Christology narrowly conceived. For example, the fact that God is God in his self-abasement shows that “the divine ‘power’ is so ordered that it can make room for a possible self-exteriorisation, like that found in the Incarnation and the Cross, and can maintain this exteriorisation even to the utmost point.” [38] So, God’s self-humiliation in Jesus Christ (incarnation) and as Jesus Christ (passion and crucifixion) does not indicate a diminution of his omnipotence and thus a change, but rather serves as the model for understanding it: “the whole affair proceeds in the sovereign freedom (and so in the power and majesty) of the God who has the power to ‘empty himself,’ in obedience, for the (eventual) taking of the form of a servant, and from out of the divine form itself. And so God, whilst abiding in himself (for everything happens in his sovereign power) can yet leave himself (in his form of glory).” [39] What marks out God’s omnipotence, his divinity, is that he did not consider it as “a thing to be grasped,” something to cling or hold on to; but, instead, “emptied himself” of it (Philippians 2:6–7). Whereas man, if he found himself equal to or in the form of God, would eagerly exploit this for his own advantage; God voluntarily takes leave of his divinity in the human being, Christ freely humbles himself on the cross: precisely this free action is incomprehensible to man and thereby marks out God as divine, paradoxically constituting his divinity as its effacement. [40] God is God in his incredible choice for the human, the world and the finite as the site for divinity’s self-manifestation through self-effacement. This understanding of kenosis is eloquently summed up by Bonaventure: “The depth of God made man, that is, the humility of God, is so great that reason fails before it.” [41] In short, the kenosis hymn describes God’s glory metaphorically as humiliation.

These theological arguments for reading the kenosis hymn as concerning God’s divinity metaphorically rather than Christ’s divinity metaphysically are supported by Gorman’s exegesis: in the hymn, Gorman says, “Christ’s divinity, and thus divinity itself, is being narratively defined as kenotic and cruciform in character.” [42] He continues: “God … is essentially kenotic, and indeed essentially cruciform. Kenosis, therefore, does not mean Christ’s emptying himself of his divinity (or of anything else), but rather Christ’s exercising his divinity, his equality with God.” [43] So, when Paul speaks of God’s self-emptying of divinity, he is not describing what actually happens to God’s divinity in the Incarnation (it being left behind), but rather offering a metaphoric illustration of how it should be understood (as a profound and incredible humiliation).

I stress this non-metaphysical character of kenosis, along with its centrality to the Christian doctrine of God, to pre-empt the criticism that an emphasis on kenosis in conceiving of Christianity would somehow be inappropriate. For example, accusing Nancy of placing “the apparently marginal doctrine of kenosis at the heart of Christology,” [44] Ian James writes:

This doctrine has a rather marginal and disputed status within Christology and Christian theology more generally. Far more orthodox is the doctrine of hypostatic union, according to which divine spirit and mortal flesh are conjoined in the body of Christ in a manner that affirms their shared essence ( homoouisia ), or consubstantiality. [45]

Yet, in understanding the doctrine of kenosis as in competition with that of the hypostatic union (i.e. the union of human and divine natures in Christ’s individual existence), James understands kenosis in an inappropriately metaphysical way (i.e. leaving behind the divine nature). Since kenosis concerns form ( morphe ) and not nature ( ousia ), it is not in competition with the hypostatic union. In short, the two doctrines concern different things: hypostatic union describes what constitutes God as paradox (the union of human and divine natures), whilst kenosis describes how God appears in the paradox (the exercise of divinity thus unified with humanity). In other words, if hypostatic union belongs to metaphysics (with its talk of “natures” and “existence”), kenosis belongs to phenomenology (the “form” of manifestation). Kenosis, as primarily a statement about God, should consequently be understood as a phenomenological statement about God, articulating both: (1) his mode of phenomenality (i.e. his revelation as God) and (2) the phenomena he is to be found in (i.e. his incarnation in the human servant).

2.2 Kenosis as a statement about revelation

Starting with kenosis as it relates to revelation, Torrance suggests that the “whole movement of humiliation and incarnation is related to revelation as much as to reconciliation.” He explains:

Jesus veils his glory under the form of a servant, in order to get near man for revelation and reconciliation, but in this, the veiling of the Son is a necessary part of his future unveiling for it is a means to its fulfilment, and so to achieving a reconciliation that is not only from the side of God to man but from the side of man to God. [46]

Two things should be noted here. First of all, Torrance echoes Heidegger’s description of the dynamics of phenomenalisation ( Offenbarung ), in which a being-veiled ( Verdecktheit) , understood as “the counterconcept to ‘phenomenon’” or the concealment of what is about to appear ( phanein ), precedes the appearing. [47] However, rather than the veiling preceding the unveiling, I would suggest that kenosis shows how one is only realised in and as the other: God reveals himself as himself only by emptying himself of himself, and thereby veiling himself, in the human being that is Jesus Christ. Søren Kierkegaard was perhaps the first Christian thinker to conceive of kenosis in this way – i.e. phenomenologically, in terms of appearing – through his emphasis on the fact that “it was Christ’s free will and determination from all eternity to be incognito,” [48] to appear in such a way as to not be directly recognisable as God. Kierkegaard explains:

The God has thus made his appearance as Teacher …, and has assumed the form of a servant. … The God’s servant-form however is not a mere disguise, but is actual …. He cannot then betray himself. There exists for him no such possibility as that which is open to the noble king, suddenly to show that he is after all the king. [49]

The servant form is not a disguise, in which case the revelation would consist in God dropping the veil of the servant form; rather, veiling is the mode of God’s self-revelation (paradoxically): as and in the human servant. Here, Kierkegaard’s emphasis is on appearing rather than being: the incognito means “not to appear in one’s proper role,” [50] in the form of the human servant rather than the divine lord. [51] In short, the revelation takes place in the veiling, the appearing (of God) in the disappearing (of divinity), the self-emptying of appearing as the disappearing of what appears (divinity) in its appearing (as humanity).

This brings us to the second point, namely that kenosis allows God to get near to man for revelation. Just like Christ voluntarily humbles himself by dying on the cross, not just for any reason, but in atonement for our sins; God voluntarily humbles himself by assuming humanity in order to reveal himself to us, so as to make possible our salvation. In revealing himself, God descends towards man. As Athanasius puts it: “He [God] deals with them [men] as a good teacher with his pupils, coming down to their level and using simple means.” [52] As necessitated by the rift between man and God caused by original sin that distracted man from God in favour of the sensible world, God comes down to our level, meets us where we are. Athanasius’ point is therefore that by “stooping to our level in His love and Self-revealing to us,” [53] God not only reveals himself to us and on our terms in the Incarnation (as a sensible object, a human body), but also for our sakes (reconciliation between man and God, salvation): “it was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us. It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was both born and manifested in a human body.” [54] Its kenotic doctrine of God makes Christianity – the story of God’s revelation through incarnation – anthropocentric rather than theocentric, or anthropocentric as theocentric: focussed primarily on humanity insofar as the Christian God’s divinity exists in its self-emptying in humanity (Jesus Christ). Even though “He could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way,” one more befitting that majesty (the divine form), “moved with compassion for our limitation” or “out of sheer love for us,” [55] Athanasius insists, God instead took on a visible and mortal body like our very own (the human form) to ensure that his message would be received: God does not reveal himself in his divine form, of which he has emptied himself, but in human form, which he has taken on. Put phenomenologically, divinity remains transcendent to experience, God therefore only reveals himself insofar as he becomes immanent to the sensible world (incarnation) and thus takes leave of his divinity (kenosis). Does that mean, as for example Marion suggests, that the language of kenosis ultimately resorts to anthropomorphism? [56] Nothing could be further from the truth, precisely because – once again – kenosis does not describe the Incarnation metaphysically but phenomenologically: “The incarnate God,” as Jürgen Moltmann suggests, “is present, and can be experienced, in the humanity of every man, and in full human corporeality.” [57]

2.3 Kenosis as a statement about incarnation

Having come down to the level of man to reveal himself, how does God actually reveal himself? How can the invisible enter visibility without ceasing to be invisible? According to Athanasius, in revelation, God not only comes down to our level, but does so “using simple means.” [58] Incarnation is thus not only the mode of Revelation (God’s descent), but also its means (God’s lowliness): by assuming the human condition, God reveals himself in Christ’s eminently human suffering on the cross; by humbling himself, God reveals his divinity in that humiliation. [59] Consequently, if “the incarnation of the Logos is completed on the cross,” as Moltmann suggests, then “the death of Jesus on the cross is the centre of all Christian theology,” i.e. God’s lowly and humble humanity forms “the entry to its problems and answers on earth.” [60]

Gorman therefore concludes that kenosis – first as God’s self-humiliation by assuming humanity and then as Christ’s self-humiliation by suffering and dying on the cross – confirms the “idolatry of ‘normal’ divinity.” [61] God does not reveal himself in a way that we, ordinary humans, would expect him to: not by a spectacular show of divine force, but with the humble means of an ordinary human being. Indeed, if the cross is the primary theophany, his glory is precisely revealed – most counterintuitively – in a profound humiliation. When Paul then speaks of Jesus’ self-emptying of the “form of God,” he means that God revealed himself in a way unbefitting of divinity. As Gorman puts it: “such a form of God (and thus also essential divinity) is in normal human perception one that would never condescend to incarnation and crucifixion. Normal human perception of deity is such that the story of Christ is counterintuitive, abnormal, and absurd as a story of God.” [62] It is counterintuitive to us, human beings, that God, the divine majesty for whom nothing is impossible, would reveal himself in a humble servant, a weak human being easily crushed by a worldly empire, rather than displaying his glory for all to see. As limited human beings, we cannot conceive of a God who is so profoundly human (i.e. humble), and this is what constitutes his divinity (i.e. distinction from humanity).

Caputo has developed this idea admirably in his The Weakness of God . It likewise starts with Paul, for whom the crucifixion, as culmination of God’s incarnation and kenosis, confirms this idolatry of ordinary divinity:

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not ( ta me onta ) – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Corinthians 1:27–29)

God is found in unexpected places – namely, the things that are not ( ta me onta ): lowly and weak things rather than strong and glorious ones (a humble servant), what appears as foolishness to the world rather than common sense (a God made man). Kenosis is meant to make us second guess how we ordinarily speak about God: rather than divesting himself of his omnipotence, kenosis means that God’s power appears precisely in his weakness on the cross. “God crossed out by the cross,” [63] as Caputo puts it, he “withdraws from the world’s order of presence, prestige, and sovereignty in order to settle into those pockets of protest and contradiction to the world.” [64] Or, as Gorman puts it: “The counterintuitive God revealed in Christ is kenotic and cruciform …, the God of power-in-weakness.” [65] God’s power is his weakness, his resistance to the world’s logic, his dwelling amongst the nothings of the world.

How does God make his divinity evident in a form unbefitting of him? It is not that the weakness of the human condition itself is identified with divinity (that would be anthropomorphism); but rather, Athanasius suggests that divinity is manifested by the man seen to be doing things that are only befitting of God:

When, then, the minds of men had fallen finally to the level of sensible things, the Word submitted to appear in a body, in order that He, as Man, might centre their senses on Himself, and convince them through His human acts that He Himself is not man only but also God the Word …; and, invisible and imperceptible as in Himself he is, He became visible through his works and revealed Himself as the Word of the Father. [66]

It is thus not the case that God never becomes visible, but simply that he does not become visible as divine, in his proper form; his divinity can be seen only indirectly in the works of the human being: a man doing things no other man would do (e.g. turning the other cheek). Athanasius therefore concludes that “he who desires to see God Who by nature is invisible and not to be beheld, may yet perceive and know Him through His works.” [67] Precisely this constitutes the paradox and the incomprehensibility: that it is a human being doing these things, that the Word became flesh.

3 Kenosis in post-theology

Having now turned towards theology by “starting from” the kenotic motif as developed by systematic theology, we are now in a position to turn away from theology by exploring how contemporary philosophers have made use of that same notion in order to de-theologise thought in general and “move beyond” the inherently theological structure of phenomenology in particular. That philosophical appropriation of the kenotic motif goes back to Hegel, who gives kenosis its philosophical reach by understanding the whole of reality – not just Christ’s humanity – in terms of Luther’s German translation of the Greek word ( Entäußerung ), namely as the externalisation of Absolute Spirit. [68] It is Hegel’s more general philosophical analysis of reality that the nineteenth-century kenoticists will employ in their theological analysis of the Incarnation, meaning that “Hegel thereby returned to theology what he had borrowed from it” in a way that perfectly befits the secularising–theologising logic of kenosis (and, indeed, Hegel’s own dialectic). [69] This exercise then extends all the way up to Derrida, who latches onto negative theology as operating a “kenosis of discourse,” like the one performed above (e.g. power-in-weakness). [70] This has resulted in several recent studies applying the kenotic motif to a range of philosophical problems (e.g. subjectivity, experience, language). [71] Moving beyond theology, I will therefore now give a brief overview of the most significant recent philosophical appropriations of the kenotic motif.

3.1 Emmanuel Levinas

Levinas is difficult to categorise in my theological–atheological (or kenotic) schematisation of contemporary philosophy: though his phenomenology of the infinite undeniably makes it possible, Levinas himself refrains from Marion’s (revelation) and Henry’s (incarnation) overt theologising. [72] Obviously, Levinas is not a Christian and is therefore far less eager to model experience generally on the Christian theological model. When it comes to the appropriation of the concepts of Christian theology, such as kenosis, Levinas therefore finds himself in the same position as the authors of the “kenotic turn”: namely, drawing on the language of a tradition he remains outside of in order to think broader philosophical problems.

When invited to speak about the Incarnation, Levinas admits as much: “I do not have the effrontery to enter an area forbidden to those who do not share the faith, and the ultimate dimensions of which no doubt escape me,” instead he merely wants “to reflect” on “the multiple meanings suggested by the notion of Man-God.” This includes kenosis as “the idea of a self-inflicted humiliation on the part of the Supreme Being, of a descent of the Creator to the level of the Creature.” [73] Of course, Levinas does not believe that God humbled himself in Christ, his interest in this notion is therefore not that of the theologian. Instead, he wants to explore “to what extent these ideas, which have unconditional value for the Christian faith, have philosophical value, and to what extent they can appear in phenomenology.” This is also the approach taken by the authors of the kenotic turn: namely, investigating what Christian theological notions mean outside of or beyond their immediate context. Their philosophical and theological meanings cannot straightforwardly be identified. Levinas therefore cautions: “I ask myself to what extent the new categories we have just described are philosophical. I am certain that this extent will be judged insufficient by the believing Christian.” [74] This apparent insufficiency for the theologian of the philosophical treatment of Christian concepts is not due to the limitations of philosophy’s perspective compared to theology’s, but to a divergence in the respective concerns orienting them. This distinction is what, for example, the Anglican theologian Graham Ward fails to recognise when, himself tracking the philosophical appropriation of the kenotic motif since Hegel, he complains that “what is absent from modernity’s concept of kenosis is the role played by theological discourse as response to a reception of and participation in the divine.” [75] Yet, to philosophically appropriate the concept of kenosis means precisely to expropriate it from theological discourse: it is articulated by people who do not recognise the divinity it is supposedly participating in. Ward’s complaint presupposes that the Christian theological viewpoint has both priority and ultimate authority, ruling out from the start that an outside or philosophical perspective on its concepts might be useful to that theology (in phenomenology’s appropriation), or that its concepts speak beyond their immediate religious context (in Christianity’s self-deconstruction). Levinas’ goal, like my own, is not to satisfy the theologian, but to interest the philosopher.

What Levinas finds philosophically interesting about kenosis is that, as “the humiliation of God,” it “allows for conceiving the relationship with transcendence in terms other than those of naiveté.” Christianity’s innovation is that, compared to the pagan religions where the gods likewise manifest themselves among men, the Christian God manifests its divinity precisely in its humiliation in humanity:

The appearance of man-gods, sharing the passions and joys of men who are purely men, is certainly a common characteristic of pagan poems. But in paganism, as the price for this manifestation, the gods lose their divinity. Hence philosophers expel poets from the City to preserve the divinity of the gods in men’s minds. But divinity thus saved lacks all condescension. … Infinity then manifests itself in the finite, but it does not manifest itself to the finite. [76]

In paganism, the gods either remain entirely transcendent to the concerns of man or lose their divinity in being rendered immanent to the world of men (the city). This maintains the order of man, placing divinity either firmly outside the city as divine or inside as just another man, which precludes the possibility of divine revelation to man. The Christian doctrine of kenosis, meanwhile, disrupts this order by providing a new way of relating to transcendence: a god who is God precisely in being man, whose transcendence lies in condescension, and whose glory exists in humiliation. God’s humiliation – his coming down to our level in order to raise us up to his – allows us to conceive of transcendence, not as what breaks-into immanence from beyond , but as what opens-up immanence from within :

The idea of a truth whose manifestation is not glorious or bursting with light, the idea of a truth that manifests itself in its humility, like the still small voice in the biblical expression – the idea of a persecuted truth – is that not henceforth the only possible modality of transcendence? … To manifest itself as humble, as allied with the vanquished, the poor, the persecuted – is precisely not to return to the order. … To present oneself in this poverty of the exile is to interrupt the coherence of the universe. To pierce immanence without thereby taking one’s place within it. Obviously such an opening can only be an ambiguity. [77]

The ambiguity is the paradox of God’s power-in-weakness, transcendence-in-immanence, and divinity-in-humanity: “The ambiguity of transcendence,” Levinas says, is not “a failure of the intelligence that examines it” or “the feeble faith surviving the death of God,” but “precisely the proximity of God which can only occur in humility” as “the original mode of the presence of God, the original mode of communication.” [78]

An example of the fact that Levinas sees Paul’s kenosis as speaking to a set of problems far broader than Christology – i.e. our relationship with transcendence rather than Christ’s humanity – is his remarkable essay “Judaism and Kenosis.” It uncovers Levinas’ understanding of kenosis in the Kabbalistic cosmology of the nineteenth-century Lithuanian rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. The rabbi presents God’s reign over creation as requiring ethical mediation through human action: “God associates with or withdraws from the worlds, depending upon human behaviour. Man is answerable for the universe! Man is answerable for others.” [79] Or, more specifically:

This is the ethical meaning of human activity: … God’s reign depends on me. … God reigns only by the intermediary of an ethical order, an order in which one being is answerable for another. The world is , not because it perseveres in being, not because being is its own raison d’être , but because, through the human enterprise, it can be justified in its being. … More important than God’s omnipotence is the subordination of that power to man’s ethical consent. And that, too, is one of the primordial meanings of kenosis. [80]

Levinas sees this as kenosis because it understands God in terms of weakness, unequal to divinity, emphasises the order of the finite human being’s actions in the world down below: “this God, master of power, is powerless to associate himself with the world he creates … and maintains in being by that very association, without a certain behaviour of man,” which consequently ensures that “everything depends on man,” for “the vocation, or raison d’être , of humanity is precisely to provide the necessary conditions for the association of God with the worlds, and thus for the being of the worlds.” [81] Likewise, in Christianity, God becomes human for the sake of his revelation to and reconciliation with humanity. Kenosis thus emphasises man as what Renée van Riessen, in her study of the kenotic motif in Levinas, has called “a place of God.” She explains: “Kenosis is the event in which God makes room for human action. Conversely, for Levinas, the human being is ‘a place of God.’ Its existence is meaningful as a reference to the kenotic God, in the devotional movement of ‘À Dieu’.” [82] Since God has come down to the level of humanity, the human being becomes the site where divinity takes place as (indirectly) recognisable. “Paradoxically,” Levinas therefore concludes, “everything depends on them – those whose bodies are at the lowest level, located within the order of action and work, at the level of matter. Everything depends on them, even the outpouring of God,” [83] since “to some degree, in relation to the human will, the Divine is then subordinate. There is kenosis in this ‘sub-’.” [84]

3.2 Gianni Vattimo

Levinas still understands his philosophical analysis of kenosis as ultimately being completed by a theological one: he merely wants “to show the points beyond which nothing can replace religion.” [85] However, in his Belief , Gianni Vattimo proposes something far more radical: by centring its theology around kenosis, Christianity de-theologises or secularises itself in a movement he calls weakening . For Vattimo, like for Levinas, kenosis introduces a new relation to transcendence, namely as to be found down below within, rather than beyond or above, the world: “The guiding thread of Jesus’ interpretation of the Old Testament is the new and more profound relation of charity established between God and humanity, and consequently between human beings themselves,” [86] meaning “that the ‘kenotic’ interpretation of the articles of faith goes hand in hand with the life of every person,” namely “the commitment to transform them into concrete principles that are incarnate in one’s own existence, and irreducible to a formula.” [87]

However, Vattimo goes further and suggests that the kenotic doctrine of God actually effaces theological transcendence altogether: “The only great paradox and scandal of Christian revelation is the incarnation of God, the kenosis – that is, the removal of all the transcendent, incomprehensible, mysterious and even bizarre features,” at least when this transcendence is understood in “a naturalistic, human, all too human, ultimately unchristian” way (i.e. metaphysically). [88] Transcendence is thus not merely related to differently, it is understood differently, namely kenotically. However, crucially, it is Christianity itself, with its kenotic doctrine of God, that establishes this understanding of divine transcendence as its own effacement: the gesture characteristic of Christianity is to efface divine transcendence, what Nancy calls “de-theologisation” and Vattimo calls “secularisation.”

Vattimo then presents us with a “Christianity recovered as the doctrine of salvation (namely, secularizing kenosis).” [89] He explains:

Salvation is an event in which kenosis, the abasement of God, is realized more and more fully and so undermines the wisdom of the world, the metaphysical dreams of natural reason which conceive God as absolute, omnipotent and transcendent, ipsum esse (metaphysicum) subsistens . In this light, secularization – the progressive dissolution of the natural sacred – is the very essence of Christianity. [90]

De-theologisation or “secularization as the essence of modernity and of Christianity itself” thus means a weakening of the metaphysical structures in which Christianity articulated itself along with its theology – i.e. their self-effacement or self-emptying – since at its core sits the secularising “feature of kenosis in which the history of salvation is realized” and “must be attributed to this whole experience of ‘dissolution,’ or the weakening of strong structures.” [91] This gesture does not oppose itself to “Christianity” or “theology,” but instead opens a new Christianity or theology and wrests itself away from a supposedly contingent metaphysical framework. Crucially, however, this movement beyond “Christianity” (onto-theo-logy) precisely starts from Christianity itself (the kenosis of God). Tracing this movement is the task Nancy’s deconstruction of Christianity sets itself.

3.3 Jean-Luc Nancy

In the preamble to his two-volume project entitled The Deconstruction of Christianity , Nancy states his intentions: “It is not our concern to save religion, even less to return to it. The much discussed ‘return of the religious,’ which denotes a real phenomenon, deserves no more attention than any other ‘return.’” [92] If Nancy’s deconstruction of Christianity forms his own turn to religion, it does not aim at a return to the religious or theological mode of thought. Instead, his question concerns something entirely different. Nancy is interested in a resource, found within Christianity, carrying us beyond Christianity: as the religion of the egress of religion, Christianity carries within itself the gesture of its own self-surpassing. [93] The deconstruction of Christianity concerns itself with precisely that gesture:

My question will be very simple, naïve even, as is perhaps fitting at the beginning of a phenomenological procedure: How and to what degree do we hold to Christianity? How, exactly, are we, in our whole tradition, held by it? … Christianity itself, Christianity as such , is surpassed. That state of self-surpassing may be very profoundly proper to it; it is perhaps its deepest tradition …. It is this transcendence, this going-beyond-itself that must therefore be examined. [94]

This gesture of Christianity’s self-surpassing – one that starts from Christianity yet moves beyond Christianity – is envisioned by the deconstruction of Christianity as “the operation consisting in disassembling the elements that constitute it, in order to attempt to discern, among these elements and as if behind them, that which made their assembly possible,” [95] in order to “go back to (or to advance toward) a resource that could form at once the buried origin and the imperceptible future of the world that calls itself ‘modern.’” [96] If we understand deconstruction as the gesture of taking apart a complex whole in order to discover what makes it fit together, only to find that once taken apart, it cannot be put together anymore – i.e. every construction is itself always inhabited by the threat of its own infinite deconstruction – we find that, on Nancy’s account, deconstruction is identified with Christianity itself in its movement of self-surpassing: what is characteristic of Christianity moves us beyond Christianity as the agent of its own secularisation or de-theologisation. Indeed, “the gesture of deconstruction,” Nancy says, “is itself shot through and through with Christianity,” and is therefore “only possible within Christianity.” [97] Consequently, the deconstruction of Christianity, like any deconstruction, is a self-deconstruction: deconstruction is not something done to Christianity from without, but something going on within the Christian religion as its very Christianity. Nancy’s core claim is that Christianity is nothing but this movement, this deconstruction, this de-theologisation or secularisation, of itself as itself. [98] In short, Christianity is Christian in its own “de-Christianisation” or self-deconstruction: “deconstruction … is itself Christian … because Christianity is, originally, deconstructive …. The structure of origin of Christianity is the proclamation of its end .” [99]

We can already anticipate where in Christianity Nancy will find its self-deconstructive agent – the origin that proclaims its end – namely, its kenotic doctrine of God: like the Christian God is only God in his self-effacement as “God” (the form), Christianity is only Christian in its self-effacement as “Christianity” (the religion). However, before exploring Nancy’s treatment of the kenotic motif and his development of the deconstruction of Christianity, it is worth contextualising this project. We should understand it in the context of an essay by a friend and collaborator of Nancy’s, namely Jean-Christophe Bailly’s Adieu: Essai sur la mort des dieux . In his meditation on the meaning of the death of God, Bailly insightfully remarks that “farewell ( adieu ) has not really been said to God ( à Dieu ). He is no longer there, that’s all.” [100] Specifically, “modern Western man did not really want the death of God, he has simply lost God along the way ( en route ), and in such a foolish way that he has not even realised it yet.” [101] This is a perfect summary of Nietzsche’s development of this idea, where a “madman” (who nevertheless “lit a lantern in the bright morning hours”) urgently proclaims the death of God, not to the believers, but to the cultured despisers who think to have no need of him. Yet, they do not listen for they do not understand what they have done, they do not comprehend the consequences of this death they themselves nevertheless accomplished. [102] It is with this tremendous, and indeed still ongoing, event that Bailly wants to come to grips by making its extensive reverberations felt. Or, as he puts it: “Truly saying farewell ( adieu ) … to God ( à Dieu ).” [103] This cannot be done in an instant, merely noting the death is insufficient; it requires a laborious effort of bidding God farewell: not merely writing his obituary, but clearing out his house and selling off his possessions – deconstructing the various constructions secured by him. In other words, we need to perform the work of mourning his death: “I propose that thinking what ‘God is dead’ means and doing the work of mourning are one and the same thing.” [104] The work of mourning God’s death is an intellectual labour: thinking through the effects of the death of God, the erasure of the horizon the unchaining of the earth from its sun. It means considering the meaning of a genuine atheism , which is not merely a denial of God (anti-theism), but something much more difficult: ceasing any reference to God (a-theism). Atheism, Bailly suggests, means “saying simply that which is, the world shines in the absence of God, any god, it shines divinely in this absence.” [105] That is the challenge the death of God poses to thought, to be met only in the intellectual labour of mourning this death.

Nancy’s deconstruction undertakes precisely this work of mourning: it is not an accomplishment (i.e. achieving a “deconstructed Christianity” resembling C.S. Lewis’ “mere Christianity”), but the project or endeavour of bidding farewell to God (i.e. tracking Christianity in its self-deconstruction). Rather than Christianity, Nancy’s question therefore concerns the possibility of a genuine atheism: thinking in the wake of the death of God. He nevertheless finds the answer in Christianity, precisely because it has made the death of God into a religion: “Only an atheism that contemplates the reality of its Christian provenance can be actual.” [106] That Christian provenance points the way towards a genuine atheism, namely a world without any reference to God, a world without given meaning other than its own being-world. [107] Thinking the world without God, thinking atheologically or moving beyond theology, is Nancy’s project. Yet, he says, it must be done precisely by starting from Christianity itself, the de-theologisation going on within it, the self-deconstruction that it is. This is what it means to bid farewell to God, to carry out the work of mourning his death, to de-theologise thought – indeed, to deconstruct Christianity. If we were to apply this to contemporary phenomenology, as I will now argue that we must, we could equally say that this is what it means to think after the theological turn , namely to let phenomenology de-theologise itself.

4 Deconstructing the theological turn

Having now sketched the logic of kenosis – both theologically and philosophically – as the way in which theology accomplishes its own self-deconstruction or provides an egress ( sortie ) from itself, as well as having indicated its central place within continental philosophy of religion, it is time to return to our topic at hand: after the theological turn, what is next for continental philosophy of religion? Or more precisely, what can it mean to think after the theological turn in terms of the phenomenological method that is precisely at issue in that turn? My proposal is that it is time to engage, phenomenologically, with the authors of what I have been calling the “kenotic turn” in an attempt at spelling out the full consequences of the theological turn phenomenology took at the end of the previous century: insofar as Christian theology’s kenotic logic dictates that any turn towards theology eventually results in a movement beyond it, that movement remains unthought by the former as a question of phenomenology. In other words, another deconstruction announces itself: neither of phenomenology (Derrida), nor of Christianity (Nancy), but of phenomenology’s theological turn. Here, I propose that this project can be pursued as what I would somewhat paradoxically call a phenomenology of kenosis . I will spell out the significance or meaning of these two programmatic phrases in what remains, even if their full development will then have to take place elsewhere.

4.1 Thinking after the theological turn

Curiously, the authors of the kenotic turn are rarely studied in relation to phenomenology’s theological turn, presumably because – as indicated – these respective movements proceed in opposite directions. The question therefore arises whether the return of religion really is a unified phenomenon. Assuming that it is, as the scholarship does, an account of how the theological turn relates to the kenotic turn is required: What do these two diverging movements, taken together , give us to think? Well, if the theological turn exemplifies how philosophy (and phenomenology in particular) turns (in)to theology (e.g., by taking the Revelation of Christ as paradigm for experience generally); and if the kenotic turn shows how Christianity exists in a movement of self-effacement or de-theologisation (e.g., by depicting God’s self-emptying of divinity in the Incarnation as setting in motion Christianity’s self-deconstruction); then I would suggest that the return of religion is the movement in which philosophy (and phenomenology in particular), precisely in and only by turning to theology, de-theologises itself. If the Word must assume a condition foreign to itself (humanity) in order to come to itself (Jesus Christ as incarnate divinity), then philosophy must turn to theology in order to properly understand itself in its atheological bearing. In short, by thinking after the theological turn , I mean a deconstruction or de-theologisation of phenomenology’s inherent theological structure as a movement beyond , though starting from , the theological turn it facilitated: a phenomenology that does not straightforwardly turn into theology, that has been de-theologised, is best equipped to account for religious or theophanic experience phenomenologically (i.e. an account that is not itself “theological”).

This parallels the project Derrida undertakes in his final book, On Touching  –  Jean-Luc Nancy , an extensive study of his friend’s work: reprising his earlier critique of phenomenology as always oriented towards an impossible immediate and auto-affective presence by way of a comprehensive deconstruction of Husserl’s “principle of all principles,” he suggests that phenomenology’s structural problems are exacerbated when it comes into contact with Christianity, as it does in phenomenology’s theological turn. Whereas Derrida concerns himself primarily with Husserl, it is worth taking up that same deconstruction in reference to Husserl’s theologising French interpreters. However, here too, everything still depends on what Husserl understands as the principle of phenomenology, namely that its field of study is intuition as it is leibhaftig gegeben (literally “bodily given”), or “given in its personal actuality” (its usual idiomatic English translation). [108] Phenomenology is the study of the appearing of things in propria persona , letting them appear as they give themselves out to be: “to let what shows itself be seen from itself,” Heidegger says, “just as it shows itself from itself.” [109] Yet, everything turns on how the German is translated. In France (and Italy), the translation lends itself easily to theologising: namely, givenness in the flesh ( en chair , in carne ). This Gallicism inscribes the potential for a theological turn (i.e. towards sarx ) within phenomenology from the outset by overdetermining the meaning of its principle, thereby allowing for example Didier Franck to speak of incarnate givenness , which Marion identifies with revelation . [110] Take the opening lines of Marion’s Gifford lectures, entitled Givenness and Revelation : “this title may … surprise,” he says, “nothing seems to join an apparently old and steadfastly theological notion together with a philosophical concept drawn from the most recent phenomenology. However, if we wanted to consider better their respective features, the two terms could instead converge.” [111] For Marion and his colleagues, the philosophical and theological converge in or as phenomenology, in philosophy’s (re)turn to religion. In short, phenomenology facilitates a theologisation of philosophy by placing the terms proper to each discipline on the same axis as phenomenologically synonymous. Specifically, the theological turn understands: (1) givenness ( Gegebenheit ) along the lines of revelation; (2) embodiment ( Leiblichkeit ) along the lines of incarnation; and (thereby) (3) phenomenological philosophy along the lines of revealed theology. Derrida observed that this is due to the structural tendency of phenomenology itself, which makes its turn to theology possible in principle; yet, these structural tendencies are exacerbated, and manifested particularly acutely, when phenomenology explicitly entertains the Christian understanding of Revelation or Incarnation, as it does in its actual theological turn.

Proceeding along the path cleared by Derrida’s study of Nancy, a deconstruction of phenomenology’s theological turn therefore claims the following: when exploring philosophy’s theologisation in phenomenology’s theological turn, facilitated by the apparent convergence of philosophical and theological notions in the basic terms of phenomenology, we discover that these notions in fact diverge in the way they expose phenomenology’s structural problems, thereby de-theologising philosophy and even de-Christianising phenomenology (i.e. making evident the divergence). [112] In other words, a deconstructive approach to the authors of the theological turn might demonstrate how they incorrectly place philosophical and theological terms on the same axis, regarding them as phenomenologically synonymous: (1) givenness cannot be thought along the lines of revelation (against Marion); (2) embodiment cannot be thought along the lines of incarnation (against Henry); and (therefore) (3) phenomenological philosophy cannot be thought along the lines of revealed theology. Only once established that Gegebenheit does not mean the Revelation of Christ, and that Leiblichkeit does not mean the Incarnation of God (i.e. only once phenomenology is de-theologised), can we appreciate the properly phenomenological meaning of these terms (i.e. as distinct from their theological resonance – which, it cannot be stressed enough, they lack entirely in German).

Like Derrida’s engagement with Husserl, this would not be a critique coming from without, but a deconstruction going on within that it would be a matter of documenting: it is a question of exposing how the shortcomings of the existing phenomenological accounts are due to the inherent play of contradiction and displacement within their basic assumptions. In short, thinking after the theological turn means showing how the phenomenological coupling of philosophical (givenness and embodiment) and theological terms (revelation and incarnation) deconstructs itself within that turn. Only by delving into phenomenology’s turn towards theology (the texts and language of the Christian tradition) does the kenotic turn then show us how to turn away from “the theological” (the metaphysical priority of transcendence): to de-theologise philosophy. Thinking after the theological turn , purging philosophy of “theology,” can then only be done by exploring its inherently theological structure, precisely by taking a kenotic turn .

4.2 A phenomenology of kenosis

Kenosis thus embodies what thinking ‘after theology’ means: thinking from theology (the theological notion of kenosis), beyond ‘theology’ (the theos effacing itself within that notion); ‘the theological’ deconstructing itself (self-emptying); “the theological” deconstructing itself (self-emptying). However, what would be involved in developing a phenomenology of kenosis? [113] With the philosophers, we must again understand kenosis broadly, but always without abstracting from its theological significance and context: starting from its theological significance and context, it is a matter of conceiving how kenosis embodies a gesture that demands to be applied beyond it. That gesture is self-emptying, self-effacement, or withdrawal. So, the theological figure (kenosis) can facilitate a conception of a broader philosophical dynamic (withdrawal or self-effacement), and precisely in that sense de-theologises itself, withdraws from itself, or deconstructs itself.

Schematically, the notion of kenosis can then operate on four levels, moving from the theological to the philosophical and ultimately the phenomenological. First, there is (1) kenosis as the self-emptying of divinity : this is the Pauline understanding of the Incarnation wherein God takes leave of his divine form in order to assume the human or servant form. It emphasises God’s complete assumption of the human condition in the Incarnation, including its “lowly” elements: his exaltation is his humiliation on the cross, his power is the weakness of the servant, his divinity lies in voluntarily suffering human finitude. In short, the relevant theological implication is that divinity takes place “here below”: in the world, in a human being just like us, in finitude and historicity, suffering and embodiment. Secondly, this becomes (2) kenosis as the self-emptying of Christianity : in itself producing secular modernity by effacing itself, Christianity takes place in and as the secular modern world, instead of being bypassed as its opposite. This is kenosis as understood by the authors of the post-secular turn strictly conceived: the self-emptying or self-effacement characteristic of the Christian God becomes characteristic of the Christian religion as such, resulting in an understanding of modernity as Christianity-after-Christianity, a de-theologised Christianity stemming directly from Christianity itself (of “Christian provenance,” as Nancy’s puts it). [114] Clearly, (2) can be concluded from (1): if the Christian God is only God insofar as he empties himself out of his divine form; then Christianity is only Christian insofar as it egresses its religious or theological mode, de-theologises itself by making way for concrete action in the world (e.g., Bonhoeffer’s “religionless Christianity”). [115] Thirdly, we have (3) kenosis as the self-emptying of God’s phenomenality : God does not appear, or is not revealed, as God , but as a man , a historical, finite, and embodied human being; thus, God empties himself out of his own divinity, of his phenomenality as divine, insofar as he appears or becomes phenomenal. Put otherwise, divine transcendence, by definition, cannot appear, except insofar as it assumes the human and historical condition, becomes immanent to the world, empties itself of that transcendence and thus of itself. This, too, follows from (1), since if there is only revelation insofar as there is incarnation, there is equally only revelation insofar as there is kenosis: in appearing, God’s divinity withdraws from appearing. We find this understanding of kenosis in certain theologically interested French phenomenologists who nevertheless do not belong to the theological turn strictly conceived, such as Emmanuel Falque and Jean-Yves Lacoste. The former proclaims that “We have no other experience of God than the experience of the man ( l’expérience de l’homme )” he became in his incarnation. [116] The latter likewise insists that God “does not appear to be described, since there is nothing to describe, only a man like other men,” meaning that “to make an appearance … the god must be present kenotically.” [117] Or as he puts it slightly more vividly: “God does not appear like the Alps, huge and undeniable,” but “in such a way that we can make up our mind about him, for or against.” [118] Finally, we have (4) kenosis as the self-emptying of phenomenality generally : all appearing depends on an element that itself does not appear, meaning that appearing therefore necessarily withdraws into or gives way to the extra-phenomenal element that makes it possible. If (2) is concluded from (1) as its general implication, or (2) understood as the de-theologised version of (1), then the same is the case with (4) in relation to (3): divinity’s self-emptying in appearing, the kenosis of God’s divinity in coming to phenomenality, becomes the model for thinking all appearing, for the kenosis of phenomenality and kenosis as phenomenality more generally. Put differently, just as God’s phenomenality depends on an extra-phenomenal element, so too does all phenomenality depend on an extra-phenomenal element: the phenomenal always withdraws into something that does not belong to it, yet that nevertheless makes it possible. [119] However, (1–3) are useful in illustrating both (4) as well as how the de-theologising movement from (1) to (4) is inherent to and set in motion by (1).

A phenomenology of kenosis would then describe two things: (a) the kenosis of God , or how God appears by withdrawing from appearing since his divinity transcends appearance by definition (beyond phenomenality); (b) the kenosis of phenomenality , or how phenomenality itself withdraws or descends into something that makes it possible whilst nevertheless remaining extra-phenomenal (below phenomenality). [120] Put otherwise, we can only speak phenomenologically about what transcends phenomenality (the experiences believers recognise as theophanic) by descending below the phenomenal into what makes that phenomenality possible (the faith that conditions experience as theophanic). Strictly speaking, such a phenomenology of kenosis would not deal with a “phenomenon” at all and therefore could not properly be conceived of as a “phenomenology,” but would instead thematise God’s withdrawal from phenomenality, precisely because he can only become phenomenal by emptying himself of his divinity. Consequently, such phenomenology could offer a way of speaking phenomenologically about incarnation and revelation without insisting with the theological turn that these theological notions are coextensive with those of phenomenological philosophy.

In that sense, both the kenotic turn and the theological turn are engaged in a critical interrogation of what transcends the limits of phenomenality. As the editors of a major volume on the deconstruction of Christianity, which is the prime example of the kenotic turn, put it: “Nancy, together with those advocating a “theological turn,” does not disagree with phenomenology itself. Rather, they seek to establish a turn within phenomenology, bringing it toward and maybe even outside its limits.” However, they do so in different directions:

Nancy disagrees at a fundamental methodological level on … how to deal with the theological in that turn. Those who advocate the theological turn are dealing, broadly speaking, with the nonapparent … as belonging to the realm of phenomenality. … According to Nancy, however, the nonapparent … can never end in a reconciliation … with phenomena. Absence can never stop being the blind spot of presence, of phenomenality, and thus of phenomenology. In other words, phenomenology cannot be “improved” or “completed” by making it theological. [121]

In short, whereas the theological turn assumes the presence of distinctly and undeniably theological phenomena within the realm of human experience, a phenomenology of kenosis as a deconstruction of that turn would instead show this theological qualification to be made up by a persistently extra-phenomenal element in which divinity’s supposed phenomenality therefore withdraws. It is precisely in this way that I propose that the figure of kenosis can be used to think after the theological turn : in turning to theology, phenomenology de-theologises itself, makes evident how its basic notions diverge from their theological appropriation. Moreover, in doing so, it would provide a better account of religious experience than that of phenomenology’s theological turn for reasons that are as much theological as they are phenomenological: namely, an account that insists on God’s absolute transcendence, meaning the irreconcilable estrangement of his divinity from phenomenality. [122]

Even if said phenomenology of kenosis will have to be developed elsewhere, [123] this essay has indicated its potential significance: the challenge of contemporary continental philosophy of religion is indeed to think “after the theological turn,” to deconstruct the theological turn by critically engaging the state in which it has left the field rather than forever continuing to “turn” (undoubtedly in circles) in what would amount to a new form of scholasticism. In that sense, “phenomenology is not a school,” as Heidegger reminds us, but merely denotes “the possibility of thinking” as “corresponding to the claim of what is to be thought.” [124] Today, it is indeed still the theological turn that demands to be thought but only insofar as it has been completed (only a single one of its authors still being alive): the turn has been taken and it is now time to look ahead towards where the road might take us next as well as to look back in the rear-view mirror to see how exactly we ended up where we are (in the ditch of theology, as Janicaud insisted).

The proposal I have put forward here, or at least the direction I hope to give for any future turn phenomenology might take following this first (theological) step, centred on the theological notion of kenosis and its role as a Christian metaphor for deconstruction within contemporary continental philosophy. In other words, I have suggested that “thinking after the theological turn” concerns the deconstruction of the theological structure inherent to phenomenology in principle and manifested acutely by its actual theological turn: namely, by starting from the theological turn phenomenology was structurally inclined to produce, moving beyond theology as such. Phenomenology must thus take it upon itself to bid farewell ( adieu ) to God ( à Dieu ), must undertake the work of mourning his death, by engaging in what I proposed to call a “phenomenology of kenosis.” We might then say that after “the theological turn of recent phenomenology” (a turn towards theology ) could come “the kenotic turn of contemporary phenomenology” (a turn away from theology but precisely following and only on the basis of the earlier turn): today, phenomenology must indeed turn to theology, but only to discover therein what is properly speaking “phenomenological” by immediately also moving beyond “the theological” – as an instance of what Emmanuel Falque, who is arguably the first philosopher to think “after the theological turn” in this way, has insightfully referred to as the “backlash” of theology on phenomenology. [125] It is the Christian theological notion of kenosis, which captures the meaning of God as the very effacement of the theos , that provides phenomenology with the opportunity to do just that, to de-theologise itself precisely by feeling the backlash of theology.

Conflict of interest: Author states no conflict of interest.

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Theological Essay Topics

These are topics that you can use for your theological essays. They are simple to comprehend and will help you to get a better understanding of religion. They are also based on the beliefs of society.

• Factors responsible for the division of people in religious institutions.
• The moral effect of premarital sex among young teenagers.
• Evaluate the effect of the sectarian crisis in the church.
• How does parenting affect spiritual growth in children?
• The impact of church separation at different ages for spiritual growth.
• The truth behind speaking in tongues and its influence on spiritual growth.
• Evaluate the impact of the use of new technology in providing spiritual growth to individuals.
• The influence of the relation between the laity and clergy in building the church.
• The impact of corporate social responsibility on society.
• The various Christian ethics and impact on the church growth.
• Do churches contribute to healthy living in society?
• Illustrate the cardinal dimension of the Christina CSR – Corporate social responsibilities.
• Evaluate proliferation and its impact on religious institutions.
• Nature and faith roles for a Christian.
• How does the administration of a religious institution affect its growth?
• The nature and role of faith in different religions.
• The effect of different denominations in the growth of the church.
• Evaluate the accepted Christian life and its impact on society.
• Describe Christianity as a way of life.

More Theology Paper Topics

These are other topics that are broad enough for any research paper. You just need to do proper research, consult your university professor, and choose the best topic for you. It will create a better understanding of theology.

• The principles that guide church finance in the New Testament.
• Evaluate the Roman Catholicism.
• The influence of the religious doctrines in the church.
• Evaluate the impact of objectification of religion.
• Evaluate the Russian factory and evangelical church.
• The Church and theological concepts.
• Evaluate the Biblical insight on sexuality.
• Understanding hope, faith, and other theological virtues.
• What is Eschatology? The role in the life of a believer.
• Evaluate the Rule of St Benedict through Humility, obedience, and justice.
• According to Boethius, what is the origin of evil?
• Explain happiness according to Thomas Aquinas.
• Analyze the Philosophical arguments against or for the existence of God.
• Evaluate Augustine’s political and social opinions.
• Evaluate the relationship between science and theology.
• Show the life and science of Giordana Bruno.
• The best response to trauma according to theology.
• The best response to loss and betrayal is based on Theology.
• Evaluate the temptation in the garden and its influence on current life.

Research Topics in Theology

Are you looking for the best research topics in theology? Why not start with these? They are based on modern society and religions.

• Evaluate the two views of theology and their impact on current life.
• Provide a comparison between Armenians and classic Calvinism.
• Evaluate the triumph of Armenians and its dangers.
• Examine the Christian doctrine of security.
• Evaluate God’s foreknowledge and human freedom and the problems associated with it.
• Examine God’s immutability aspect and influence on everyday life.
• Provide a detailed paper on the Biblical perspective of the tension of the son of God’s death as predestined by God.
• Evaluate the pre-existence of the Son of God.
• Examine the existence of God’s son concerning the historical dimension of the Biblical witness to God.
• Evaluate the modern inerrancy debate and its impact on the church.
• Discuss the reflections on the Theology of Worship.
• Distinguish between the scripture and culture and impact on the society.
• Distinguish humans through atheism and secularism.
• How is humanism portrayed in society?
• Discuss the problem of natural evil and its impact on society.
• Analyze the Biblical perspectives on the second coming of the son of God.
• Provide the popular ideas on the second coming of Christ.
• Discuss the nature of God and its relation with living beings.
• What are the popular concepts surrounding the second coming of Jesus Christ?
• What are the speculations on the end times?

In Depth Theology Essay Topics

These are other theology essay topics that you can use. They are based on real-life circumstances and the consequences of some occurrences. They will help you get a better understanding of what you learn at school.

• Evaluate the two Biblical stories and their impact on human understanding of creation.
• Evaluate the protestant principle of faith alone as traced through Habakkuk and Paul.
• How does faith impact how people live with each other in society?
• Evaluate homosexuality as shown in the Bible.
• Evaluate God’s love and human love.
• Discuss Nehemiah’s life and the question of identity.
• Explain synergism in fulfilling the mission of the Church.
• How do you understand the term born again in Christianity?
• What are the different views that people have about God?
• What is subjected as Holy Living?
• What justifies someone living a Holy life?
• What is the importance of Christian creed, confessions, and catechism in Christianity
• How do creeds of reformation help in faith-building?
• Discuss the collection of Biblical studies, and theological reflections that address Women in the Ministry.
• The impact of historical theology on modern Christianity.
• Evaluate the heritage of Holiness in Christianity.
• Evaluate the Day of the Lord and related metaphors in terms of Biblical passages.
• What is the difference between prophetic and apocalyptic eschatology?

Bible Thesis Topics

The Bible is a great book, however, you need great intervention to understand it fully. Here are some topics that you can start with to understand the basis of the Bible.

• Evaluate the Old Testament in the Bible as twenty passage
• What are the implications of the day of the Lord and related metaphors of accountability?
• Provide a literary analysis of the Book of Genesis.
• Evaluate the term, “Limited God” in terms of His level of knowledge about humanity – new things he learns about humans
• Analyze the Old Testament’s concept of the Torah from the Biblical traditions.
• Evaluate the theoretical analysis of the Old Testament practice of sacrifice and how it differs from appeasement of the gods or physical means to forgiveness.
• Evaluate the social ethics in the revelation and experience of God in human history.
• Analyze the 4 Old Testament passages that use “us” to refer to God.
• Evaluate Psalm 51 and the transformation language.
• Evaluate Nehemiah and the Question of Identity.
• Write an essay on the role of the wisdom and psalm traditions which provide a basis on the realities of life from a basis of Faith.
• Analyze using different Bible passages on whether Jesus had to die.
• What are the assumptions based on the death of Christ?
• Evaluate the self-understanding of Jesus and its impact on society.
• Analyze the social relationship of Jesus and its implication on modern life.
• What is the relation between Jesus, Religion, and Politics?
• Retrace the journey of Jesus Christ during his whole life.
• What were the implications of the death of the Messiah?
• What were the tensions involved in the overcoming of the death of the Messiah?
• Analyze various passages in the book of Psalms and their impact on daily living.

Theological Discussion Topics

These topics are mainly based on discussions. This is on the various phenomenon and beliefs associated with them. They are also based on different religions across the world.

• Evaluate the effect of the church in society in the 21 st century.
• Evaluate Buddhism in Japan as compared to the one in China.
• What are the basic ideas and beliefs behind honor killings in some religions?
• What are the major differences between parables in the Bible and fairy tales?
• Evaluate the organizational structures of the Buddhists n Thailand and other parts of the world.
• Why do priests in certain religions never marry and stick to celibacy?
• How was Jesus different from other prophets in the Bible?
• How is the Islamic and Christian religion-related?
• Evaluate the rise of mega-churches
• Why abortion is strongly disregarded in Christianity?
• What are the reproductive rights for women in Islam?
• State the effects of homosexuality in different religions.
• Provide the Biblical account of how the World was created.
• The various effects of Greek culture on Christian theology.
• Early Christian fellowship and encounter with Jesus.
• Evaluate the sacred ceremonies in Christianity and their significance.
• Discuss our ancestors and their spiritual beliefs.
• Which scientific research and proofs disagree with Christian theology
• Evaluate our ancestors and their spiritual beliefs

Religious Research Paper Topics

Have you ever thought of doing a religious research topic? Why not try any of these!. The topics will also help you get a better understanding of the world and various phenomena.

• Discuss the emergence of the new religion and its effects.
• Evaluate world science and religion.
• Is there a big difference between the Christian and Islamic history?
• Evaluate world religions with no God – how did people live?
• Discuss the phenomenon and implications of the trickster gods.
• Examine the influence of religion in theocratic states.
• What are the effects of the Greek religion and European culture myths?
• What is the impact of religion on modern Japan’s culture?
• What are the considerations that children are innocent souls in the religious discourse?
• Evaluate the polytheistic religion and mythology
• Discuss the similarities of images of god and myths associated.
• The role of women in Islam.
• How does religion impact people’s daily life?
• Evaluate animalism and totemism in the manifestation in the modern world.
• What are the Greek myths and religion’s impact on the European culture?
• Describe the phenomenon of trickster gods.
• The similarities and differences of monotheistic religions.
• Evaluate how atheism is a religion.
• Evaluate the theocratic states and their influence on religion.
• Is there an existence of world religions that have no gods?
• Provide the history of Christianity.

Expanded Religious Topics to Write About

Do you know the best religious topics to write on? With the various topics at hand, it can be hard to choose one. However, these topics are unique and will make you get a different perspective on life.

• What is the concept of the soul in different religions?
• Evaluate the history of Judaism.
• Evaluate the Nordic mythology and religion in the modern world.
• Describe religious counseling versus classical psychology.
• What is the attitude of sex in different religions?
• Evaluate whether children are considered innocent in all religions.
• Do you think faith can help overcome the harshness of puberty?
• Examine female clergy in different religions.
• Evaluate the concept of reincarnation in world religions.
• Explain the history of Hinduism and its impact on Indian culture.
• What is the impact of the crisis of faith in the world?
• Is yoga a health or religious practice?
• How is the afterlife considered in different religions?
• Evaluate religion and economics.
• Evaluate Confucianism and its impact on the modern world.
• Discuss female clergy in different religions.
• Debate whether a world full of so much evil can exist with an all-loving omnipotent God.
• How do all religions lead to the same mountaintop?
• How do wars use politics as a mask when religion is the core?
• Is the Great Flood story known across all religions?

World Religions Research Paper Topics

These topics are mainly based on world religions and their impact on the modern world. The topics are broad to ensure you get a better understanding of the various religions in the world.

• Can atheism be considered a religion on its own?
• How are animalism and totems manifested in the modern world
• Discuss the various philosophies such as post-modernism, fatalism, nihilism, and relativism
• How military action is ethically justified through religion?
• Can the religious leanings of a politician led to him or her losing an election?
• Compare the modern Egyptian religious traditions to those from the presynaptic period.
• Evaluation of what Confucianism is and its impact on the world.
• How does the Gnostic faith different from modern Christianity?
• How do new religions cannibalize the rituals that were being used in past religions?
• How is the Bible different from all other books?
• How does pure land Buddhism purport to reform the current Buddhist religion?
• Discuss how God only exists in the minds of people who follow him?
• How do the various religions deal with the end of the world?
• Discuss the hypostatic union.
• What was the Egyptian’s understanding of divinity’s existence?
• Evaluate the existence of guardian angels and how one can be?

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Technology is one of the best scientific developments that have brought about economic, social, and political change in most of the world’s economies. Nevertheless, there are varied reactions on the effect of technology on the environment, the economy, religion, culture, and politics among a host of many social, economic, and political phenomena. Conversely, these factors also affect technology in different ways as will be discussed in this paper. Nevertheless, selecting technology for a specific situation depends on a list factors that either support or oppose such incentives.

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Theology Essay | Theology Definition, A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding the Study of Theology

December 4, 2021 by Prasanna

Theology Essay: While theology is a broad topic, it can be broken up into smaller sections and defined in more detail. For example, the study of theology is the study of what one believes about God. This can be broken down into understanding God’s nature, attributes, and interventions. Understanding what one believes about God is important for understanding beliefs about other things as well. This includes life after death or how to live this life. In this essay, we shall explore the detailed definition of theology, origins and implications on the real world.

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What is Theology?

The word theology is derived from the Greek word “théo” meaning “God”and the suffix “logy” meaning “study of.” Theology can be generally defined as the study of God and religion. Theology is closely related to philosophy, because both fields share similar questions about life, God, and ultimate truths. In other words, Theology refers to the study of the nature of God, divine revelation, and the relationship between the divine and human. Theology has been around for centuries. Its origins can be traced back to Greek philosopher Aristotle. Theologians spend much of their time studying various religions to gain a better understanding of them. There are many different topics that theologians may study including biblical analysis, comparative religion, ethics, and history.

How Religion Relates to Theology

Religion is often thought of as a personal belief system that provides explanations for the origin and meaning of life, but it can also refer to communal behavior. Unsurprisingly, religion impacts theology because it helps shape theological beliefs about the nature of God, humanity, and the universe.

One of the most influential and notable contributors to the discussion of religion and theology is Karl Marx. His theories, which are based on the idea that social status is determined by economic class, have garnered a large body of supporters and detractors alike. He also popularized the idea that religion may be a form of social control and can inhibit critical thinking. Karl Marx was an atheist who believed in a classless society where human beings were not controlled by religion or other forms of ideology. To achieve this goal, he thought that the working class had to take control from those who possessed power – namely capitalists, landlords, and other members of the upper-class. Marx thought that all religions should be equal because they were equally false; he didn’t believe in spirituality or any type of afterlife; and, therefore, he didn’t have a strong opinion on the existence of God.

What are Types of Theological Views?

Theological views are diverse and manifold. However, mainstream views can be grouped into the following four types- Biblical theology, historical theology, Systematic theology and Practical theology.

• Biblical theology: Biblical theology is the study of theology through a biblical lens. The Bible is the primary source for information on the topic. These studies are used to learn more about God, Jesus Christ, and what they have done for humanity. It also seeks to understand how what we read in scriptures points us to both Jesus Christ and our lives today.
• Historical theology: One of the theological disciplines, it focuses on how Christian beliefs and practices evolved over time. In other words, historical theology is an approach to Christian theology that holds that its events and doctrines are related to the historical and cultural context in which they occur.
• Systematic theology: Also called dogmatic theology, Systematic theology is the study of the divine attributes, nature, and works of God. It includes doctrine and biblical interpretation from a Christian perspective.
• Practical theology: Practical theology is not a theological discipline in itself, but rather a term that refers to the application of any theological understanding to the needs and realities of life. Practical theology has often been used as a synonym for pastoral care and counseling.

Christian Theological Perspectives

Christianity has a rich theological history that includes many different perspectives. These perspectives are often in disagreement with one another. There are three major perspectives that are often discussed when it comes to Christianity which are the Orthodox Perspective, the Catholic Perspective, and the Protestant Perspective.

Jewish Theological Perspectives

The Jewish religion has a rich history of theological thought. There are many different branches of Judaism, all with their own views on God, morality, and what happens to the soul after death. Jewish theological perspectives are heavily influenced by the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible. These perspectives can be divided into two schools of thought: Orthodox Judaism, which believes in the superiority of Torah law, and Conservative Judaism, which believes that Judaism is a religion that develops and changes over time.

The Role of Faith in Theology

Faith is an important and often-overlooked topic in theology. Faith is defined as the belief in a deity, religious idea, or other concepts without any proof or evidence. It can also be defined as the belief in the truth of something that one has no scientific or empirical evidence of. While there are many ways to define faith, it is central to all religions and is thought of as the most important aspect of religion.

Faith may have originated from human beings’ need for hope in an uncertain world. Faith can also be seen as a coping mechanism for dealing with life’s tough situations that may not have any solutions – this being because faith helps people believe that things will get better soon. Furthermore, psychologists have found that people who have more faith are generally happier than those who don’t.

Faith in religion is something that many people have differing opinions on. One of the most common reasons that people have faith in religion is because it is a deep personal belief for them. They believe that their religion helps them to make sense of life, death, and what happens after this life. Religion also provides a community for many people who may feel alone otherwise.

Do non-believers have faith?

There are many people who do not believe in any religion or spiritual system. They often consider themselves to be non-religious, and there is no doubt that their way of life is much simpler than for those who do believe in something greater. As humans, it’s hard not to have some sort of faith in something.Whether that faith is put into a higher power or a scientific theory, the idea of an omniscient being creating the universe fills people with much needed hope.

Does God Exist?

“Does God exist?” This question has been debated for centuries. Theologians, philosophers, and scientists have all taken a stab at it. The definition of God varies by religion, but it is generally agreed that God is omnipresent and omnipotent. Moreover, the idea of God, as a transcendent Creator and Ruler, has been around for a long time. It is arguably the most prevalent religious belief in the world.

This has caused scholars to ask questions pertaining to the existence of God. Some people believe that it is possible that there is no God because there is no proof or evidence of his existence. Others believe that faith alone is enough to know that he exists because it gives them hope and purpose for their lives. Others say that God needs to prove his existence through miracles or by speaking to us plainly through visions or dreams.

FAQ’s on Theology

Question 1. What is theology?

Answer: Theology is the study of the nature of God, divine things, and spiritual matters. Theology seeks to answer questions about God’s nature and attributes, the creation of the world by God, human beings’ relationship with God, and other religious issues.

Question 2. What is an example of theology?

Answer: Theology is the study of religious beliefs, practices, and teachings. Theology looks at the history of religion to understand how religion began and how it has evolved. It can be applied to any religion, even if it is not considered Abrahamic.

Question 3. What is the meaning of biblical theology?

Answer: Biblical theology is a type of theology that seeks to understand the relationship between the Bible’s narrative and its authors. Biblical theologians have traditionally attempted to answer questions about how biblical narratives are both historically accurate, while still being divinely inspired.

Question 4. What is the difference between religion and theology?

Answer: Religion is often seen as a set of beliefs and practices, typically with a supernatural or spiritual element, which unites the faith community. Theology is an academic discipline that involves the study of religion in terms of its intellectual history, cultural expressions and sacred texts.

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How to Write a Theological Paper

More by justin.

John Frame explains his method for writing theology, and gives some advice along the way.

Here is one of his 11 points:

Be self-critical. Before and during your writing, anticipate objections . If you are criticizing Barth, imagine Barth looking over your shoulder, reading your manuscript, giving his reactions. This point is crucial. A truly self-critical attitude can save you from unclarity and unsound arguments. It will also keep you from arrogance and unwarranted dogmatism—faults common to all theology (liberal as well as conservative). Don’t hesitate to say “probably” or even “I don’t know” when the circumstances warrant. Self-criticism will also make you more “profound.” For often—perhaps usually—it is objections that force us to rethink our positions, to get beyond our superficial ideas, to wrestle with the really deep theological issues. As you anticipate objections to your replies to objections to your replies, and so forth, you will find yourself being pushed irresistibly into the realm of the “difficult questions,” the theological profundities. In self-criticism the creative use of the theological imagination is tremendously important. Keep asking such questions as these. (a) Can I take my source’s idea in a more favorable sense? A less favorable one? (b) Does my idea provide the only escape from the difficulty, or are there others? (c) In trying to escape from one bad extreme, am I in danger of falling into a different evil on the other side? (d) Can I think of some counter-examples to my generalizations? (e) Must I clarify my concepts, lest they be misunderstood? (f) Will my conclusion be controversial and thus require more argument than I had planned?

Justin Taylor is executive vice president for book publishing and publisher for books at Crossway. He blogs at Between Two Worlds and Evangelical History . You can follow him on Twitter .

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