ON THE PROBLEM OF SYSTEMATIZATION OF THEOLOGICAL TERMS IN EDUCATION

Abstract

The establishment of theology as an academic discipline raises the question of the normalization of its lexical means.

Ukrainian religious vocabulary as a whole, and, in particular, its certain lexical-semantic groups referred to as “religious terms”, “church terms”, “sacred terms”, “theological terms” and others based on a subject matter, have been the subject of many linguistic studies. Of particular interest to this research are the studies focused on theological terms in the area of their usage – theological (liturgical) practice and corresponding theological texts. For instance, N.V. Puriaieva gave a characterization of the usage of the Ukrainian language in the liturgical practice of Ukrainian churches, problems of a sacred language, and the vocabulary of church service terms; B. Ogulchanskiy studied the development of Ukrainian theological terms in liturgical and theological texts from the Art Nouveau period to the present. Nevertheless, the development of theological education in Ukraine makes it important to standardize theological terms used in the education process.

Considering certain historical factors, religious studies still have a great influence on the interpretation of religious concepts in the scientific community. This discipline uses the more standardized approaches allowing to use them for applied research. For example, religious studies distinguish the following beliefs about God withing theology: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist theology, etc. Christianity is divided into Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant theology. Eastern Orthodoxy includes apologetic theology (apologetics), biblical theology, dogmatic theology, moral or practical theology, comparative theology, etc.

Compared to religious studies, the term “theology” lacks consistency in theological sources.

The study and understanding of sacred texts and eminent theologians’ commentaries to them have been one of the main theological methods from the earliest times. These texts vary among confessions and even withing one church, which is especially common for Eastern Christianity.

In our opinion, this analysis points to the reason for the incoherency of the modern theological terms and outlines the possible ways of eliminating it which is essential not only for theological practice but also for theological education.