Friday, February 03, 2006

Theology as Science

Fun factoid: Did you know that theology is actually a science?

We don't tend to think of it as such these days, but that's because we tend to think of science as only pertaining to the "hard" sciences (i.e. physics, biology), which involve the procedures of observation & experimentation to explore the physical world around us.

But using a broader (and older) definition of the term, however, science applies to any methodological study of a subject. By this definition, there are many other disciplines that are not "hard" sciences, but are nevertheless sciences. Library science and economics would be two examples.

And so would theology. As the study of God and holy things, theology qualifies as a science. Interestingly enough, dating back to the middle ages, it was actually considered the highest of all the sciences, because the object of its study was the highest possible object.

So who knew? As a student of theology, I'm really a scientist.