The purpose of Christian theology is to bring man closer to God’s love by study. Scholars of antiquity put it thus: “Per scientiam crescat amor” through knowledge may love grow. Christian theology is the study of God. Divinity is studied with the aim of bringing man closer to God. A fundamental mistake in the study of theology and in theological theories is the attempt to fit God into a preconceived mould. Some theological theorists attempt to construct a God who fits into their idea of what God should be like.
The word theology is from Greek, made of two word, theou and logos which taken together mean the study of God. Therefore, right from the semantics, theology must be study of God and not opinions about God. Any good Christian theological study must be grounded in the Bible. Further more since it is God that made man, man has no way of knowing God unless he reveals himself to man. Without this revelation, man can only opine about God but will never really know Him. Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle did attempt to develop theology without divine revelation but their success was limited as far Christian theologians are concern.
Christian theology seeks to questions about existence and nature of God. One of the most fundamental of questions is ‘How do we know there is God?’ While the proper theological answer to that is long and complicated, it can be summarized by saying that the proof of existence of God is his creation. Theological view of existence of God is in line with the thoughts of Aristotle and Plato who saw the complexity of nature as proof of existence of supernatural design and being. St Paul in the acts of Apostles goes further and criticizes the genii on the Aeropagus for not drawing the conclusion of existence of God from manifestation of nature.
When trying to make an objective study of God or rather learn theology from an objective point of view man more often than not come into a problem: it cannot be done in the absence of divine revelation. However divine revelation is subjective since it is what God chooses to reveal of him to humanity. Therefore, the best that can be done when studying theology is an objective study of subjective evidence. Alternatively deductive reasoning could be applied on God’s work (creation) and hence deduce the nature of God. However this would be a circumstantial God.
But because of divine revelation, there is possibility of studying God as He shows Himself. He reveals His divine nature through His deeds in creation and salvation of mankind. At such God shows him as He wants believers to know Him and in ways that are suited to the human nature. Therefore theology tries to interpret the divine nature in ways that man can understand and ways that conform to human knowledge as of that specific point in time. Since human knowledge and opinion changes it the role of theology to reinterpret God for the society while accepting that divine nature is constant and will never change.