Doctrines Defined

I hesitate to take the plunge into defining specific doctrines simply due to the amount of time and resources required to exhaust such a topic, but I understand it to be necessary. In reading Theology, it is easy to understand it for the moment, then forget one's thoughts on it, so, in order to aid that retention of knowledge, I will begin the process of posting doctrines. Feel free to comment, question, or tell me my grammar needs help at anytime.


With that said, let me introduce the idea of doctrine or theology to you in case you don't know. Theology is the, "Intellectual, relational and spiritual act of knowing God through the disciplined and communal practice of understanding and applying His word to all areas of life" (A. Orendorff). Theology comes from two Greek words: theos, meaning God, and logos, meaning word or rational thought. So, theology is rational thought about God. Religion is our belief in God and our effort to live by that belief. Doctrine is the system of beliefs accepted as authoritative. Doctrines are therefore derived from theological studies. For our purposes then, doctrine and theology are interchangeable words; however, doctrine can be used to describe any system of beliefs for any topic or religion. Theology is literally the study of God, so I will use that word most often.


In studying God, the supreme Being of the universe and eternity, organization of facts is crucial. You just thought that research paper was long. Try doing an exhaustive one on the universe, then eternity, then God, then etc . . . Since it is so crucial to be systematic in our approach and organization, most of the great works of theology are called "Systematic Theology." Those who aren't titled this are bad, do not read them (insert sarcasm). This book to the right by Wayne Grudem is an excellent example, and is upwards of 1200 pages, so like I said before, this is an undertaking, but what I plan to do is an "abridged" version of systematic theology in my own words. I will be (consistently) using several sources which I will site below. Anything extra that I use I will cite at the end of each section.

• Systematic Theology: Charles Hodge
• Systematic Theology: Wayne Grudem
• The Institutes of the Christian Religion: John Calvin
• TableTalk: Martin Luther

I will also use the Bible, (shocker) and if you don't know the references are active in ESV (my favorite). Check it out. . .

2 Tim. 2:15

However, it is not in my plan to do a defensive study, but merely an instructing study (like most systematic theology books.) If I had to both instruct and defend in one sweep, this probably wouldn't last long and I would be a frequent guest of the infamous padded room.

Questions, comments, arguements, etc?