THEOLOGY

(Gr. 0£«j,andXoy<s?, ffMCOwrsc.) The science which treats of tlie nature and attributes of God, of his relations to man, and of the manner in which they may be discovered. Lord Bacon divides the science imder the following heads: — 1. Inspired. 2. Natural, which he calls the first part of philosophy. 3. Appendices TheologiEB Inspiratse: sc. Doctrina de leg i time usu ration is humanseindivinis; doctrina deg rad i bus unit at is in civitate Dei -, emanationes scripturarum. 4. Theologiae tarn inspiratse quam natural is appendix: Doctrina de angel is et spirit i bus. (De Augm. Set. 1. ii. ch. 1.) Natural Theology is the inquiry into these subjects prior to the idea of revelation, and conjectures concerning them from data furnished by the constitution of nature alone. It is only by the conclusions arrived at by this proce that we are put in a proper condition to examine the evidence of revealed religion, the basis of which is the satisfaction it affords to the demands of the human reason and affections. A pure system of natural theology, looking no farther for the evidence of divinity than the marks of it displayed in the creation, is deism, — the belief in God as a superintending Providence, which seems to require as a corollary the idea of a future retribution. Tliose who can discover no design in the constitution of the world, I. e. no trace of God's hand therein, are atheists, or deniers of a Deity. Again, the most common form of religion deduced by the heathens from their researches in natural theology is the supposition of numerous gods, each manifesting himself to us in the various functions and qualities of the animate and inanimate world, and sometimes, according to ancient legends and traditions, by direct communication in various ways. Opposed to this is monotheism, which recognizes more distinctly than deism the unity of the godhead, and gathers up mider one volition and agency the attributes which the polytheist dispersed among a' vast number of divinities. Of monotheist religions the Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan lay claim to expre revelation by the word of God. THEOyrANCY. (Gr. 0£o?, and fjcMynia,, prophecy.) i A name wliich has been given to that species of divination I which was drawn from the responses of oracles among ( heathen nations, in which a god himself was supposed to answer the inquirer; or from the predictions of sibyls and others supposed to be immediately inspired by some divinity. THEOPASCHITES.(Gr.06«?,andir«.rx»,/*i«^'?-.) In Ecclesiastical History, a name given by the orthodox to certain heretics of the 5th century, followers of Peter the Fuller, an usurping bishop of Antioch. Being strongly attached to the Monophysite opinions, his enemies charged him and his disciples with holding that all the three persons of the Godhead were crucified. {Mosheim, 5th cent, partii. ch. 51.) [s. 1242]